The good ol' Days - When your toys could kill/harm you

[packman]

With your own tube of U-238



The classic dangerous toy



O.K. (barely) for kids but dangerous for adults acting stupid

Others:

http://www.grunge.com/47986/dangerous-toys-ever-sold-public/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_2279235&utm_content=191

[VMA131Marine]

1. I want one of those atomic energy labs

That looks like fun.

I guess real chemistry sets are out these days as well; too many ways to poison yourself or blow up the kitchen (which is where I did all my experimenting).

[eppur_se_muova]

24. The wiki is interesting -- damn, those things were expensive ! nt

[PJMcK]

2. I had a massive arsenal of toy weapons as a kid

James Bond and Napoleon Solo were my heroes so I had to have all kinds of toy guns.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, toy guns were made to be as realistic as possible. I had an elephant rifle, many pistols, a couple of spy-like attache cases, a grenade launcher and several others that I can't recall.

Today, those toys are banned for the safety of kids and the LEOs who might encounter these toys.

Incidentally, I've never fired an actual gun and plan to keep it that way. However, to each their own.

[Dave Starsky]

18. Remember this one?

Good times.

[PJMcK]

19. You get a heart for that one!

That is exactly one of the weapons from my childhood arsenal! I loved the grenade launcher because our "rules of battle" were that if a grenade landed within five feet, you were dead (for two minutes; that was our rule!).

Good catch, Mr. Strarsky!

[Dave Starsky]

20. Thank you for that!

I played Army with that thing constantly, until it just ultimately fell apart. Every kid on the block either had a Johnny Seven or wanted one.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

33. a memorable christmas

All that's left of mine is a single white bullet. You can see a stack of them in the gun at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Seven_OMA#/media/File:Johnny_Seven_OMA_toy_gun.jpg
The tail end of the bullet has a slot turned in it. The nose is rounded.

Mom raised six of us alone. That made getting the OMA as big a surprise as seeing a dinosaur come to life.

[AJT]

3. Does anyone remember clackers?

Two hard balls each attached with a string to a center point and you would clack them together.......or hit yourself? They didn't last long.

[surrealAmerican]

6. I remember when they banned those at my elementary school ...

... not because you could hit yourself (or other kids), but because they could shatter - sending hard plastic shards in all directions at high speed.

[Brother Buzz]

7. I remember it being marketed as the Eskimo yo-yo, only it wasn't a true Eskimo yo-yo

They were entertaining for, like, three minutes.

[Iggo]

14. Click Clacks. Yes I do remember those. You could make a loud noise or bring down a kangaroo.

Ah, the good old days.

[AJT]

16. You're in Australia?

[Iggo]

17. LOL, no.

That was the joke at the time, that it was some kind of weapon from the native Australians.

(For context, they sold boomerangs in toy stores back then, too. Probably an extension of that...)

[TomSlick]

26. Loved Clackers.

I could keep them going for several minutes. They apparently had a bad habit of exploding and were banned.

[link:

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[lastlib]

40. YES!!

Had a lotta fun with 'em!

I Was in eighth grade when they banned 'em--just as I was getting REALLY good with 'em!

[Snackshack]

4. Yea...

I had a set of Lawn Darts...even with the lack of safety consciousness back then that we have today it is still amazing that someone thought that would be a good toy for kids.

[hibbing]

11. I know!

Had a set too, and looking at it now seems totally insane.


Peace

[hatrack]

21. Jarts! I remember those - incredibly deadly family fun!

Somebody figured out how many foot-pounds one exerted coming down. Whatever it was, it was substantial.

[Snackshack]

22. Deadly Family Fun...

Lol- yes, if you had a beef with a 2nd cousin Lawn Darts was the solution to it. 😈

That Water Rocket. That you put water into and clip it on to that pump and shoot it off. Almost as deadly as Lawn Darts but every bit as fun.

[hatrack]

36. I had a Water Rocket!

After about fifteen minutes, it was on the roof, and no, Dad was not in the mood to get the ladder and retrieve it.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

5. In the 50s, metal Tonka trucks had incredibly sharp edges

My mom went through nearly a box of Band-Aids every time I went out to play.

And then there were the Estes rockets. Explosive engines, sharp nose cones, an iffy launch control system -- what could go wrong?

[jpak]

13. Back in the day - Estes rocket motors came in tubes you could use to make a rocket

Some balsa wood from a broken glider for fins...

A paper mache nose cone...

and you could make one wildly erratic rocket.

We launched them at low trajectories stuffed with firecrackers.

Fucking mayhem!

[Sailor65x1]

31. Mayhem is right...

You could also scrape out the propellant and pack it into a smaller tube with an igniter in a hole formed with putty. I hung a few of those under the wing of a radio-controlled airplane and tied the igniters to a relay connected to a spare channel on the radio.

Good times, but today I'd be arrested....

[Snackshack]

23. Oh...

Last edited Sun Feb 11, 2018, 02:17 AM - Edit history (2)

I loved both. Tonka Trucks were awesome, damn near indestructible as well. Add in the 8-10 inch G.I. Joe and his gear and it was on.

Rockets were cool...actually the solid fuel engines were what was cool. Those thing could be strapped onto anything and lit off.

Other cool tools from then.

Lego’s- just the different sized square blocks not the sets they have today.

Hot Wheels- with the clamshell like tire carrier and lots of track.

Lincoln Logs- awesome fun.

Light Bright!

That Water Rocket thing. Put water into and clip it on to that pump and shoot it off. Almost as deadly as Lawn Darts.

Lastly- that plastic Sub and Diver that you put a tablet into and they sink and then rise in the pool.

I miss those days.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

30. Thanks for the memories. I had all of those toys except Light Bright,

and my sister had that one. The water rocket was my favorite, especially when they added a second stage that would nearly triple the height of the flight. I can't recall how many times we had to climb on the roof to retrieve it.

[Snackshack]

32. 😀👍

[Mister Ed]

8. Remember the original Wham-O Superball?

Came out in the mid-1960's. Ultra dense, highly-compressed rubber. About 3/4 the size of a tennis ball, but must've weighed, like, seventeen pounds or something.

Hurl it down onto the pavement with all your might, and it would bounce over your two-story house with room to spare.

Or, hurl it down onto the pavement with all your might, and it would take your head off on the rebound.

That didn't last long. They miniaturized those puppies and made them less dense in a hurry.

[jpak]

12. Yes - they were a hoot

Lost most of them over the house...

[Iggo]

15. And they smelled funny, too.

[MFM008]

27. I got hit with one

Remember a bucket of goo?
The Green drippy stuff...nom..
Metal easy bake ovens and
Creepy crawlers.
needed electricity. ....

[Freddie]

34. We had Creepy Crawlers

Hours of fun making your own plastic insects! My brother and I spent our entire Christmas week off (and then some) making stuff. Can you imagine giving kids a "toy" with a hot burner now?

[msongs]

9. meanwhile legal guns kill more than 30K EVERY year nt

[packman]

10. Yah, but -damn it - I still think fondly of my BB gun

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Killed many a bad man with that Red Ryder pump gun. Shot my brother in the leg and he still shows me the imbedded BB each Thanksgiving day as we gather around telling those stories we've heard a million times.

[TomSlick]

28. Never was any fear of shooting my brother.

My dad's idea of gun safety was to make it clear that if I shot anything (or anyone) I ought not, I'd eat the damned thing.

[madamesilverspurs]

25. Jacks.

I was stepping on those things long before Legos were invented.


.

[Docreed2003]

29. ....

We had lawn darts...had the metal Tonka truck... had many many Estes rocket kits with their various “engines”, my dad made a launch button and pad for us powered by 6v battery. Those engines could be cleaned out and their innards converted into a huge engine which made a wicked smoke bomb...but none of that could compare to the danger that awaited on this beast:



Those springs would snag your thighs with a vengance! Lol!!

[Rhiannon12866]

35. I think my brother had that horse!

[Paladin]

37. Cap guns, and the rolls of caps that were loaded in them.

Used properly, the caps made a moderate "pop" noise, every time you pulled the trigger. But when that got boring, my friends and I would take an entire roll of caps out on the sidewalk, with a hammer---bringing a hammer down on a whole roll of caps gave you a genuinely impressive explosion---you just had to dodge the hammer when it was blown back toward your face. Why me and my friends didn't lose an eye is still a mystery to me.

[Kaleva]

38. M-80 (cherry bombs) firecrackers

The Child Protection Act of 1966 killed the fun.

[Kaleva]

39. Giant strides

At the school playground, the older, bigger kids would run holding on to their handles while the smaller kids would be hanging on until they lost their grip and went flying off into the next dimension.

"The giant stride is a long-since-removed playground apparatus that dates from early 1900s. Simply put, it was a tall pole with ropes/ladders attached to it. Children could grab hold of the handles and run in circles, so fast that their feet would leave the ground. For safety reasons, it was mostly removed from playgrounds by the 1960s, though some remain."

https://preservationinpink.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/giant-strides-on-the-playgrounds/