The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time 404
Ant writes "An article at the Radar lists the ten most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, the editors excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm." My favorite: 'Feed Me!' begged the packaging for 1996's Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid. And much like the carnivorous Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, the adorable lineup of Cabbage Patch snack-dolls appeared at first to be harmless. They merely wanted a nibble--a carrot perhaps, or maybe some yummy pudding. They would stop chewing when snack time was done -- they promised. Then they chomped your child's finger off."
Some observations (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the motorcycle one that jams the throttle sounds really dangerous. The kids didn't do anything wrong - it was just defective.
I'm surprised the Honda Kick and Go didn't make the list. I remember that I got one of those as a kid just before they were pulled off the market because they were dangerous (I'm not sure exactly why they were dangerous.)
My parents still have mine, I think. The last time I was at their house, they had my daughter riding it and I was like "no way - those things were recalled" and they were like "you rode it and you are still alive" and I was all like "yeah, and you guys kept a vicious dog that mauled children and I have scars on my face to prove it, so I'm not interested in hearing parenting advice from you".
So, there you go.
Tonka Toy Trucks (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was a kid, I remember this kid named Don who lived down the street from me. One afternoon he drove his dump truck over to another neighbor's house who happen to be baby sitting me and my siblings. He came running up the sidewalk leaned down with his head tilted up looking at us screaming his head off as he was faking running us down with his truck. He didn't notice an uneven step in the sidewalk and it caught the front tires of the truck and stopped the truck cold. Since he wasn't expecting it, his arms buckled and he fell teeth first onto the back of the truck slicing his lip just under his nose and removing several of his top front teeth.
When he stood up, and it was like slow motion, his upper lip fell down below his lower lip, but still connected on either side. He made a spitting motion and what looked like bleeding cicklets fell on the sidewalk. He looked down and then up and wiped his mouth and when he moved his hand, I could see his tongue exploring the hole where is teeth and lip used to be. And then it was just like a fountain turning on, everything went very bloody and he began to scream. He cupped his mouth with both hands and ran home with a very distinctive trail of blood following him. Later, his mom returned to collect his teeth so they could be reinserted, but the teeth were wrecked. Most of them weren't even connected to the root(?) anymore, but sheared clean off.
Don moved a few years later but I hardly ever saw him again. His face was really disfigured and the wound was obvious. He was self conscious of it and I know he got made fun of.
I just remember how popular those toys were. I had the grader, but it wasn't as good for 'driving' around so I never did. Considering what happened to Don now that I'm grown-up, thank dog.
typical science stupidity (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a disgrace that this science kit is found among a list of dangerous toys; the journalist should be ashamed of his ignorance.
Re:Jarts is #1! (Score:3, Interesting)
And if today's kids were allowed out of their little insular plastic bubble they're kept in from birth to adulthood, they'd be just fine.
Re:I loved the hammock (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, that was what led to be no longer using it. I was attempting to free my ass from the hammock (where the seams of my jeans had become caught in the net, and I flipped the hammock over and dumped myself face-first on the ground. It was only a two or three foot fall, but I ended up landing on my arm funny and broke my wrist.
Never felt the urge to lay in a hammock again.
Mr. Football! Rah! Rah! Rah! (Score:5, Interesting)
This took only a day or two, and soon my friends and I had Mr. Football out and operating without any adults around. This was wonderful because we knew well that a football was about the least interesting thing you could load into a catapult. We started with rocks, then open soda cans, and eventually insects. It was extrodinarily fun. Until the accident.
While trying to launch a caterpillar, we were waiting for the catapult to go off, when the little creature managed to get to the edge of Mr. Football's powerful plastic hand. With the timer only a couple seconds from going off, one of my friends went over to make sure the caterpillar didn't escape. I warned him to get away from the thing, but too late -- it went off and smacked him right in the face. He fell to the ground and was crying. We went over to check him out. He had a bright red abrasion on his cheekbone and brow, but he seemed okay at first. Then we noticed that his eye was filling with blood. Specifically the iris; the white was normal save for being a bit bloodshot, but the bottom half of the iris was filled with blood. He said he could see but that it was blurry. We sent him home and told him not to tell his mother or we'd all get in trouble.
Of course we all got in trouble. He had to go and get several surgeries on his eye to correct the damage, and I was told it wouldn't ever be 100% again. He moved away a year later so I don't really know. A lawyer or someone like that came by once later to pick up the device, because I think there was a class action suit, though my family wasn't involved in that. I don't think the item was on store shelves a year later. Not sure how much my friend's injury had to do with that.
Anyways, I was sort of hoping to see it on the list, but no dice.
Cheers.
Re:Jarts is #1! (Score:5, Interesting)
You ain't kidding there, jimbo, but I wouldn't just emphasize young boys, how about twentysomethings? Years ago, an acquaintance had a kick-ass crossbow with pulleys and stuff, and on three separate ocassions that I knew of, he and his friends formed a circle while the guy shot an arrow straight into the sky. That thing was so powerful that the arrow disappeared from view for about a minute, then a buzzing sound grew louder and louder until the damn thing inserted itself several inches into the ground. Talk about stupid.
Once I intercepted these guys at a ranch when they were out night-hunting on a Saturday. I'm not a hunting man myself, so I got there late with a couple of friends, we popped open some beers and waited while staring at the Milky Way and getting a little philosophical. When the hunting expedition returned, my jaw dropped open in disbelief: a compact pickup truck sped towards us, bumping and lurching in the bad dirt road. Three guys were sitting in the front while three guys were standing in the back and leaning forward into the truck's roof. All of them had rifles, except the center guy inside the cabin. The driver had one hand on the steering wheel and another on his rifle, which was resting on the rear-view mirror! Guns were pointing in four or five different directions.
Beer was flowing freely, while a seventh guy was seated on the icebox in the back of the truck, stoned out of his mind and finishing off a full joint all by himself, while holding his upright rifle between his knees. It was un-fucking-believable. Finally, a bizarre little twist - one of the guys was on vacation from studying to become a catholic priest!!!
However, I must admit that the grilled rabbit was quite excellent, and next morning three of the guys woke up early, grabbed some fishing poles, walked down a canyon leading to the ocean, and returned with fish for breakfast. Call them what you may, but they knew how to get food and cook a great meal.
Re:ohhhhhhh myyyyy Goddddd! (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up please (Score:2, Interesting)
Frankly we have been going downhill for years. I think we were more responsible as kids and our parents even more so when they were kids. Until our kids can roam around freely again and learn from exposure to things and doing they will never be as capable of taking care of themselves or feel as responsible to being a good citizen. If we keep crowding the kids into the cages of the public school system and locked into large group stuff after school we shouldn't be suprised when they start behaving the way rats do in overcrowded pens at the pet store. Same goes for adults!
My cousins still have the scars. (Score:3, Interesting)
They used to play some kind of splits/chicken. They would throw the Jart left or right to the person and the person would need to do the splits. In order for it to count it would have to be thrown in range of the other person to pick up while making them go through the pain of moving the legs further apart.
They got jarts in thier feet and legs.
One of them also got one in the hand after they were playing some kind of knife throwing trick that you see in the circus.
Re:Asshole (Score:1, Interesting)
I can understand why you guys ignored the bean bag toss game, since it's designed for 2-5 year old children. Including that on an elementary school playgrounds is stupid.
One of our evil metal and plastic playgrounds even has a TOWER with a cool chain ladder, a bendy piping ladder, a slide, a roof, and even a balcony. Other items on the plaground include a cootie house (with a little plastic counter to sell mudpies from and a plexiglass bubble window that everyone makes faces on), another slide, a fireman's pole, a rubber bridge, monkey bars, swings, and a broken zipglide (it gets replaced every year or so and lasts about three days before it's broken by five or six kids using it at the same time). I happen to think that's way cooler than a wooden playground which was disintigrating two years after it was installed.
"toy safety" is counter to the purpose of play (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the purpose of play for the rest of the animal kingdom, with the various wild cat species being the best example (play centers around hunting skills and establishment and maintainance of heirarchy, when they grew up those innocuous activities became "real", and because they had practiced in youth, they make better decisions)
people are too sheltered now.. and even i was when I was a kid. This is one of the things I dislike about my fellow liberals.. it's one thing to be egalitarian when people ask for it and truly need a helping hand or protection from active disenfranchisement.... its another to overprotect and thereby deny real life lessons to both kids and parents. In real life you will often handle or live around objects which can cause you harm, and parents should realize that if their toys don't do it they can rest assured their kids will manage to get other everyday objects to serve that function. At the same time, making toys which are not idiot proof will teach kids how to take proper precautions both in everyday movement and when handling tools with similar risks.
For example:
When I was 7 I was given the gi joe crusader..
this thing had articulated everything.. including landing gear.. which was made of thin hard and jam-prone plastic with way too much spring tortion.
one day this gear jammed, and in the process of being freed literally ripped off my thumbnail.
But guess what.. nobody sued..
My nail healed, and I learned the importance of handling with care anything which could potentially jerk uncontrollably by experiencing a relatively minor injury.
I mean, imagine if I had made this arguably inevitable mistake with more "adult" tools.
Getting hurt, just like copyright infringement, is a question of "when" in life, not "if". If you prevent one means people will inevitably encounter another through which to learn these lessons.
That said.. this list is far from accurate.
There are antiques i've seen from the turn of the century which have such gems as open flame, boiling substances, and serious electrical hazards.
it should really be read as "the 10 most dangerous toys produced since 1950"
Re:ohhhhhhh myyyyy Goddddd! (Score:3, Interesting)
In the old days, they'd mix chemicals up at home. And injure themselves. Yeah, I can see why this is such great development...A great step forward for all of us.
Re:Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (Score:3, Interesting)
True radiation is a boogyman in todays sociey, but with u238 or any other heavy metals, there is a real health concern outside of any potential radiation.
Re:ohhhhhhh myyyyy Goddddd! (Score:2, Interesting)
Toys that should have made the list (Score:1, Interesting)
1. Tinker toys. I can't be the only kid who made a crossbow for himself out of these.
2. Chemistry sets. Explosives and poison for young anarchists.
3. Home electronics kits.
4. Chemical rocketry sets.
5. Water rockets.
6. Boomerangs.
Plus all the other stuff kids commonly played with: tire swings, dirt bikes, slingshots, bb guns, shuriken, lighters, etc. and other improvised toys. Maybe kids are safer now that those things are pretty much on the forbidden list in the US, but I'm pretty sure they have less fun.
Re:Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm fairly sure *that* class got dumbed down quite a lot when that particular teacher retired.
Re:ohhhhhhh myyyyy Goddddd! (Score:3, Interesting)
I too was wondering about the amount of heavy metals in the kit and the potential toxicity of it. Nowadays it's easy to make a very minute source, back then I'm not sure the implications were completely understood.
Potentially, if done properly, it could be a very fun (and quite safe) toy though. Except that nobody would buy it because of the exact same reactions exhibited by the GP (ZOMG! nukular! terrorists! thinkofthechinldren!) bah.
Re:Some observations (Score:3, Interesting)
Course, I knew better than to let gyrating helicopters loose in the house - come on, I learned that with the little fifty-cent whirligigs that you spun by hand. The difference was that when Sky Dancers went, they went HARD, so the trouble was moreso.
Anyone who was dumb enough to let this thing loose indoors or aim them at their little brother should've had it coming, but hey, I guess that's why it made the list - Not enough parents letting their girls have their hands on 'tough' toys.
Omissions: 6. Bat Masterson Derringer Belt Gun (Score:4, Interesting)
Caps, my ass. The cool thing about this _line_ of toy guns generically called "Shoot-N-Shell" was that they fired hard plastic bullets from heavy brass cartridges. You would buy a whole set of ammo: bullets, cartridges, and caps. You'd push the bullets into the cartridges and put an adhesive cap for effect onto the tail of the cartridge. The bullets were driven from a spring in the cartridge and fired when the hammer struck it.
I, in fact, had the Derringer Belt Gun but they made a whole line of solid metal Shoot-N-Shells from six-shooters to rifles. And don't begin to believe that they had the politically-correct red plastic attachment you see in the photo. Real little guns for little people back then.
Shoot-N-Shells were fantastic boy toys -- except for the putting out eyes thing. The fact that they weren't as powerful as BB guns perversely encouraged shoot-outs.
********
And a note on #7: If we are going back to the early 50s with the Gilbert set, there were far more lethal toymakers than the Creepy Crawler. Kids were melting lead at home to make toy soldiers well into the 60s.
Anyone remember FLUBBER ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 5, I got my first 160 in 1 Electronic Projects Kit from RadioShack. Similar to this [ebay.com] item here. That thing was really cool, especially when I was a kid. Have you looked at what Radioshack sells these days as electronic kits? This thing [radioshack.com] is now sold as the new "rage" in kits. Its like a puzzle. To me, that is dumbing it down to the point of a child not learning anything about electronics, other than "connecting the blue piece to the red pieces makes a buzzing sound".
I bought my nephew one of the kits off of ebay, because thats the only place I could find the kits that actually teach you something about electronics.
Some other poster talked about dangerous toys being sold to weed out the stupid kids, and only let the smart ones survive. He may be on to something... Todays kids use extremely complicated electronic gadgets for their entertainment, and haven't got a clue how they work, nor do they care. Its a scary future.
Re:ohhhhhhh myyyyy Goddddd! (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh my gosh that reminds me of another awewome toy we used to have (in addition to jarts which were mostly too lame for us kids): we had a device that consisted of multiple beer cans fastened together end-to-end to form a mortar launcher. At the very bottom was an small triangular hole in the side of the can made with a can opener. If you put some lighter fluid in there and shoved a tennis ball in the device and lit it the tennis ball would shoot way into the air with this really cool "thop" sound.
Re:Some observations (Score:3, Interesting)
Dangerous only during periods of insanity/lapsed judgement common in pre-teens.
Case in point: me.
Unlike the blade-scooters of today, these things had the gearing and metal-tube construction of a single speed bike. Unlike the blades, they had wheels that were worth a damn at about a 5" diameter.
You could get that thing moving at a decent clip, I know.
Picture getting one of these things at top speed, 4X's what a kid could run.
No picture a 50 to 60 yards stretch of road that goes down at a 15degree angle and then makes a 90degree turn right, then to my house.
I built up speed, went down the decline, took the turn as close to the inside as possible (which worked as the inside was well rounded toward the drain) as sharp as possible.
I cleared the turn, only to have the "mound" the road formed meet the metal tubing.
What happend then, well, I wish there was a 3rd person view available of this:
In two blinks of an eye, the metal met the road, slid on the tube for 3ft (judging by the scrapes and red paint left behind), I corrected, the tires met, grabbed the road and sent the entire frame (and me) to the opposite direction. I did a flip/roll in mid air, the scooter slammed to the ground, and I landed on my side, still rolling, two feet away from the grass on my front lawn.
Bruised and bleeding a little, and peppered with stones, what did I do?
Laughed my ass off. How funny that must have looked. How funny I felt doing it.
I did it again, to see if I could repeat it. Only to do a full split that brought tears to my eyes. Then I hobbled home with the Kick 'n Go in tow.
Mom asked what happened and I just said I wiped out, no big deal.
Yeah, the only thing dangerous about the KnG was the driver/operator. (IMO, naturally)
Re:Jarts is #1! (Score:2, Interesting)