Well, there was always Doggie Dentist…and the Johnny Space Commander Mask, consisting of a plastic bag and a rubber band.
But for my money, there’s never been a more dangerous toy than the Eye Poker-Outer.
BTW do they still make caps? I remember two kinds the red rolls with little blisters on them and the yellow plastic cartridges that came in rings you would load into double action revolvers.
I’m almost certain they still make caps. (I’ve seen them recently, and have not heard of them being taken off the market since.) Selling gunpowder to our youth seems profitable. But why worry about toys when any pre-teen could mix mommy’s Clorox with her ammonia-based cleaning fluid and make chloramine, a toxic gas. Or put some gas in some fertilizer (both things commonly found around farms) and make a very high-grade explosive. There must be a million ways to kill yourself in the average house, and plenty of them would make the place unliveable for at least a few weeks. It all depends on how devious you are, and how motivated. That’s why suicide watch programs are so comprehensive and restrictive. In a body that can be killed by a few very common chemicals, ending yourself is always a possibility, whether intentional or not. I hope I don’t sound too morbid. I have a rather good knowledge of human anatomy, and the more I learn, the more I realize how fragile we are, mentally and physically.
I remember a particularly nasty toy from the fourth or fifth grade. It was two hard acrylic plastic balls connected by a string with a finger ring in the middle of the string. The object was to move your arm up and down rapidly and hit the two balls together. When you did it right it made a great tap tap tap sound that was very loud. Learning to do it right resulted in lots of bruises and whacked elbows and knees. When you got a whole playground full of kids whacking these things it was very dangerous. They were finally banned because the plastic balls would sometimes shatter explosively sending shards of sharp slivers everywhere. What more could a kid want?