Boston-based World Against Toys Causing Harm Inc., or W.A.T.C.H., has announced its top-10 list of the worst toys you can buy kids this Christmas. This is a rather pointless year for a list like this, considering the massive expansion of the Unsafe Toy Industry; in fact, the first item on their list was recalled back in October for lead paint. Still, there are some fun discoveries on the list, like “Sticky Stones,” small piles of easy-to-eat magnets, and the “Spider Man 3 New Goblin Sword,” because its “spring-loaded blade expands to more than 3 feet long, creating the potential for facial injuries.” If they could just combine the Goblin Sword with the Oozinator, we’d have a Dateline special on our hands.
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]
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One of my favorite game as a kid was shooting beans at each other. We use a short length of bamboo or any stiff tube, grab a handful of beans, put in a mouthful of these unwashed beans in our mouths, then blow them out through the bamboo at our friends. They come shooting out quite rapidly one after another and if one hits you, it stings like hell.
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.
@jadbalja: But remember, it is NOT for blind kids. They wrote it in big letters on the package, so they can’t say they weren’t warned.
“W.A.T.C.H. OUT! “Hip Hoppa ‘Til You Droppa!” is the catch phrase for a toy consisting of a foot board atop an inflatable “high energy” ball. A hand grip with an adjustable strap attaches to the bouncy ball.
Hmm, sounds like a pogo stick.
Children are encouraged to stand on the base and, while holding the handle tight and keeping the strap taut, “immediately start hopping”. The instructions also caution that improper dismount will result in “loss of balance and possible injury.”
Pogo stick again… Am I noticing a pattern?
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?
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.
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.
@Noremakk: The easier to use pogo stick used to just be the rubber ball you stand on. I remember seeing the ad for it and wondering how you kept it from flying off your feet (you couldn’t see the strap in the ads).
My childhood was even more dangerous than you babies. I was growing up in the ’50′s. My father MADE our rubberband guns. We were expected to use whatever was at hand for a toy – it was called imagination. We did lots of things no wimpy parent would allow today. I agree that kids need to experiment with a little danger to learn to think ahead. After all, one needs a little pain to remind them that they could get hurt – or even die! The real danger turned out to be adults – brother was killed by a person speeding (50 mph) on a road within a cemetery in a county where ambulances were not allowed to use sirens! I subsequently had 3 kids (in the 80′s) and they managed to do all the imaginative things that normal kids do when denied dangerous toys. Sticks, rubberbands, pea shooters, tricycle and scooter competitions, etc. The last child has grown up into being a (OMG!) pro paintball player. (Other adults give me all kinds of grief about this.) This child NEEDED some kind of supervised danger or he’d really have done himself in somehow! I agree about the gene pool – we’re letting every weak willy live. As harsh as that sounds – survival of the fittest (or luckiest) is being artificially squelched.