strangest, weirdist or just plain wrong toy from your youth

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

Dangerous toys? No problem, I simply took apart the lamp while connected to the power outlet. (Syntactic ambiguity intended.)

 

[Ecuador Jim]

I had a "Mad Scientist" playset that included two monster skeletons, that you could articulate, put together, take apart, etc. The set came with this clay like substance that you could mold around the skeletons as flesh, add eyeballs, bringing them to life, etc. It also included a big vat which you would fill with water and add a powder solution..... dunk in your monsters.. and watch them die a horrible death as their "flesh" is slowly eaten away and they're dissolved down to the bone.

Creepy, eh?

Looks like you had the coolest toy ever! Surely it grossed-out all the girls.

 

[gluegungeisha]

My toy was the Skydancer. My sister and I flung them at each other's faces when we were fighting. I think they're still around, but they're not the same at all.

I wish I had a Little Miss No Name doll. They were apparently big in the 60's.

 

[Blondie]

I grew up in Papua New Guinea, there werent any toy stores (or TV either ).
We would to cut a length off the gardening hose, stuff a piece of
wood in one end and then join it to the other, making a circle,then would mould a wire coat hanger into a straight line with a curved hook,
we would have races with our "wheelie wheels" running along the road guiding the wheel with the coat hanger.
Most races were 'Winner takes all", so i had a huge collections of these "wheelies " ranging from 6 inch diameter up to the size of a hoola hoop.
The funniest thing was all the fathers would complain about their 2 foot garden hoses, and if a family got a hose other than green, then we would all be over at our friends place cutting up their Dad's garden hose !!!!!!!!!
We would also cut the ends off palm fronds and have downhill louge races down the very steep curving driveway, 2 or 3 kids in a palm frond, so much fun !
Failing the above we would go in search of WW2 relics, always careful never to pick up bullets or bombs, we found so many cool things .

 

[John in Covina]

THere was this stuff I believe was called "Plastic Balloons" which came in a tube and you put a dollop on the end of a straw. When you blew thru the straw the glob became a Ballloon of some sort with crazy colors streaked thru it. Now as i recall the plastic, while soft, held the smell of just about every industrial solvent known to man.

All I can figure is if you sniffed the glob or inhaled in any way, you were going to fry brain cells for sure.

 

[LolitaHaze]

This was actually my Mom's... she never let me play with it even though I begged and begged! I remember taking it out of the closet constantly looking and loving the photos on the box.

 

[Lincsong]

Hold on to your hat, Linc. My brother is getting married a year from this October 4th. . . . At Disneyland! (His fiancee nixed the Star Wars-themed wedding.)


Lee
____________________________

"There are various forms of the disease, the victim of which is unable to say 'No.' Some of these forms are more serious than others, and often lead to electrocution or marriage." - Robert Benchley

There's always an Elvis impersonator in Vegas if the Disneyland thing doesn't pan out.

 

[Starius]

Not exactly a "toy," but lighting hairspray (AquaNet in my case) on fire with a lighter and having a flamethrower was a fun dangerous thing to do in my younger teen years. Did any of you do that?

Never did do that, but my friends and I used to take empty 2 Liter bottles and fill them with 2000 Blue toilet bowl cleaner and wads of aluminum foil. Put the cap back on and stand back.

Depending on the ratio of the mixture, they would either explode or just melt into hot steaming blue goo pile. Strange what you could find to amuse you in our youth, eh?

Oh, and as an adult now, I feel I must add.... kids, don't try that at home.

 

[Feraud]

Not exactly a "toy," but lighting hairspray (AquaNet in my case) on fire with a lighter and having a flamethrower was a fun dangerous thing to do in my younger teen years. Did any of you do that?

..I did that.
My version was using the hairspray to enact battle scenes from Star Wars. I used to make the spaceship models and had them hanging in my room. Sometimes a laser battle would break out between the Tie fighters and X-Wings. The Empire usually won.

 

[Edward]

I knew a ten-year old kid who took an antique gun down from the shelf, stuffed it with a rock and gunpower, and used a cap to set it off. Shot his little brother dead. Yay guns!

Well, as Eddie Izzard put it: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I think the gun kinda helps, though."

No intention to take this down a political route though, nor offence intended to anyone!

 

[Dr Doran]

This was actually my Mom's... she never let me play with it even though I begged and begged! I remember taking it out of the closet constantly looking and loving the photos on the box.

I had one of those! You carve a face into an apple, add beads (provided in box) for teeth, paint the apple with vinegar, then put the apple into an incubator powered by a lightbulb and let it alone for 24 hours. A hideous old whithered head results. Brilliant good fun. Our attic smelled like apples one Fall, we had so many of them.

Well, as Eddie Izzard put it: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I think the gun kinda helps, though."

Hee hee

 

[Diamondback]

Well, as Eddie Izzard put it: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I think the gun kinda helps, though."

No intention to take this down a political route though, nor offence intended to anyone!

fftopic: Edward, you just reminded me of a favorite line War (college classmate and my former wheelman) liked to throw around:
"Guns don't kill people--I kill people!"
Ahh, the good old days... Mayhem and chaos around the college campus.lol

 

[Dr Doran]

:"Guns don't kill people--I kill people!"

Hee hee

 

[Diamondback]

@Doran, further fftopic: And afterward, I always had to remind him about "Exactly which one of us is 'War' and which is 'Death', again?" (And yes, I opened it up to a more comprehensive "who's who?" when "Pestilence" and "Famine" were in the vicinity.)

Other weird toys: Grandpa's machine-shop. EEEEEEEK! Kid with power tools... [voice=Monty Python cast]Run away! Run away![/voice] And the old fighter cockpits he'd arrange for me to get access to every time a museum would let us... (Is it any wonder I hate being stuck dirtside, with an upbringing like that?lol)

 

[Dr Doran]

THere was this stuff I believe was called "Plastic Balloons" which came in a tube and you put a dollop on the end of a straw. When you blew thru the straw the glob became a Ballloon of some sort with crazy colors streaked thru it. Now as i recall the plastic, while soft, held the smell of just about every industrial solvent known to man.

All I can figure is if you sniffed the glob or inhaled in any way, you were going to fry brain cells for sure.

I do remember those. Iridescent, beautiful saturated colors.

 

[Dr Doran]

And I thought the story about "football" weddings was bad.

What on earth is a "football wedding"? Never heard of it.

 

[Senator Jack]

Don't knock the football wedding.

 

[Barry]

...All I can figure is if you sniffed the glob or inhaled in any way, you were going to fry brain cells for sure.

Ah, I remember that stuff too. It was almost as bad as Shrinky Dinks - plastic sheets which could be colored and decorated and then baked in a toaster oven.

Barry

 

[Dr Doran]

Don't knock the football wedding.

Priest dressed as quarterback? I'm just guessing here. What is the bride dressed as? The captured quarterback of the other team? Is a whistle blown for the kiss? Or to end the kiss?

Ah, I remember that stuff too. It was almost as bad as Shrinky Dinks - plastic sheets which could be colored and decorated and then baked in a toaster oven.

Barry

We had Shrinky Dinks when I was a kid. Then the name of that toy was used as an unfortunate epithet for one of the lads.

 

[panamag8or]

Who can forget the classic broken model airplane and lighter fluid combo, at the finale of a model air battle.

We did that, only we added an m-80 and ran the planes down a zipline that stretched from a tree house all the way across the yard.