The Dangerous Toys of Christmas: Debunked!

[EasyAce]

'Tis the Season for Pointless Panic!
By Lenore Skenazy, Paul Detrick & Alexis Garcia
http://reason.com/archives/2017/12/22/lenore-skenazy-dangerous-toys-christmas/print

Are you sick of being warned about anything and everything when it comes to the holiday season?

Me too. That's why I'm ready to throw an icicle at a group called World Against Toys Causing Harm (WATCH). Every
year since 1973, they've published a paranoid list of the "10 Worst Toys" at Christmastime.

These warnings may have been necessary back in 1973 when companies were still selling toy ovens that could
 smelt ore and chemistry sets that could actually blow things up.

In fact, the toy world was littered with bad ideas—from the Cabbage Patch Kid dolls with mechanical jaws that
chewed everything—including chunks of hair from kids' heads—to lawn darts—sharp metal things you'd toss at
your friends' toes that caused over six thousand injuries.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission eventually banned those items—and it's hard to disagree with them—
but today's toys are so risk averse, so super safe, that there's almost nothing left to warn about. But still the
warnings fall like cookie crumbs onto Santa's beard.

It is this zero tolerance for "risk" that WATCH and other consumer groups exploit every Christmas . . .

[EasyAce]

Speaking personally, a group like WATCH makes me want to go to eBay and see if
I can't find me an intact copy of the Mouse Trap Game . . .

[Cyber Liberty]

Speaking personally, a group like WATCH makes me want to go to eBay and see if
I can't find me an intact copy of the Mouse Trap Game . . .

They still sell Mouse Trap.  I'm looking at it now on Amazon.

[Neverdul]

On year for Christmas when I was 8 years-old, “Santa” brought me a Mattel Thingmaker. That was an awesome toy! Being a girl, I got the “Fun Flowers” set. But would have loved the “creepy crawlers” too. And I only burned my fingers on the hot plate that heated up to like 400 degrees a couple of times.

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[EasyAce]

They still sell Mouse Trap.  I'm looking at it now on Amazon.

How about its brother game, the Crazy Clock Game? (I had that one when I was a kid and it was
a riot and a half.)

What other bedeviling games can we remember from when we were kids that today's nannies
would probably put on the sh@t list. . .

Tinkertoys
Lincoln Logs
Girder & Panel building sets
Bridge & Turnpike building sets (I had one of those, too, figured out how to build my own version of the
Tappan Zee Bridge with it and the plastic roadways were the perfect width for my miniature cars!)

Come to think of it, there was a toy made in the 1930s that today's nannies would go apoplectic
over . . .


(An electric-powered toy replica of the actual Sunbeam Mixmaster Model M4J, both made in 1934 by the original
Chicago Flexible Shaft Company that was re-named the Sunbeam Corporation in 1946. Kids could actually
use this Toy Mixmaster to make their own cookies and stuff, though they didn't recommend you try anything
heavier because of the small motor.)

[Cyber Liberty]

FTA:

And when the kids get bored, they lock him in the toy chest, and go play with a great toy. A stick.

Silly author.  Doesn't he know they could put an eye out with that?  It's always fun until somebody gets hurt.

[EasyAce]

On year for Christmas when I was 8 years-old, “Santa” brought me a Mattel Thingmaker. That was an awesome toy! Being a girl, I got the “Fun Flowers” set. But would have loved the “creepy crawlers” too. And I only burned my fingers on the hot plate that heated up to like 400 degrees a couple of times.

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@Neverdul
My God, today they'd haul your parents in for child abuse for giving you that! ;)

[EasyAce]

FTA:
Silly author.  Doesn't he know they could put an eye out with that?  It's always fun until somebody gets hurt.

I think he was referring to WATCH.

I'm pretty sure he knows better. Me, I would have said a baseball bat, but that's just me . . .

[roamer_1]

Lawn darts were awesome. Made a sabot round for them puppies to fire them out of a 4"x10' thick wall PVC pipe... pneumatic powered... Man, them babies would fly.

[Neverdul]

@Neverdul
My God, today they'd haul your parents in for child abuse for giving you that! ;)

Well there was also the time I asked my dad if I could borrow one of his big hammers. He asked me what I needed it for and I told him my friend Janice got several bill rolls of caps. He gave me the hammer. 

[EasyAce]

Lawn darts were awesome. Made a sabot round for them puppies to fire them out of a 4"x10' thick wall PVC pipe... pneumatic powered... Man, them babies would fly.

They were great on the beach, too, if you were a) careful of others around and b) good at
getting them to descend at just the right angle to stay pointed up after they hit the sand.
Which is why my buddies and me would play them on the beach super early in the morning,
before the crowds began to come.

[EasyAce]

Well there was also the time I asked my dad if I could borrow one of his big hammers. He asked me what I needed it for and I told him my friend Janice got several bill rolls of caps. He gave me the hammer. 

*laughing*
We had these little pistols that would shoot a chamber of these red plastic
caps. The sound was loud enough to be heard two short blocks over; people
would think you were shooting fireworks.

[dfwgator]

Consumer Probe : Irwin Mainway (SNL)


http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/irwin-mainway/n8641?snl=1

[Neverdul]

Consumer Probe : Irwin Mainway (SNL)


http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/irwin-mainway/n8641?snl=1

 

[EasyAce]

Consumer Probe : Irwin Mainway (SNL)


http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/irwin-mainway/n8641?snl=1

@DCPatriot
Second-best laugh I've had all day!

[Neverdul]

Happy Fun Ball (old SNL spoof commercial)

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[RoosGirl]

On year for Christmas when I was 8 years-old, “Santa” brought me a Mattel Thingmaker. That was an awesome toy! Being a girl, I got the “Fun Flowers” set. But would have loved the “creepy crawlers” too. And I only burned my fingers on the hot plate that heated up to like 400 degrees a couple of times.

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I remember a cousin of mine having that Thing Maker, or something very similar to it.

[RoosGirl]

Lawn darts were awesome. Made a sabot round for them puppies to fire them out of a 4"x10' thick wall PVC pipe... pneumatic powered... Man, them babies would fly.

Yeah, I was one of the kids that got one in the toe from the little bleep up the street.

[DCPatriot]

Well there was also the time I asked my dad if I could borrow one of his big hammers. He asked me what I needed it for and I told him my friend Janice got several bill rolls of caps. He gave me the hammer. 

LOL!

That was my earliest experience with high-pitched ringing in my ears.   I was probably 7-8 years old.

They still ring today.

[Gefn]

Jean Shepherd wanted a Red Ryder BB gun. His mother said he'd poke his eye out.

This has to be one of the most famous toys from a movie. 

[RoosGirl]

*laughing*
We had these little pistols that would shoot a chamber of these red plastic
caps. The sound was loud enough to be heard two short blocks over; people
would think you were shooting fireworks.

One Christmas I got, I don't even know what to call them, they were two, little hard balls, about 1" diameter, and if you hit them together, or threw them against anything hard they would make a super loud pop.  I took them to school the first day back and in between classes bounced one of them off the sidewalk.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the science teachers come running out of his classroom to see what was going on.  I imagine to his ears it would have sounded like a .22 shot.  Haha, I squirreled those things away back in my backpack real quick.

[roamer_1]

Yeah, I was one of the kids that got one in the toe from the little bleep up the street.

They were great in that pneumatic gun... Till I wrecked em all blowing holes in the barn wall. Man that was kewl! But it brought 'tan your hide' to a whole new dimension when the old man found out what I did to the barn 

Not only that, but I got my first carpentry lessons over that deal... LOL! I knew how to make a sabot for a lawn dart and power it with a pneumatic gun, but I didn't know how to hang a board on a wall... I knew why my dad got so pissed after that lesson.

Kids, right? 

[RoosGirl]

They were great in that pneumatic gun... Till I wrecked em all blowing holes in the barn wall. Man that was kewl! But it brought 'tan your hide' to a whole new dimension when the old man found out what I did to the barn 

Not only that, but I got my first carpentry lessons over that deal... LOL! I knew how to make a sabot for a lawn dart and power it with a pneumatic gun, but I didn't know how to hang a board on a wall... I knew why my dad got so pissed after that lesson.

Kids, right? 

LOL   Glad my toes weren't around you.

[musiclady]

*laughing*
We had these little pistols that would shoot a chamber of these red plastic
caps. The sound was loud enough to be heard two short blocks over; people
would think you were shooting fireworks.

I had one of those!  The red cap turned black after you shot it.  SO cool!

[Neverdul]

One Christmas I got, I don't even know what to call them, they were two, little hard balls, about 1" diameter, and if you hit them together, or threw them against anything hard they would make a super loud pop.  I took them to school the first day back and in between classes bounced one of them off the sidewalk.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the science teachers come running out of his classroom to see what was going on.  I imagine to his ears it would have sounded like a .22 shot.  Haha, I squirreled those things away back in my backpack real quick.

Clackers?

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