What was the most dangerous item ever marketed as a childs toy. What has caused the most injuries (or deaths).
My vote is for the “wood burning set”. I had one of these, & damn near burned the house down…TWICE! Who thought that up for a kids play thing? Are they in prison now?
The box said “For ages 8 and up”. EIGHT?!
How many people lost their homes/lives because of this “toy”?
Has there been any toys that were worse? If so, my God, what?
Bicycles, how many chidren have been killed or seriously injured because they either fell of or lacked road sense?
Little girl near me was killed under a wagon a couple of years back, she ran off the pavement at a corner right into it.
You’re talking about mere physical danger. The Jar Jar Sex Candy Toy imperils the mortal souls of our children. I won’t copy and paste the article because it’s copyrighted.
Lawn Darts.
Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven.
Hell, it didn’t matter what the toy was, my destructive bent could make just about anything dangerous.
I remember when my G.I. Joe held my sister’s Barbie captive, torturing her by making her sit on a super heated “Creepy Crawler” metal die.
Talk about a bug up your ass. Ken musta been surprised the next time they did it doggie style…
As much as I loved model rockets, I can’t believe they sold the materials to minors. There were a number of times that I or one of my friends could’ve seriously hurt ourselves with our experimental rockets.
But damn! they were fun! :D:D
Toy guns by far, haven’t you noticed?
Umm, PMS barbie?
I believe most consumer groups that monitor these things usually say that balloons are the most dangerous toys for children, causing perhaps one-half of all toy-related deaths. The statistics are probably avaiable online somewhere, maybe from PIRG (Public Interest Research Group.)
Here’s a couple of Letterman Top 10 lists:
10. Fisher Price Bathtub Toaster
9. Heat-Packin’ Barbie
8 Ouch! – the Step-on-a-Rake game
7. Pin the Tail on Grampa
6. My Very First Mexican Nose Job
5. Dow Chemical’s 55 Gallon Drum o’Mystery
4. RuPaul’s Cube
3. The “Steal Your Parents’ Money and Send it to Parker Brothers” game
2. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Janet Reno
1 Tickle Me John Gotti
- The Hula Noose
- Professor Saddam’s Li’l Biological Warfare Kit
8 Light-Me-On-Fire Elmo - Chutes, Ladders and Open Manhole Covers
- Mattel Ass Rocket
- Rabid Snoopy
- The “Too-Big-For-My-Windpipe” Jigsaw Puzzle
- Mr. Potato Head Multiple Outlet Strip
- Linda Tripp’s “Let’s Tape Daddy” Portable Recorder
1 E-Z Bake Open-Flame Oven
Gilligan: ROTFLMAO!!!
Forget about the candy tongue, the obscene thing here is that it’s Jar-Jar Binks
(eww)
This thread reminds me of the old SNL skits where Dan Akroyd would play the sleazy toy manufacturer. My favorite was the halloween costumes, “Invisible Pedestrian, Johnny Human Torch…”
All seriousness aside, my uncle (who was born in 1923) had a kit for making toy soldiers out of lead. You poured MOLTEN LEAD into various molds of soldiers, cannons, horses, etc., and then painted them with lead-based paint. And this was a product designed for children!
We’ve come a long way in child safety.
I blasted my Junior Chemical set our of a second story window with the creative addition of a few household cleaning products. Hell, that’s half the reason why I tried being a Chem major: I wanted to figure out what I had done.
Never did find out.
I recall writing Miconauts off of my list of cool toys once the just-smaller-than-an-eyeball projectiles they shot became nonfunctional. You could yank off the rubber protection heads for extra range.
I still probably have a copper .177 BB in my knee from my Crossman 550 BB gun. I felt better when I read a biography of Johnny Unitas which stated that he caught a 30-06 round in the leg after throwing rocks at it.
Models. The glue, man. Not good for the brain, highly flammable. Plus, models are made to be burned and destroyed, usually in places where the fire can spread.
Speaking of which, I burned down a field next to the North-South natural gas pipeline that supplies most of the mid-Atlantic when I was playing with firecrackers. Burnt the paint off of the valve before the firemen got there.
And let’s not forget Lite Brite and the plug-in version of Operation.
But I have to ask: what was a “wood burning set?”
That’s “Micronauts.” Can I get an edit function here?
It was a little like a soldering iron. The idea was to scorch a piece of wood along lines in a pattern. The pattern was printed on the wood in ink.
I vaguely remember that Kristy McNichol’s character burned down the house with one in the old TV series Family
My two personal favorites are skate boards and the real biggie; trampolines. Yes, I really do want my kid playing on something that has a warning label stating that head and neck injuries can result in paralysis! I did read somewhere that between roller blades and skate boards, skate boards resulted in far more serious injuries, especially to the head.
Needs
I don’t know if there were any fatalities related to this, but I remember the automatic football snappers being taken off the market when I was a kid. Basically it was a spring-powered face-smasher.
My guess would be trampolines or bikes for sheer number of fatalities/serious injuries.
I went sailing down the stairs as a toddler with one of those “walkers” with the wheels under it. I know they have since made modifications to it to keep that from happening.
A little battery operated sewing machine, the needle and everything was real, it was just made for little’uns.
Baby Alive was a doll that “ate” baby food and then was supposed to “poop” it out. Unfortunately the dolls did not eliminate all of the waste, eventually creating a large ball of bacteria in their tummies (YUM!).
Lastly, silly string, when it first came out, it was highly flammable. Parent’s realized after spraying a child at thier birthday over the candles, almost burning them to death.
Mattel used to have a really cool cap gun set that used little plastic bullets that you hand loaded into a spring-loaded brass shell. You pasted a little round cap on the end of the shell for sound effects and loaded the gun and could squeeze off six rounds of sharp, hard plastic projectiles at your sister’s face quicker than she could say “I’m telling Mom.” In addition to the six shooter, the set came with a lever action carbine and a very concealable derringer which had the additional feature of being part of a belt buckle. After loading the derringer (single shot), you clipped it to a spring-loaded hinge on the buckle and closed the hinge making it look like a decorative buckle with a gun design. The idea was if you were disarmed or out of ammo in a cap gun fight you thrust your abdomen forward, triggering the hinge release - the derringer would swing out and automatically fire at your adversary at point blank range. Real good for surprising teachers who had you on the spot. Man they just don’t make stuff that good these days.
What’s ironic is that if a real gun worked that way it would be a federally controlled weapon in the same category as machine guns and silencers. It would not be banned per se but would have to be registered with the ATF and the owner would have to pass an extensive FBI background check. It’s what the G-men call an AOW - any other weapon that doesn’t fall into an existing category. This is for things like pen guns and cane guns that don’t obviously look like a firarm.
Thats bad-ass! I wonder if I could find one of those somewhere… 
Anyone remember Spinwelder?
More to the point, anyone remember the SMELL of Spinwelder?