Sometimes when I'm at work, and bored out of my ever lovin' mind, I reminisce about the fun that I used to have as a child...and how on earth I ever survived. I'm gonna take a look back at the "action" toys of the 80s, designed to get all you kids out of the house and playing outside, not inside turning into zombies with those nintendos and ataris that we had...or if you couldnt get out of the house, at least to give you some calorie burning activity while you're inside. Here are some toys that didn't kill you, just made you stronger.
Pogo-Ball
This was a genius device. It was an oddly shaped "ball" in name only with a rim around it that you stood on, locked your feet around the orb up top, and attempted to bounce all over town with. This was all good in theory but practically impossible to do for a growing kid. This thing had to be the cause of all sorts of fractured wrists and knee injuries, especially if you blew it up as much as you possibly could. One bad angle of bounce would send your ass tumbling to the ground, which was inevitably concrete or asphalt because this sucker would bounce way better on that than say, grass. I never got down more than 3 or 4 bounces on this sucker before I got tossed off, probably because my dad overinflated the sucker, yet I kept trying and trying.
Sit n SpinThe only purpose of this thing is to spin yourself so dizzy that when you try to stand up you collapse immediately to the floor and vomit. Its like concussion symptoms without the actual brain damage! Its like what daddy feels like when he comes home at 3am smelling like a bottle of Wild Turkey! FUN FOR ALL AGES!!
Big WheelsOne of my favorite toys of all time. So much so, that I really wish I could be riding my own, adult sized, big wheel as I type this. The only problem with these vehicles are that you cant go all that fast on these...except when you go down hill and lift up your feet, but yea, that's not totally safe, as I found out as a kid and I have the scars to prove it. Also of fun was that when you got up to a fast enough speed, you could pull the hand break and skid your big wheel out...or flip it over if you are going fast enough and skid out hard enough. That was fun too. I also liked that the solid tires were great to sharpen sticks to a fine tip when you turn the big wheel upside down. I was a stabby child.
Entertech Water GunsOk, so maybe these did help kill some people. The water guns themselves didn't actually kill anyone however, but a few cops did kill some people because the geniuses at Entertech made these battery operated water guns look as realistic as possible...confusing many a law enforcement officer apparently much to the chagrin of quite a few parents. The guns themselves kinda sucked though, once your battery was drained, which was quick, you were left with nothing but a realistic looking useless water gun. What a troublesome piece of crap.
Huffy BikesI dunno about your bike when you were a kid, but mine had no actual brakes on it. The brakes were you peddling backwards which then locked the wheels sending you skidding to a stop...sometimes a violent stop, especially if you had no idea how to swerve your bike into a nice steady skid or if you clamped down on those brakes too hard sending yourself flying off or over the bike. Also, we didnt have those fancy helmets kids wear these days either. Apparently head injuries weren't of major concern back in the day...um what was I talking about again?
Got anything else? Leave it in the comments...
111 comments:
I'm 99% sure if I had a pogo ball in front of me right now I'd use it for at least an hour. Man I loved those things.
i remember the scooter being big...i think i had one of those souped-up Haro ones with pegs in the back. Sweet.
i, too, had a pogo ball. those guys must have printed $$
nice list! i'd forgotten about some of these, especially the water guns. i always remember all the dumb nerf weaponry, like bows and arrows that were as big as dallas.
What about Jarts?
Ahh jarts, we never had those, but yes, very very dangerous.
Don't forget Skip-It!
Lawn Darts. Awesome
Might have been 90's, but how about Moon Shoes. Kind of like a Pogo Ball only much, much faster.
Big Wheels were nothing next to the Green Machine. That thing had two levers to steer and was jointed in the middle. If you were going downhill, the joint would jacknife, sending you flying out onto the road and in front of traffic. The company must be glad people were not as litigious back then.
They still make the gren machine....I had one and my kids are going to have them....Best toy ever!
Two words... Sonic Six! Two more words... Ball Crusher! I promise you can't name anyone who owned a Sonic Six bike with the gear shifter placed curiously near the bottom of the handle bars that hasn't racked their balls so hard they damn near spit up blood!
how could you leave off one of the most dangerous toys ever *aside from the aforementioned Jarts*? the slip and slide of my youth was by far the most wound-inflicting toy ever designed.
for the uninitiated it sounds like harmless fun. stake the plastic runway to the perfectly manicured lawn, hook up a hose and slip slide away into bliss.
the reality was there were either rocks underneath it which gouged your legs, you hit the stakes (metal protuberances) which would gouge your legs, or you'd inevitably hit a dry spot and rip the skin off yourself while most likely driving you into the stakes which would, you guessed it, gouge your legs.
if you got it just right, and the perfect storm of slip-and-slide-dom occurred, you'd run, jump, and slide all the way down the thing until you hit....nothing. there was no way to stop yourself on this contraption, barring disfiguring injuries.
great idea, great fun. set one on a hill and go go go!
Big Wheels were so much fun and I second the sentiment that I'd love to have an adult big wheel. I used to drive my mom and grandma nuts riding it down hills and stairs.
Ha ha, you had a Huffy. Everyone knew that Murray was a superior BMX bike. Same peddle brakes, same useless pads, but cooler because Murray just sounds better than Huffy.
That's the joy of childhood: anything can be deadly with just a sprinkle of imagination.
I don't remember the brand of bike I had, I just remember it had this kickin' rad blue tires on it. I'd pedal has hard as I could and then slam my feet on those backwards pedal brakes and slide along the road creating blue skidmarks. Man that was fun. I guess I was adept at the backwards pedal bike powerslide, because I never wrecked.
i wish i had those baseball cards back, the ones that i used on my huffy to make the cool motorcycle noises
I loved my Huffy Pro Thunder. It was a great bike to play chicken on because it rode like a tank.
And the big wheel... Oh man did I love my big wheel. You could go fast if you removed the seat and rode it like a scooter. Green Machines always freaked me out. It was like I could never go straight on one.
Totally agree with the Jarts, it was the first one I thought of! Anyone else stand over the circle and try to catch them as they flew in or was I the only idiot!
Next in line? Pogo Stick! I jumped it off steps, porches, onto bumpers, in and out of ditches, etc. How I survived I'll never know. We should bring back everything and stop raising the next generation of soft kids. We all stuck our fingers in light sockets and are still here, why can't they?
Oh how I miss my Green Machine. Peddling up and down the driveway, loudly humming the theme song from Battle of the Planets!
The little boy next door had a big wheels. I used to call him a baby.
The water gun was a blast. It ran on batteries and would make the sound as it squirted water.
yr cmplaaynts rveel you to be a pussy
I guess i dont get the freaking out about the unsafe toys, most of them were just toys ( ok lawn darts excluded, that was just a really bad idea. I dont know about anybody else but i coulda cut off my leg with a bowling ball when i was a 9 year old boy. Im prolly one of the few people in the world to do serious facial damage to themselves with the large assed Tonka truck, or burn their fingers on the easy bake oven, or actually swallow the ears off the fisher price dog. some how i lived
Actually, it is possible to get an adult size Big Wheel...
My big wheel lost a bunch of plastic on the front wheel creating a rim... that gave grandpa an idea... I went to the ol garage and found a rubber hose and bolted that into the front wheel like a tire.
Hell. Yes.
could pull a wagon with 3 kids with that grip.
They still make sit and spins. My 3 year old has one, but the drag brake on it is horrible. I used to sit on those things and spin faster and faster until I threw myself off.
She can't even make it go around fast enough to be fun :(
I can beat all of those. Anyone remember the plastic sheet toboggan?
Slide jet fast down a snow covered hill on your belly on one of these.
They took them off the market after some kids hit stakes in the ground and disemboweled themselves or zoomed jet fast into traffic at the bottom of the hill. Ah, fun times, fun times.
My favorite was the stretch armstrong doll.
It's actually pretty innocuous, except that when it eventually split open I stayed up all night with my best friend eating the red/orange goo out of the inside.
I hope that was non-toxic, 'cause it was delicious!
How could you fly off a bike using a foot brake? Handbrake operating on the front wheels oh yes. Very easy!
1) Pogo Ball - have not seen it
2) Sit n Spin - Still very much around, now with electronic sounds.
3) Big Wheel - Yep can still get it. One commenter mentioned the Green Machine.. that is back too.
4) Entertech guns - making realistic water guns is illegal now... those sure were fun too.
5 Huffy Bikes / reverse brakes - Yep, kiddie bikes still have em.zs
You left out my personal favorite: Skip-It (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip-It! What's safer than a 10 pound ball attached to your ankle that spun faster and faster until you tripped and landed on your face, or it shot off your leg like a cannon ball towards you playmates?
Pikers. We had more lethal toys in 1960s.
Toys with ELECTRIC CORDS that got HOT: Vac-U-Form - melted plastic sheets that you vacuum formed over a mold and cut out the toy with AN INCLUDED X-ACTO KNIFE!
Marx had a competing injection molding toy that made those plastic green toy soldiers you see in Toy Story. You could cut them up and melt them again.
The Bazooka fired a HARD plastic "shell" up to 50 feet! You could put out your little sister's eye. That's Ok. She has two.
I didn't see y favorite. Scateboard with rockgrinder wheels. Talk about a way to loose your two front teeth!
The slip and slides were great fun using vegetable oil. Oh the fun we had............My knees were never the same and I have scars from my legs getting gouged LOL
I was so envious of my friend with the Green Machine. I couldn't do cool skids with my bigwheel (I had the one in the photo).
Another toy was that thing with two ceramic-like balls at each end of a heavy string, with a handle in the middle. Then you move it up and down in a way that the balls bounce off each other with a loud clack sound, up and down, up and down, very fast. I think I might have fragments of wrist bone still floating around in my arm.
Remember "Skip'its"? I think that's what they're called. Giant, neon ball-n-chain you attached to your ankle and tried to jump as spun around. Even if you managed to avoid whacking your self with the huge ball, you killed your other ankle with the plastic attachment.
I still have my old Huffy in my parents' garage. I loved that bike. At one point, I promised to learn to weld so that I could just extend it as I grew. Never got around to that somehow....
Yeah.... 6th birthday. I opened the box to find a helmet (which I used about twice) and had a huge moment of disappointment and confusion before I was led to the basement to see it in all of its shining, red glory.
WHERE ARE THE LAWN DARTS????
Wow. I distinctly recall having a bicycle where you had to peddle backwards to brake and it got me into so many near accidents / one actual accident. It was really unpleasant. I was quite pleased when it retired and I got to ride a real bike with actual hand brakes.
What about lawn darts?
I had a "Flying Turtle" in the 70's. It sat about an inch off the ground. The rider sat on it and turned the handlebars left and right to make it move forward. And it moved FAST. The wheels were tiny which meant even the smallest of obstacle, like a pebble, sent you face first into the sidewalk. I lost a brand new adult tooth.
My parents still let me ride it. They tried to order replacement wheels for it but were told the product had been recalled.
Was it just a Deep South thing, or did we all have Daisy BB guns by the time we were 6? Hell, by 9 we were shooting pumps by Crosman, Benjamin, or Sheridan.
Spontaneous firefights erupted daily during the summer.
Glad I got the experience early, it helped me during 16 months in Iraq LOL
Those huffy's had brakes. Push gently back on the pedals and come to a gentle stop. Push back hard and brake hard. The author is making shit up.
I had a backwards pedal bike forever and never fell off. Then my parents got me a bike with hand brakes, first day I did a face plant into the backstop at our local ball diamond trying to "slide" into home plate. A few stitches never hurt anyone, 20 did though.
Two Words: Roller Racer
Lawn Darts!!! You could whip them 30 - 40 feet straight up and then run. I'm shocked we never got one embedded thru our skulls, this was with our parents sitting on the deck drinking their stubby beers making bets.
My first bike as a kid had only a coaster brake (the pedal-backwards-to-stop kind) and I never had a problem with it. What was so hard about it? Oh, and skidding was fun, especially when I learned how to skid sideways. :-)
My second bike was a hand-me-down with both a coaster brake and a regular caliper brake, both on the back wheel. I used the coaster to stop fast, and the caliper to slow down. My third was a real mountain bike, and only then did I have problems the first couple of weeks: I ran into things while frantically pedaling backwards.
Are you crapping me? Am I the only one to take a Hoppity Hop down the stairs?
I had all of those! Woot! I win!
All of my scars are healed.
I took the water gun to school a couple of times in both junior high and high school. That was long before Columbine. Oh, the innocent 80's!
My 3 yr old has the Big Wheel and the Sit n Spin. He also has a 2 wheel bike (non-huffy) but it has training wheels (does that count?). And while his water guns aren't terribly realistic (unless you are a cartoon space alien) it doesn't stop him from shooting everything that moves, water actually in the gun or not. He uses all that stuff as often as he can; does this mean I'm a good mommy? Or a bad one? *grin*
Alli
But wait, there IS a God--for your very own adult sized Big Wheels:
http://bigwheelrally.com/store/adult.htm
I kid you not: The Clacker! Don't believe me? Read this (Jan 5, 2006 entry)
http://doyouseethelight.blogspot.com/
One thing that you all should look up. Rip-Stick or The Wave as it's called. That's this generation's toy that'll mess you up. I'm in my 20s and work at a sporting goods store, and that display as cost one of my friends both of his teeth. And we still ride it daily. You should see all the "precious little snowflake" parents who are terrified of it though, it's great.
Yes, Skip-its! Remember? It was a plastic ring connected to a weight by a longer piece of plastic. You put the ring around one ankle and swung the weight, hula-hoop style, around and around, jumping over it with the other foot as it swung past.
Also, on slip-and-slides, you did hit something at the end of the slide. Grass. Grass burns are only second to asphalt burns. Nothing better prepared you for motorcycle road rash than a slip-and-slide.
I rode my big wheel until i was so tall that every time I made a turn, I took a bloody chunk out of my knee. I'm going to buy an adult sized one right now.
Jarts caused three child fatalaties over a 20 year period. Nothing to dismiss, however, a toy that was there in the 80s (and is still around today) is the back-yard trampoline. I believe they still injure over 150,000 children (under 14) every year.
I still have the shin length scars from a stupid 10 year old move of trying to ride my little brothers huffy bike down our hill of a driveway, those shit ass brakes did nothing but skid so to avoid traffic i was forced to plant both my knees in the gravel which only slowed the skid.
We had a ski chair. My parents ordered it from Creative Playthings. It was one rail with a seat board--you sat on the board as it went down the hill on the rail. I would go five feet and fall over. If I didn't fall over right away I would go to the bottom of the hill, crash into a car parked in the street, and then fall over.
About that time we also had something which was two hard plastic balls on a string--you would move your hand up and down to make the balls start banging against each other faster and faster, and then they would bang so fast you could hardly see them move in the blur--and oh the noise they made! It was really quite delightful. They were taken off the market cause some kids bashed in their temples ;-O
I grew up in the 50's and 60's. We had BB or pellet guns, until teenagers got REAL guns.
No one got killed 'cause that would cost you your guns!
One adventure was to REMOVE THE BRAKES from your bike;then look for a hill to test your nerve!
Older teens sought motorized transport. I had my first traffic citation at 13.
First time I switched from the 'reverse pedal to brake' bike to a bike with hand brakes, I rode it up a hill near the house, turning back to smile at my father and show him how proud I was of my new bike. Sadly, when I turned to look back I pulled the handlebar and angled the tire towards the hill. I went down, over one curb, crossed the street, and hit the other curb hard enough to land me on my back ten feet away. The whole trip I was backpedaling like a cartoon character. Scars are awesome.
still have a pogo ball at my parents house. still works, used it last time i was there.
The hard acrylic balls on two strings were called Click Clacks. I think I still have a pair.
What a bunch of sissies. You should have grown up in the 50's when we had chemistry sets with powdered magnesium. I nearly blew my brother's hand off when we made a cannon using the magnesium as gun powder.
I've got at least 3 pogo balls at my cabin. Those things still rule.
My two most dangerous toys were the blow dart and the sled.When i was 12 my friend spent 3 days in the hospital and had his head drained,because of a sledding accident.Everyone one of got shot with those metal razor tip blow darts to.good times
What about those hard plastic rockets that you would fill up with water and then use the hand pump to pressurize it and shoot it in the air???? Or at the back of your little sister's head.....Ahhhh, those were the days....
Okay so it originated in the mid
70's but was still in existance in the 80's but here it is ... the Johnny Bench Batter-up. This little batting practice gem was responsible for quite a few accidents, and the advent of the serious warning label ala .. for use with wiffleball bat only - I learned about warning labels after watching a friend swing, with a wooden bat .. basically across my face - nuff said (and now I return you to your childhood flashbacks already in progress)
What about chemistry sets? Can you still buy those today? I had one in the 80s and I remember being left alone in the basement with an alcohol burner and a bunch of fun chemicals like sulfur ... and ... I don't remember. i did burn a lot of sulfur, though. Once I made "glass" by putting silica and ... something ... in a spoon and holding it over the flame. Yeah, that was good, dangerous, unsupervised fun.
Actually, the back pedal breaks don't belong on the list... it's actually a safety feature. Kids below a certain age don't have hands strong enough to reliably use hand brakes, and so that's why little kids' bikes have back pedals instead.
Reminds me of a post I need to put on my blog of stupid stuff I did as a kid. Coming either this eve or in the morning - like killing my brother's horse when playing knights on bike by stabbing its "front legs." Awesome move over the handlebars occurs, especially when go fast down a hill!
oh the dangerous toys we had as children. I had an 1,001 electronics set that I blew up the capacitors on. I had the stretch armstrong with the goo. I remember my first 18 speed I got when I was in California. The bike was a Bianchi, fast, light, and dangerous. The tires had quick release on them and I didn't tighten it well enough, the first time I tried to go over a curb with it, the wheel fell off and I hit the forks. I flipped over the handle bars skidded about 20 feet on my face and cut my lip wide open.
I cut the damned breaks on the bike and never rode it again.
I use to do wheelies on my Huffy. Pull back hard enough and you'd fall on your back. Then I discovered reverse wheelies. Get up some speed, then shove your foot above the front tire under the front fork. Done right you could get the rear tire up and do a nice stall. Otherwise you'd just end up flipping over the bike and looking back just in time to see the bike flying at you. Childhood was brilliantly dangerous. And fun.
We had those great toy guns that shot little hard plastic disks that were inserted into the handle, which spring-fed the stack so they could be fired rapidly (and they were fired hard enough to sting). I don't think they sell them anymore, probably because some kids got shot in their eyes or something.
I remember the Lawn Darts. When I was a kid the real competition was to see how high you could throw them. I'm sure they caused a few injures back in the day. Too bad they're illegal to buy or sell now days.
All you pansies talking about how coaster brakes weren't effective... there are almost a million bikes in Amsterdam, I'd guess 80% of them have coaster (back pedal) brakes, and they work fine in and out of traffic. You just have to know how to use them. Oh yeah, no helmets here except for German and US tourists.
The single best thing about the back pedal brakes was watching an american kid, who was now living here in the UK try to learn how to use stick breaks. Especially when they couldn't rmember which was front and which was back.
Now that was how to break a kids head.
I remember throwing the acrylic Click-Clack balls like bolos. Having BB gun fights. And even more painful using the grass burrs we called 'sticker' for fights.
Coaster brakes were great! My friends and I would complete to see who could do the longest and loudest controlled skids.
Having a Big Wheels was good training for that, because if you whaled on the hand brake hard enough you could do similar skids. But I had my Big Wheels in the 70's.
Ah Click Clacks. Get them going fast enough, and it was like cicadas, only *louder*.
You Forgot to mention Lawn Darts! Giant Darts you throw at the lawn...hopefully your little sis was not laying on the lawn at the time...
How about those little guns that fired plastic discs, which would inevitably get replaced with dimes or pennies to do more damage? Perfect for all your lawsuit-inducing, eyeball-putting-out needs. ;)
I hated that damn pogo ball. First time I used it I damn near broke my ankle.
I didn't have a huffy per se but my first bike was too big for me and had backward pedal braking action. I didn't have problems braking on that bike. Had some near accidents when I got the handle brake bike, though. I remember having a clacker. Nothing like daring your school mates to stick their hand right in the sweet spot too see if they could with stand the pain. Didn't own a skip it, but I had friends that owned them. Even brought it to school and played with it during recess. We would also do pairs jumping, see if 2 people could avoid the weight at the end, with the built in counter to let you know how many revolutions were completed. Those were the days. Back before children were wrapped in bubble plastic. OH, and the Krazy Karpets!! Someone else mentioned the thin plastic that you use tobaggan style. My school's playground had a hill that we could use just for these in the winter. Many a kid got bloodied. Also we would purposely alter the course, ie, make a 'small' bump. Some parts of the hill were prone to being icy, those were the best parts.
Did anybody else make their big wheel have a flat side from pulling that brake really hard while going really fast?
Of course, this increased the fear (and danger) factor when going down that hill with your legs up. Ker---plunk, Ker---plunk, Ker--plunk, Ker-plunk, Kerplunk, Kerplunkaplunkaplunkaplunka......KKKSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH (braking)....I ended up with a half moon front wheel, pretty much.
Good times....
And then there were Jarts. Or the slip n slide. My first experience with it was landing directly on top of the pop-up sprinklers in my grandparents' back yard. OW.
Wowzers, I actually had EVERY SINGLE TOY LISTED! And, more suprisingly, lived to tell about it!
This post would be much better if it was funny.
My older brother totally shattered his elbow, using a Pogo Ball. We’re talkin’ bent-around-backwards, needed-surgical-reconstruction kind of damage. He still has trouble touching his own shoulder with his right hand.
i remember having the pogo ball. loved it. my mom thought it looked like so much fun that she tried it...and sprained her ankle.
also, slip-n-slides are the devil. i distinctly remember jumping on one & falling straight backwards onto my head. thinking about it, i should probably just feel lucky that i do, in fact, remember that.
I think they should bring lawn jarts back, only make them glow in the dark, so they are even more dangerous. That would be fun.
Those click clack balls were crazy, and I think they were made by Wam-O. All the good stuff was, but the name of the company should have warned us that there was pain involved!
Someone talked about the "Flying Turtle" and I didn't read all the comments left, so I'm not sure if someone answered this. But in the 80s, this was called the Roller Racer! Mine was red with silver handlebars with yellow ends. My dad even had a beer and roller raced around the long drive we had. The best and most dangerously impaling part was when you sat on it and let your friend push you from behind. On the street where I roller raced, our drives and sidewalks took small "dips" and became a great way to be thrown forward at the wooden fences lining the street, or the freshly graveled and tarred rural road. I refused to let my mom sell this toy in the garage sale and slept with it for weeks until she realized I wasn't letting go of it. It now hangs in my dad's shed and my niece and nephew used it as little kids. One day, my kids will get to experience the glorious Roller Racer, too!
Oh, God...and the Sit n Spins used to go so fast I always threw myself off into something. My mom made me sit in the door frame, so at least I'd slam into something from two sides w/o breaking something in the house. ha ha I had dreams of my Sit n Spin.
"Kung-Fu Joe said...
My older brother totally shattered his elbow, using a Pogo Ball. We’re talkin’ bent-around-backwards, needed-surgical-reconstruction kind of damage. He still has trouble touching his own shoulder with his right hand."
hahaha I thought my friend losing a piece of her big toe was bad on the Slip n Slide (and yeah, that was the last time dad let us use the Slip n Slide in our yard. However, it was ok to use it downhill in my uncle's pond)
I remember in '87 dressing up for a school "halloween day" as a gangster complete with 44 magnum BB gun and sholder holster. That is when they were all steel and heavy like the real thing and not painted with an orange tip. Even pulled it out on teachers and others with the whole 'eh-see, bugsy' routine.
Great day, everyone loved it, had an awesome time...
Today, I would have been caught at the metal detctor and shot by the security guard. w00t indeed.
Dude, we took those plastic sleds and rode down the STAIRS on them... onto the concrete floor in our basement. Brilliant.
I think the most dangerous thing in my childhood years wasn't toys, it was the stupid things we did. My brothers used to jump off a deck on the second floor of our house. Just jump off! We took shovels into the woods and built big bike jumps. In the woods, surrounded by trees, we would jump our dirt bikes!
I can't believe we have all our body parts to this day. But at least we were outside playing, which is more than I can say about today's kids.
The Skip It was originally the "Joggle" in the early 70's. I had one. And it had a wickedly HARD baseball sized ball on a sort of stretchy cord, with a slightly padded ankle ring. Loved it, mainly for beating my older brother. Hot Wheels anyone? My mother found the track strips quite useful for arm's length discipline. and Jarts....oh I so loved those!
What about Chemistry sets? A box full of poison, fire and glass. What could be morew fun?
I had everyone of these toys! Even played with lawn darts, slip-n-slides, bb guns etc. Total childhood goodness. My kid is now 17 and she's had a skip-it, slip-n-slide, my old sit-n-spin and my pogo ball and her dad's uzi watergun that still had working batteries (his mom took it away and hid it so we lucked out as adults when we found it). Plus those click-clacks and a pogo stick which both originally belonged to my older brother. She also has a gun that shoots plastic bb's and looks like a .45 except for the orange tip. Let me tell you those suckers HURT from closer than say 8 or 10 feet.
Gotta love childhood!!
I always wanted the Green Machine, but I was lucky enough to have an official 'CHiPs' big wheel that had a speaker and mic on the front so you could play the siren and tell your friends to pull over, lol. Black and orange with the streamers.
What about Lawn Darts. Those were the most dangerous toys ever created. Especially when parents with booze were involved...
Lawn darts!
Lawn Darts
lawn darts
Had a Green Machine, way cooler than the Big Wheel... had Jart's, too, and a cool wheeled rack of very sold heavy balls and hammers, too!
If peddle power (Big Wheels and Green Machines) were popular today instead of battery power maybe we wouldn't have the fattest kids in the world...
What about those clown heads you connected yo yhe water hose and had to dodge the Madusa like hoses swing violently around. My cousin wound up nearly losing an eye. She was fine after about 3 months (the entire summer vacation)
Klackers and Lawn Darts have got to be number one.
You could take out your little sister wit the Klackers like a Spanish Bolo, and the lawn darts...well they were too damn dull right out of the box...a little scraping on the concrete and you were good to go.
I also vote lawn darts and klackers. i had both. lawn darts were awesome. early klackers were glass--get them going so they klacked high and low really fast and they eventually exploded sending chunks of glass flying. lovely.
Nobody has mentioned "Tops". A bunch of kids standing in a circle hurling tops with tips sharpened like an ice pick. Sometimes they even hit where they were aiming.
My daughter has a Pogoball. She hops all around the house with it.
Ah what about our American Eagle sled with the steel runner blades. On a good hill that thing would take off and there was really no way to stop it and it was almost impossible to steer the thing. I almost lost my life a couple of times using that.
love big wheels? love this: the great Big Wheels Rally in the Valley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyl40tZAQdA
love those things
www.dimpmexico.com
The American Eagle sleds were the best and sharpest ever. Fifteen years ago my best friend and I decided to slide down a short hill where a chain link fence could stop us before we gained too much speed. We spun out before we reached the halfway mark. The blade sliced her lip open and I held on for dear life but swung around and kneed her in the mouth knocking her tooth loose. Man, good times!!
I loved my bigwheel, and my pogo ball! Was skip-it from the 80's? It might be early 90's, but I loved that too.
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