Also making the list is something called "B'loonies," which is yet another variation of that weird tube of plastic goo you squeeze onto a straw and then blow to form sturdy, long-lasting bubbles. As W.A.T.C.H. points out, the substance is highly flammable and should probably not be part of a kid's toy—although we remember playing with this product all the time and enjoying the mildly gasoline-scented odor. Ah, to be young and a huffer!
2007 "10 Worst Toys" List [W.A.T.C.H. via Boston.com]
]]>My favorite 2 words when I was young....ROCK BATTLE.
Grab a garbage can lid and a hand full of rocks and meet me in Alex's back yard.
]]>I know i played with some questionable toys when i was a little one. Hell we didnt even need dangerous toys. We just did dangerous things. Not because we wanted to be dangerous but because we were stupid. BB gun fights, Jumping off of the roof of the house, to name a few. Its all trial and error. I think kids need dangerous things to play with. It builds character.
]]>This toy is just an easier-to-use pogo stick. Why is this on the list? Or, better yet, why are pogo sticks not on the list?
]]>Another game was devised using home-made darts. We break some of our mother's hair pins in two (those cheap black straight clips), sharpen one end and stick the other end into a clothes pin and tie it with a rubber band. Then holding the pin end, we can throw with a flip of our wrist and it will stick and stay on any tree trunk.
And come festive days we will disassemble fireworks to pool the gunpowder together, then light them. Always end up with tiny holes in our new store-bought clothes. Or we cover the larger fire crackers with an empty tin, light the fuse and see how high the tin will fly when the stuff goes off.
Or we challenge each other to see who can hold on to a fire cracker after the fuse is lit. Many times they go off whilst we were hold them. And doing this even when there were reports of kids' fingers getting blown off.
Yeah, those were the good old days.
]]>LOL, what idiot thinks that the words "spinning" and "dagger" together means safety for baby Becky? I'm so getting a Jack Sparrow Spinning Dagger O' Death now.
]]>Yeah, we played (and shot eachother) with pellet guns, jumped off houses, threw molotov cocktails, etc. But really, can that compare to some of the crazy stuff kids do these days, like skateboarding and skiing on handrails, wwf-style wrestling, crystal meth, etc?
]]>I had the rubber band repeater shooter with space for 10 bands. I usually aimed for the neck... I remember rolling down my 30 degree driveway on my bigwheel. Stopping about oh 3 feet from the street. I remember building forts in trees and throwing rocks and sticks at girls who came by..Ahh good times, good times.
]]>@MercuryPDX: Thanks. :P
@mopar_man: Yes, I did too. Started with BB guns and upgraded from there. Ever since I moved to the city I haven't had a chance to get with my friends for target practice though. It's a shame.
Oh, and I also had a real strange tendency to light a lot of things on fire and make napalm when I was 11-12'ish. Those were fun times.
]]>@GitEmSteveDave: Yes! I'd forgotten about that one.
]]>We used to shoot each other with bottle rockets and Roman candles playing war. I can't get worked up about giving my kids plastic swords.
]]>@MercuryPDX: My mother likes to give weird toys in our stockings at Christmas, and one year I got an Aquapet. It's still sitting on my credenza two years later, and lots of my coworkers comment on how phallic it is. I always make sure to give good old mom credit for the penis toy.
]]>For a better list I'd look at:
]]>It was a lighter and a bag of oily rags, and was called Johnny Human Torch
My favorite was an all-black outfit and hood called Johnny Invisible Pedestrian...
]]>I'm glad I'm not the only one totaly disgusted by this. I mean, come on. My dad gave me a pocket knife to play with when I was a little girl. Most the toys I had were probably considered dangerous, and the choking hazard cop out is one of the most redicioulous things I've ever heard...If you're giving a toy for older kids to a 3 year old then not giving it supervision, you're a bad parent. Toys like that should be administered when there is supervision. And if your older kid is stupid enough to eat two magnets, then I'm sorry but your DNA doesn't deserve to be in the gene pool. Its called natural selection. Quit eliminating it.
]]>@pinkbunnyslippers: Oh SNL in the good days - that sketch was awesome. And who could forget the all-black Halloween costume?
]]>@MercuryPDX: Definitely! Jarts were some of the most deranged and brilliant toys *ever*.
I'm also bored with this whole "protect The Children (TM) from themselves BS." Kids are kids, they're gonna play in the mud, turn sticks into guns and chase each other around with plastic screwdrivers from those Little Tykes/Fisher-Price tool kits.
Oh wait ... that was my childhood. Kids now are too busy playing videogames to actually get hurt.
]]>Sweet Jeebus the danger from a papercut alone! It could get infected and poor little Johnny would be an amputee before age 9!
]]>"I've heard some pretty stupid shit in my time, but that has to take the cake," said Dr. Anderson Hunt, the attending physician. "Why would any kid think he could fire plastic missiles up his nose and expect them to come out his belly button? There's no point in feeling bad about this child's demise, because the deck was obviously stacked against him from the start. What we should feel bad about is the fact that because of him, millions of other children will no longer get to fire the RoboFighter's super-cool Devastator Missiles or soak their friends with its FunFoam WaterBlasters."
Do not let your child play with this dangerous toy!
]]>I don't know whether the bubble stuff is even, actually, any more flammable than the plastic tube you blow it up with. It might be, but the W.A.T.C.H. page warning of the terrible danger of "...chemicals such as 'poly vinyl acetate'...." does not fill me with confidence about their scientific knowledge.
Polyvinyl acetate, PVA, is standard white wood glue; it's non-toxic and non-flammable.
And W.A.T.C.H.'s complaint about the Rubber Band Shooter is that... it shoots rubber bands. Which, apparently, can "cause serious eye injuries".
Well, maybe if you shoot someone in the eye at zero range. But even then, I suspect the victim would be fine after a few days.
]]>Since when are weapons toys?!!!! Stupid Americans.
]]>I applaud the efforts of the CPSC, W.A.T.C.H. and other groups to make sure that manufacturers do not intentionally harm children, but I think that a lot of this is overkill and with a little supervision most of these toys are really not all that bad.
This list does, however, make me want to go out and buy some of that balloon goo and set them on fire.
]]>Let's not forget Roman candle fights, bottle rockets shot out of a small pipe at each other, and the occasional thunderous "THA-WUMP" of a potato canon.
magnets and balloons??? C'mon...
]]>But possibly the best toy that'd be banned today was the "Pile 'o' Painted Tires with Exposed Bolts" sticking through the treads.
]]>Oh, come ON, Bloonies? Really?
Although this kind of makes me want to buy some to set them on fire. Y'know, for Science.
]]>Sounds like we all shared a similar childhood. I also played "guns" with my brother and friends.
]]>Oops. 'Invisible' was supposed to be 'invincible.' Duh.
]]>And yet we are amazed when 16 year old Johnny, behind the wheel for the first time, drives as if he is invisible.
I agree that any toy that contains poison should not be sold. However, most of these toys have an age-appropriate warning on them. At some point, parental supervision and personal responsibility (a 7 year old should know not to eat a freaking magnet) should come into play.
At some point in the future, all homes will be sold with a completely padded room, (padding made out of anti-bacterial material, natch) lockable from the outside, into which we will be required to place our children.
When my child gets a toy, the first thing I do is look at it to determine what can be swallowed, can cut, or otherwise hurt him. Please everyone, do the same and don't rely on recalls. And teach your 7 year old not to swallow magnets.
]]>Jesus, i can't believe no bicycle (or skateboard, or R/C airplane, or....anything) made this list, can you imagine how dangerous a bicycle is? you can go really fast! you can fall! you can die! i say come on people, let's not go that way, there's no turning back -i'm kind of ok with the lead stuff and totally agree with the meth little balls, but come on, a sword that springs...it's suposed to spring you sissy piece of crap! anybody doing ANY sport is 10 times as likely to get injured...watch out for tennis ball, they have no warning!!!they might hit you! Oh my god run run run!!!
I don't like this list...
]]>I think it's some sort of Greatest-Generation way of 'sticking-it-to-the-man', when he proudly trots out his crate full of lethal lawn armaments every 4th of July.
Neighborhood mothers clutch their children in horror; one would think by the looks on their faces that my Dad had just brought out a basket of rattlesnakes for the kiddies to play with; the neighborhood dads' eyes narrow with hardly hidden envy.
]]>I will also never forget when one of my co-workers commented on how much it looked like one of her sex toys she hides under her bed at home. Never saw it like that before, but now that's ALL I think of when I look at them.
]]>I miss lawn darts...
]]>This is like that old "Consumer Probe" skit on SNL with Dan Akroyd. I wanna know where "Johnny Switchblade" or the "Bag 'o Glass" is on that list. :)
]]>As a kid who played with broom handles with knifes taped on the end, I'm disturbed by the pussification of our youth.
]]>Ever tried hooking up one of those water slip and slides to the stairs?
yeah, my childhood was fraught with peril.
]]>Swallowed magnets can stick together across intestines causing serious infections and death....
When i was a kid we used to battle with broom sticks and nunchucks made from hand carve wood connected with metal chain. And plastic swords causing injuries? Good lord what are we teaching kids these days, they're kids! They need to get hurt! Repeatedly, or they won't learn anything about life.
]]>You can still find 'em on ebay...
[search.ebay.com]