It’s that time of year when various safety agencies come out with their lists of dangerous toys you must not buy for Junior. But we all know deep down that for toys, fun level is inversely proportional to dangerosity. Let us now share memories of our favorite dangerous toys.
The most dangerous toys are of course those which kids make themselves, because there aren’t any safety committees, standards or hungry lawyers keeping watch. My father and his friends used to shoot at each other with homemade bows and arrows, which resulted in him actually getting his eye shot out. The law does not prohibit one-eyed people from getting driver’s licenses, so you too can experience some of the danger simply by driving on the same roads as he does.
I think my favorite dangerous toy was a Hot Wheels accessory that consisted of a “garage” you ran the track through which contained two rotating drums powered by an electric motor with a surprising amount of torque. You ran the Hot Wheels through the garage and between the rotating drums, which would “shoot” the car out the other side of the garage. The obvious danger here is that inevitably you would want to look closely at the car emerging from the garage (just how exactly do those drums work?), and if you looked too closely, said car would whack you in the face as it sped out. But the thing that eventually got it pulled from the market was that if you got your head too close to the entrance or exit, your hair could get wound onto the rotating drums, either pulling your hair out or yanking your head painfully against the garage. (This was in the shaggy-haircut seventies). Apparently one too many mothers ran to investigate a yelp of pain, to find her child wearing a bizarre headdress consisting of a toy garage and a length of Hot Wheels track.
Then there are toys which are really quite safe unless used in a way expressly prohibited by the instructions. Did you know you can cut a model rocket motor in half with a hacksaw, exposing the precious black powder inside? Black powder doesn’t explode, especially when it’s out of its casing and in a little pile on a sidewalk. It will, however, burn your freaking eyelashes off.
In the category of “what were they thinking?” is the toy fire engine my brother had. This fire engine, from the “Emergency 51” collection, actually had a fitting where you could hook up a garden hose and then spray water out of the little rubber fire hose on the engine. If that isn’t an invitation to build a cardboard house, light it on fire, and try to put it out with the toy fire engine, I don’t know what is. The best part of that experience was that my dad aided and abetted us in building and burning the cardboard house, right in the driveway a few feet from the family home. Even with only one eye, he had no problem squirting water from the little hose to put out the fire, so I guess all’s well that ends well.
My own fondness, however, is reserved for the original Mattel Thingmaker… with its heavy steel molds, baked to temperatures that could melt lead.
You were SUPPOSED to use the little handle thingy, insert into the slot, lift the tray out of the heating widget, and carefully put it in the little cooling tray, filled with cold tap water… and WAIT.
Did we wait? Hell, no. Every kid I ever knew who had one of those things, myself included, burned the unholy $#@! out of himself at least twice. But that was a GOOD THING. It was a LESSON. More importantly, it was a lesson in how your OWN STUPIDITY can get you HURT!
I firmly think that I’m a better person for having a gadget that would BITE my ass if I wasn’t careful… and then, I couldn’t blame my burnt fingers on someone else. Was anyone in the room with me? Nope. Did anyone else order me to fire that unholy furnace thing up? Nope. Did anyone grab my arm and feed it into that fiery molding slot? Nope.
My fault, Mea Culpa, and no one to blame but myself. And a damn cheap lesson, considering all I had to worry about was a couple blisters.
The Safety Nazis are eroding the moral fiber of the next generation, folks…
I don’t know if this counts, but as a child I LOVED playing dress up, and all relatives and family friends gave me their old clothes and shoes and purses.
At five years old, I’m walking around in long nightgowns and spike heels at least six sizes too big for me. Up and down very steep staircases.
Rather than hijack, I’ll just leave a link to the Superman Capes here.
And the idea of strangling myself with the flippin’ thing never even occurred to me. Wonder if THAT ever happened with the thousands of children who supposedly flung themselves off roofs and out twelfth story windows?
I had a Creepy Crawlers set and a Superman cape. Of course I burned myself and bruised myself jumping off the sofa. Isn’t that the point?
You can kill yourself with anything. Don’t learn to tie your own shoes - you might strangle on the laces. Don’t go outside - you might choke to death on an acorn.
In my day, we played with dirt! And rocks! And Greenie Stick-um caps!
Surprised no one’s mentioned Slip ‘n’ Slide ‘n’ Accident ‘n’ Emergency yet. Oh, I know, it doesn’t seem like a dangerous toy…unless, as we did, you put it on a 60-degree incline. Broken ankles galore!
Most of mine are taken already. But here’s a fave of mine.
It was a firework a tube in which you put surprisingly large plastic balls into. You then lit a cord (No it was not a fuse it was as thick as a shoestring) then there was a horrible Ka-BOOM as the thing exploded sending a fireball into the air. No biggie right? Typical firework right? That is until shards of molten plastic began to rain down on your head. I freaking LOVED this thing. Next year I went and bought the same firework again so excited…but they must have figured it out b/c the balls were wussy paper now not plastic. I didn’t even shot off 1/2 of the paper type before I got bored.
I was born too late to experience any of the good dangerous toys (except for metal playground equipment). I did have almost every single original “Little People” playset manufactured by Fischer-Price though. Those little pegs were so cute…and I never once tried to eat them.