Th 8 Most Wildly Irrisponsible Vintage Toys

[Bruce Wayne]

Mind you, this is Cracked, so the laguage is rather salty at times. Still, it is amazing that people survived being kids back then.



http://www.cracked.com/article_19481_the-8-most-wildly-irresponsible-vintage-toys.html

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

Thank you for sharing. It's amazing the kinds of toys people thought were "kid friendly". It shows how innocent the times were. Imagine trying to get away with some of those toys today. Especially the one about the lead soldiers! lol

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I would loved to have had some of those toys as a kid, especially the toy steam engines!

I also love the mini power tools

 

[Effingham]

I've always kinda wanted that atomic energy kit. Sorta like... if chemistry sets worked for junior mad scientists, imagine what they could do with a REAL cloud chamber....

And what proto-geek could pass up a vial of uranium?

 

[Icthruu74]

Could it possibly be that parents supervised their children back then?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Could it possibly be that parents supervised their children back then?

Yeah ... and the parents were poisoned by the uranium too.

 

[Edward]

Yeah ... and the parents were poisoned by the uranium too.

Ha.... yeah..... I'm sure parental supervision would have helped..... mind you, even with the most attentive of parents (which weren't necessarily guaranteed even in the so-called "Golden Era"), at best half those toys could only ever be something little Johnny could safely watch the folks do. The reality is, I suspect, that back in those days there was not the extensive consumer protection legislation that exists now, nor was it culturally the done thing to sue if you did get badly hurt. Things in that vein are definitely OTT these days at times, but I wouldn't throw that out completely either.

 

[ButteMT61]

Dunno, even the Easy Bake oven has been changed 'cause a lightbulb is too dangerous...not my way of making progress.
I prefer a little living in my life.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The Easy Bake oven was originally based on one that was used by street vendors to roast chestnuts.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I had all the Easy Bake paraphernalia they made -- the oven, the grill, the popcorn popper, etc. -- and never burned myself once. The only trouble I got in from it was from selling hamburgers on the street without a license.

 

[Kabel]

I must say some of these toys had me chocking of laughter and I do agree also that the safety for toys with kids these days is slightly out of control. Maybe we should start suing the woodland everytime a kid falls out of a tree…
Also I find that toys seem to leave a lot less to the kids own imagination these days.

 

[DesertDan]

I had a Power-Mite circular saw when I was a kid, it was not nearly as dangerous as the article makes it out to be. It came with small sheets of styrofoam as that was about all the tools were powerful enough to cut.

I also had an Easy-Bake oven (I'm manly enough to admit that), I thought it was awesome that I could make cookies in my room whenever I wanted too! Could one burn themselves, well yes and every child I knew understood that and acted accordingly.

I also had a chemistry set, a very good one, and it would have never accured to me that it would be a good idea to eat/drink or mishandle the chemicals.

I had a woddburning set and a toy (can't remember what it was called right now) that used a hotplate and metal molds to create rubber insects and other creepy crawlies. I recieved my first BB gun for Christmas when I was 5 years old and my first archery set, with real arrows, when I was 6. I got into model rocketry at the same age. I was building plastic airplane models using real glue and enamel paints (and paint thinner...the horror!) as well.

We played with these things more or less responsibly even without adult supervision.

It's threads/articles like these that make me realize how much we have lost. Instead of being incredulous of the "wild inappropriatness" of these toys, the article should be asking what has happened to make children nowadays so immature, irresponsible and incapable of being trusted with such things.

Sad.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I too built models with enamel paints, glue & paint thinner. I played with a friends creepy crawlies maker that used hot metal plates to mold the "bugs.". This was back in the 90's to put things in perspective.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Kids in my neighborhood dragged an old rusty oil tank out of a junkyard, kicked a hole in the side, and used it for an entire summer as an all-purpose playhouse/clubhouse/fort/spaceship/tank/castle. We'd all had tetanus shots, so nobody cared too much about possible hazards.

 

[Undertow]

I played by myself alot, and I'd go crawling through abandoned buildings, flooded fields, dumpsters, junk yards, etc. My friends and I would often hang out in creeks and riverbeds, etc. We played with so many "dangerous" and crazy things, it's a wonder we're alive by modern standards. And we didn't wear helmets either (we made fun of kids that did).

We once traversed an open railroad trestle with not but tracks and a 100ft drop into a river, nothing to brace ourselves on the sides. We were probably 12 or 13 and we told ourselves it was our passage into manhood. Haha, we could have been killed! I love it!

 

[Philip Adams]

I would loved to have had some of those toys as a kid, especially the toy steam engines!

When I was a kid I really wanted one of those working steam engines too.

I guess my parents were acting responsibly by saying no.....either that or they were just saving money

 

[Yeps]

I had the leftovers (some of the more entertaining chemicals were in short supply) of my Dad's old Gilbert Chemistry set, and then got a new "safe" one for Christmas one year. The new one was mind bogglingly boring, and didn't even include glass test tubes (too dangerous). It is like the difference between an Estes model rocket, and a stomp rocket.

By the way, those carbide guns are so cool. I want one. I know about carbide from caving lamps, but I like this application.

 

[Yeps]

It's threads/articles like these that make me realize how much we have lost. Instead of being incredulous of the "wild inappropriatness" of these toys, the article should be asking what has happened to make children nowadays so immature, irresponsible and incapable of being trusted with such things.

Sad.

This.

Except the Atomic Energy lab, we will chalk that one up to ignorance about the effects of radioactive materials.

 

[John in Covina]

RANT:

Let's face it, according to the changes in attitiudes history should show us that all children were physically and psychologically damaged by their surroundings because it was simply so dangerous to be alive 40 or more years ago. Children rode bikes without helmets and actually operated devices that could harm them. The fact that some children survived is only based on luck. No child has ever had anything akin to common sense or had the ability to reason out that placing your hand on a hot burner might actually cause pain and damage. no child could be taught how to be cautious or how to handle things now considered too dangerous for ordinary people to handle.

Legislation has eliminated the need for common sense with hazard lables such as "don't take the electric hairdryer into the shower." Darwin's Survival of the fittest is also supposed to apply to humans, it's time to weed out true incompitants before it is passed down. What was that film- Mediocracy?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

When I was a kid I really wanted one of those working steam engines too.

I guess my parents were acting responsibly by saying no.....either that or they were just saving money

The Wilesco D32 was the deluxe model. I don't even think they make that one anymore.

[video=youtube;5eSRFHm39Xc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eSRFHm39Xc[/video]

Here it is under steam. I think he's demonstrating it with a compressor in the first video.
[video=youtube;vw5bP_FGP4o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw5bP_FGP4o&feature=related[/video]