Today, well not exactly today, I was thinking about my childhood and in doing so I had an epiphany. For most of my life I had considered my childhood to have taken place in a more care free time when people were less frightened and scared of the world around them. Upon looking back I realized I was horribly, horribly mistaken. There is now one fact that I hold true since about 5 minutes ago; every toy was DESIGNED TO KILL ME. This might be hard to follow and you might not believe me at first but, I hope the memories flood back in terror. To make this journey easier I have decided to break these “toys” down into two categories, Edibles and Recreation. Lets dive into this thing.
Edibles
Now you may be thinking, edibles? Yes, edibles. Like all children we do dumb things and this does not stop with just the conventional toys. Think back to all the crazy ass stuff they made us want to buy.
1. Gak
(Suck it up, and squirt it out.)
Look at this stuff. Nickelodeon made being slimed and “gaked” the coolest thing ever growing up. You dreamt of one day going to universal studios (in Orlando, Florida) and standing near the slim geyser (rest in peace). If you were like me you wanted to be on Double Dare or You Can’t Do That on Television and hang out with the cool kids and tell jokes from INSIDE your locker, and what always happened….people got slimed. Tons. Of. Slime. So naturally, I tasted it. Yes, I put this substance into my mouth (I was not a smart child) and with child safety standards on toys being nonexistent in those days this stuff most likely caused brain damage. It was basically the lead paint of our day.
2. Squand
(Squiggle it?)
This stuff defied the laws of physics. I think most people don’t need a refresher on what Squand is but if you do, here it is. Squand was a “substance” that was sand outside of water and solid in water. You could make all sorts of things, like castles and….castles, in a fish tank. You can’t tell me that some child did not ingest this mystery substance, a substance that was more than likely made by some other child in a factory in a country where they have apparently the amount of common sense as America at this point in time. Luckily I never owned this fine product or it too would have went right into my mouth hole.
3. The Ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(The secret is in the Ooze.)
I could go on for days with this topic, but I’ll end Edibles with Ooze. Ooze was made by the devil. If you even got this stuff near your clothing it would stick, smear, and leave a discolored mark. Also, if you threw it onto a wall/ceiling it would leave a grease spot that would last a decade. Like every boy-child my age I loved the ninja turtles and wanted to be one. My next thoughts were, “how did the turtles become mutant?” Answer, Ooze. The inevitable conclusion? I smeared this crap on myself in an attempt to, I don’t know, turn myself into a turtle? I can only imagine the crap they put in this that seeped into my pores. They said it was safe, but I have my doubts.
Honorable mentions:
Doctor Dreadful Labs (all of them)
Recreation
You remember the days of fun in the sun without a care in the world, hangin’ with your BFF’s? (gotta make it hip for the kids) For all of you who don’t remember these, which will be maybe 2% of the people who read this, there was a time we did not have cell phones, and iOS games, AND we had to actually interact with other living things. The toys we used to were death traps.
1. Pogo balls/Skip It/Moon Shoes
I don’t know about you when you were growing up, but I was awkward. I could barely run fast in regular shoes without eating it hard when I had to turn fast. So, what did my parents buy me? All three of these things.
(I was not a Pogo Ball master.)
The Pogo Ball….what? words don’t describe the grace these kids have in the commercials. They’re flying around effortlessly with this thing. As for me I could barely stand on one let alone hop around like an asshole.
(Do run. do jump. do hop hop?)
Next we have the Skip-it, or as I like to call it, the “lacerate your ankle with a small piece of plastic”. If you managed to even get this thing moving, which I still can’t do to this day, you better wear high ass socks, or your ankles are going to be raw, and red and possibly bloody. Pay no attention to the young children racking up a million spins in the commercial…Did I mention in the commercial two kids are using this at the same time, and NOT falling on their face?
(From the creators of Squiggle Ball, whatever the hell that is.)
Moon Shoes, I don’t even think I need to explain this one. People got together and said, “you know what accident prone children need? TRAMPOLINES on their feet!” Great job, let me start the slow clap. Have you ever put a pair of these things on? They are impossible, and these kids once again are basically running around in them, and jumping rope. I have an idea, we should just design a super toy to guarantee physical injury. We can combine the Moon Shoes and a Skip-it and while your doing all of that you can jump on your Pogo Ball and blast into outer-space.
2. The Slip n’ Slide
(From Wham-O.)
Ah yes, the Slip n’ Slide, for all the hot summer days. Or, as I like to call this one, “the brush burn factory” or the, “slide too fast into the large rocks that the slide is inevitably laying on top of”. If you could avoid the rocks, you couldn’t avoid the part of the slide in which the water did not touch. That was real fun on the skin. It reminds me of my friend Phil’s skin sliding across a linoleum floor (another story for another time). But wait, if that didn’t get you the first 100 times you slid, how about the, “I went too fast and slid into the grass and then the rocks challenge.”
3. Socker Boppers
(I thought they were “Sockem” Boppers for my whole life.)
This is the one toy that everyone who owned wanted to play with all the time. After all the other things mentioned above, why not just punch each other in the face as hard as we can with plastic balloons around our hands? No one in the history of Socker Boppers ever fought with these things like the kids in the commercial. My friends and I BRUTALLY beat each other with these things, and that is what was called fun.
Honorable mentions:
Too many to list.
After all of that being said I loved my childhood, and all of the stupid shit we had to play with.
-SG
Scared Bunny 