Toys I'm glad I didn't have when I was a Kid

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This is actually beyond funny, I'm in tears.

I would love to see what was going on in the creation of these things. The Alien-Man is particular. The art has the body of a xenomorph and the head of a man, the toy is the other way around and then the surreal catchphrase "He dared to dream". It'd have to be planned, but it's not logic as we know it.
 
I assume most of the "creators" don't speak english and are using some sort of translation program. But yeah, that doesn't explain Alien-Man's tagline, which is what really pushes that one over the top
 
The Alien-Man toy is beyond awesome.
 
People today would be horrified by some of the toys we played with when I was a kid (I'm 50). There was one in particular that you could buy in Mexico. I have always lived in Texas, so it wasn't as uncommon as it probably was elsewhere. It was a wooden box with a sliding cover that you pulled. A wooden snake would pop out and "scare" whoever tried it. I never saw anyone who got scared by it, but a lot of people would cuss if you tricked them into using it because the snake has a "tongue" that was a small nail that had been sharpened. When it leaped out it would prick the back of your finger. Having come from cheap tourist markets in Mexico, the nail was frequently rusted, so you had to hope the person was up on his/her tetanus shots.
 
We played with lawn darts at my grandma’s house back in the day.
I had lawn darts as a kid. Played it a lot in the summer in the back yard. Its amazing I survived. Kids are horrible at tossing heavy metal tipped darts.
 
First time I noticed this thread, and holy shit....when did this forum become Something Awful? That's a compliment, in case it was ambiguous.
 
First time I noticed this thread, and holy shit....when did this forum become Something Awful? That's a compliment, in case it was ambiguous.
That's a very context sensitive comparison. I agree that here is it a good thing.
 
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OK, is my leg being pulled? I just noticed that the manufacturer of "Weird Dogs" is "Obvious Plant."

Tell me these are real. Don't break my heart.
 
OK, is my leg being pulled? I just noticed that the manufacturer of "Weird Dogs" is "Obvious Plant."

Tell me these are real. Don't break my heart.


If it's a scam/joke, it's a joke that lines the shelves of actual dollar stores.
 
We played with lawn darts at my grandma’s house back in the day.

I know there were some accidents with those, but I don't remember them being widespread. If you were in a park or something where there were no other people or living things in front of you, the worst that generally happened is that they didn't stick in the ground. I would let my grandkids play with them if I were supervising.

I learned to shoot a gun before I was 10 (with supervision), shot BB guns and slingshots at targets, ran around with a pocket knife, etc. We had toys and playground equipment made of metal, so sometimes you got cut or burned yourself (in the Texas summer). Nobody freaked out if a kid was trying to whittle and cut himself/herself while doing it. That's part of the learning process. Pain is a good teacher in some circumstances :smile:

People are really overprotective these days. You just have to gauge when individual children can be trusted with things. It varies a lot from kid to kid. You just need to be careful to supervise them until you are sure they will act safely, drill safety measures into them, and have consequences if they don't follow them.
 
I know there were some accidents with those, but I don't remember them being widespread. If you were in a park or something where there were no other people or living things in front of you, the worst that generally happened is that they didn't stick in the ground. I would let my grandkids play with them if I were supervising.

We owned lawn darts when I was a kid, and they never struck me as being especially dangerous unless you were being stupid.

I learned to shoot a gun before I was 10 (with supervision), shot BB guns and slingshots at targets, ran around with a pocket knife, etc. We had toys and playground equipment made of metal, so sometimes you got cut or burned yourself (in the Texas summer). Nobody freaked out if a kid was trying to whittle and cut himself/herself while doing it. That's part of the learning process. Pain is a good teacher in some circumstances :smile:

I often carried a knife starting around that time. I learned all the relevant safety rules (always cut AWAY from yourself, etc). Yeah, I stupidly cut myself a couple of times, but it was nothing a bandaid couldn't deal with. It means that I have knife safety drilled deep into my brain, as opposed to the dumb things I've seen other people do at work when they had to do something involving a blade.
 
Where it becomes a problem is when half the kids know safety rules and half are idiots who only stop doing stupid shit if an adult says STOP!
Then suddenly your kid brought a dangerous weapon to the group instead of their kid is an idiot.


For reference my father was sent home from 1st grade because he forgot his pocket knife. How else were you supposed to sharpen your pencil?
 
I know there were some accidents with those, but I don't remember them being widespread. If you were in a park or something where there were no other people or living things in front of you, the worst that generally happened is that they didn't stick in the ground. I would let my grandkids play with them if I were supervising.

I learned to shoot a gun before I was 10 (with supervision), shot BB guns and slingshots at targets, ran around with a pocket knife, etc. We had toys and playground equipment made of metal, so sometimes you got cut or burned yourself (in the Texas summer). Nobody freaked out if a kid was trying to whittle and cut himself/herself while doing it. That's part of the learning process. Pain is a good teacher in some circumstances :smile:

People are really overprotective these days. You just have to gauge when individual children can be trusted with things. It varies a lot from kid to kid. You just need to be careful to supervise them until you are sure they will act safely, drill safety measures into them, and have consequences if they don't follow them.

I remember when I got my first pocket knife. Cut my thumb within 5 minutes. My dad made me where a Barbie band aid as a lesson. Boy howdy did I learn it.
 
Where it becomes a problem is when half the kids know safety rules and half are idiots who only stop doing stupid shit if an adult says STOP!
Then suddenly your kid brought a dangerous weapon to the group instead of their kid is an idiot.


For reference my father was sent home from 1st grade because he forgot his pocket knife. How else were you supposed to sharpen your pencil?
I was Boy Scout. We had to earn a Totin' Chip card that allowed us to carry a knife at events by demonstrating we knew how to do it responsibly.
 
I was a librarian for about 12 years (and may be one again), and spent a lot of that working in the children's department. I would run craft activities a lot, and was shocked when I started encountering children who didn't know how to use scissors. I found out that many of them had mothers who thought that scissors were "too dangerous" for kids, even the blunt-tipped ones that can't cut much more than paper.
 
Back wehn in primary school, there was a girl in our class who had never actually lit a match herself... until the teacher taught her how to do it.
 
I don't believe in all the bubble wrapping we do to our kids these days but I find it hard not to engage in it. My wife believes in it more than I do and when you add in group think and peer pressure it gets very awkward at playgrounds and I understand how it proliferates. I have to constantly remind myself we didn't die from doing this stuff as kids. It's times like these when I wished I wasn't a stay at home dad because the non stay at home dad's seem much less affected by this.
 
Okay, I'll cop to it, we played dodge 'em with lawn darts. Sorry, didn't mean to wreck anyone else's childhood. Nobody got hurt. Now sword fighting with wooden swords, well, I've got a bunch of tiny little scars on the backs of my hands. They've faded a bit over the years but when the splinters start flying and they get around your hand guard with a swing, there's bound to be a little blood. I also shot homemade bows and arrows, fell out of trees, hammered nails, hammered fingers, cut myself good with a hand saw while making a wooden sword, cut my pinky to the bone while building a Guillows balsa and tissue airplane (The Supermarine Spitfire of course!), caught a thrown plastic bowling pin to the eye that blinded me for a few hours. I think I saw a doctor maybe twice while growing up.
 
Oh I saw the doctor for a large cut to the forehead three times (console table corner, hook attached to a fully and something else I forget), stitches to the chin, finger locked in a pinto, broken arm, cut eye from sword fighting.

And for my era I was a dorky not very adventurous kid.
 
Okay, I'll cop to it, we played dodge 'em with lawn darts. Sorry, didn't mean to wreck anyone else's childhood. Nobody got hurt. Now sword fighting with wooden swords, well, I've got a bunch of tiny little scars on the backs of my hands.
That reminds me of a friend from my childhood. He was not some kind of crazy daredevil, but we definitely had some unsafe pastimes at around age twelve. In addition to the usual aerosol flame throwers, we used to wrap aluminum foil around a stick, dip it in a gas can, and light it for an impromptu torch. You could whip the foil off for a one-shot fireball...great for scaring squirrels in the woods on a lazy and dry summer afternoon.

We also used to have "miscellaneous fights," which consisted of throwing random objects from the ground at each other. We avoided rocks and batteries, but we'd happily chuck dirt clods and frisbee loose roofing each others' way. There was no scoring; someone would spot a lot of debris and yell "MISCELLANEOUS FIGHT!", and it was on.

I knew people who had BB gun fights. Even in my youth, that sounded like something that insane people did.
 
Okay, I'll cop to it, we played dodge 'em with lawn darts. Sorry, didn't mean to wreck anyone else's childhood. Nobody got hurt. Now sword fighting with wooden swords, well, I've got a bunch of tiny little scars on the backs of my hands. They've faded a bit over the years but when the splinters start flying and they get around your hand guard with a swing, there's bound to be a little blood. I also shot homemade bows and arrows, fell out of trees, hammered nails, hammered fingers, cut myself good with a hand saw while making a wooden sword, cut my pinky to the bone while building a Guillows balsa and tissue airplane (The Supermarine Spitfire of course!), caught a thrown plastic bowling pin to the eye that blinded me for a few hours. I think I saw a doctor maybe twice while growing up.

I mean, this was largely my experience growing up. We had a set of lawn darts, probably long after they were illegal. We played with wooden swords, BB guns, bows and arrows, would spend hours climbing trees and exploring in the woods. Part of the time I was growing up we were near a huge area of subdivisions still in development, which meant there was easy access to sewers and construction sites, both of which were frequent playgrounds. I remember getting lost in the sewer system at age 8 and it taking me several hours to find a way out.
 
When I was a kid in the mid-80's the park behind my house had something like that.
 
I also used my dad's power tools in his shop when he wasn't home.

Sadly I don't have a shop or much in the way of power tools for my kids to hurt themselves with.
 
I jabbed the needle of a sewing machine straight through my thumb ending up stuck to it. I accidentally stepped in dog shit with my bare foot.
 
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I jabbed the needle of a sewing machine straight through my thumb ending up stuck to it.
My best friend borrowed my pen while he was on roller skates, then fell over and the pen went all the way through his hand. He made sure it was still covered in dried blood when he returned it to me.
 
When I was a kid in the mid-80's the park behind my house had something like that.


Yeah, there was a wood structure I have to think twice as high as that at one of the camp grounds in Ontario I went to as a kid.
 
I jabbed the needle of a sewing machine straight through my thumb ending up stuck to it. I accidentally stepped in dog shit with my bare foot.

There was one summer on Lake Ontario that the ground outside our cabin became just covered with frogs. I remember having to walk across them, all these poor frogs squishing under my feet was one of the more traumatic moments of my childhood.
 
I stepped on a board that had a nail sticking out of it while running in a neighborhood kid's back yard. It embedded in my foot (the rubber soles of the shoes kept it in place), so I had to sit down and pull it out. Sure enough, half the nail had gone up into my foot.
 
I stepped on a board that had a nail sticking out of it while running in a neighborhood kid's back yard. It embedded in my foot (the rubber soles of the shoes kept it in place), so I had to sit down and pull it out. Sure enough, half the nail had gone up into my foot.

lol, yeah, I've probably done that three times in my life.
 
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