In keeping with its holiday tradition, Pink Slip is once again merry – if that’s the right word – to report on W.A.T.C.H.’s (World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc.) “10 Worst Toys” of the year.
Before I run down the list, I will make my annual statement about being a survivor of the Great Postwar Era of Dangerous Toys.
Many of us Baby Boomers grew up the children of deprived parents: poor, semi-orphaned, newly immigrated, Depression kids who were lucky to find a pair of socks, a mold-covered orange, or a sack to drown kittens in under their tree. So, having survived both cheerless Christmases and World War II, they were delighted to ply their kids with all sorts of toys – danger be damned.
Half the boys in the ‘hood had air rifles, and if you don’t think a poodle’s behind caves in when shot point-blank with a fully loaded air rifle, you have another thought coming.
And speaking of poodles, I had a toy poodle whose googly eyes popped out if you gave them the mildest of fingernail flicks. Which would have been okay if those googly eyes hadn’t been connected to something that resembled a cork screw. Instant weapon!
Other toys plugged in and heated up to Bessemer degree so you could bake, iron, or mold liquid plastic goop into some sort of object. One Christmas, some kid in my house got a kit that enabled us to commit pyrography on unsuspecting Latigo leather. (I can still remember what it smelled like.) Ninety percent of boy toys involved some sort of violence, and I’m sure that parents didn’t pause for a second before grabbing a couple of rubber daggers – say, these look like fun! – off the Woolworth’s toy counter for their sons’ stockings. (Oops, almost typed stalking there…) Not that rubber daggers were dangerous – at least the ones from Woolworths’s – way too floppy to take an eye out with.
Yes, the toys of my childhood were plenty dangerous, stopping just short of being dry-cleaner bags with instructions to place over head and inhale.
Then again, the children of my childhood were pretty much capable of turning anything, even the toys that weren’t projectiles and/or weapons, into projectiles and/or weapons. And I suspect that this hasn’t changed all that much over time.
That said, today’s dangerous toys don’t seem all that dangerous to me – not when compared to an air rifle that could cave a dog’s butt in.
This is perhaps because parental consciousness and toy-maker awareness have been raised by W.A.T.C.H.
Still, the bad toy, bad toy list is definitely worth a run-through.
First up, a magnetic fishing game, the kind of cheapo-deapo stocking stuffer that folks throw in the basket a
t the last moment. The problem is that, while the packaging says 3 years an up, online, it was marked as appropriate for children 16 months an over. (I checked on Amazon: it now says “not recommended for children under three”). Both the packaging and W.A.T.C.H. agree that this toy represents a choking hazard for tiny tots. My bottom line is that this is a completely awful piece of flimsy junk that should probably not be sold anywhere. Yet it is sold (in bulk) on Amazon, and it no doubt makes its way into dollar stores, street vendors, church fairs where, sadly, someone without much money and/or someone moving too fast to process that this is a completely awful piece of flimsy junk, might actually buy it.
I was sorry to see something called the Toys ‘R Us Bongo Ball on the list, as it looks like a lot o’ fun. The Bongo Ball is a large inflatable ball (with multiple inflatable chambers, which seems like it would be a pain in the butt to blow up) that kids can climb into and bounce around in. In my day, we only had appliance cartons to roll down the hill in, and they were square, not round, so you didn’t bounce, you splatted, when you came to edge of the hill that ended in a four foot high cement wall, and proceeded to hit the sidewalk.
W.A.T.C.H. points out that the Bongo Ball requires adult supervision - rather than the mixed message that the toy and its packaging send, bouncing back and forth between that adult supervision being “required” vs. “recommended.” Plus, W.A.T.C.H. warns, there’s a “potential for impact and other serious injuries.” (In my day, appliance cartons did not come with warnings about adult supervision. Of course, in those days, any play that occurred outside of the house did not merit any adult supervision, other than the occasional mother at the kitchen sink or nosey, buttinski neighbor.)
There must be something about online warnings that just don’t make sense, because W.A.T.C.H. has picked up on the rapidfire Quickfire 12 Dart Gun, which comes with an online recommendation for 7 months to 5 years. Well, there are just no words for anyone who’d put this in the hands of a child 7 months to 5 years of age. And anyone who has even a scintilla of concern that their 6+ child that the packaging recommends this for might not heed the warnings “do not shoot at people or animals…do not shoot at any one's eyes or face" might want to take a pass. I’m with W.A.T.C.H. on this one. Dart guns are just asking for trouble. You really could shoot someone’s eye out with that.
The Shark 4-Wheel Kneeboard is a steerable, low-riding skateboard that kids kneel on, which is not supposed to be used on “sloped or hilly surfaces”, on streets, or “in proximity to motor vehicles.” There’s also a duh! warning that “kneeboards can and are intended to move, and it is therefore possible to get into dangerous situations and/or lose control and/or fall off.”
So, quasi fun in the basement, quasi fun in the park, but not for the real world. Before I make too much fun of this – one of our great sports as kids was cramming a bunch of kids into old baby buggies and pushing them down a hill – I will observe that there is a lot more traffic on the streets than there was in the day when a family had one car, which dad took to work each day. Kids had the run of the mostly empty streets. Not so these days. So, while this looks like a fun item, it’s all too easy to envision a kid hurtling unseen under the wheels of a car.
The Explore & Learn Helicopter looks innocuous enough, but that 24 inch cord is too long for W.A.T.C.H. Fine if the 12
month old is actually pulling it; not so fine if it finds its way into crib or playpen, where that 24 inch cord can get tangled up, and, far worse, a baby could get strangled up. Sounds like this one would only work with attentive caregivers.
You don’t need to un-sell me on the N-FORCE VENDETTA DOUBLE SWORD, which comes with the ludicrous warning “do not poke or swing at people or animals…use away from breakable objects.” What, pray tell, does the manufacturer imagine that an 8 year old boy is going to poke or swing at? Then again, most 8 year old boys are perfectly capable of turning anything into a weapon. So if toy swords are outlawed, only outlaws will have toy swords. The rest will be armed with sticks.
Again, the Water Balloon Launcher from Water Sports (don’t go there) has an online age recommendation of 8-15 months. (Doesn’t anyone double-check work any more?). The packaging says age 16 and over, which seems almost equally silly, since a water balloon launcher is squarely aimed at the 8 – 12 demographic. And why would anyone need to buy a water balloon launcher, when most 8 – 12 year olds come equipped with a perfectly good one: their throwing arm. Anyway, W.A.T.C.H. doesn’t like this one because of the possibility for facial injury and, I guess when used by an 8 month old, choking. I don’t like it because a manually propelled water balloon strikes me as allowing just the right mix of aggression and force, without compounding the force factor.
The Playful Xylophone is sold at Magic Beans, a decidedly upscale chain where I have shopped, and where 
I would have presumed that everything was carefully vetted. The problem W.A.T.C.H. finds is in that detached drumstick which “could be mouthed and occlude a child’s airway.”
I could actually have seen myself considering this for an upcoming first birthday for a certain someone. Thanks for the warning!
The Avengers Gamma Green Smash Fists pretty much land in the same category as the Vendetta sword. As the W.A.T.C.H. warning has it:
These oversized fists, resembling those of a popular Marvel comic book and movie character, are sold to enable three year olds to “be incredible like The Hulk” by “smashing everything that gets in [their] way!” No warnings or cautions are provided.
On the other hand (sorry, fist), unlike with the Vendetta sword, there is no ready substitute for these smash fist. So if you don’t want your 5 year old “smashing everything that gets in [their] way!”, don’t buy them Gamma Green Smash Fists.
What is there to say about the Rangers Super Samurai Shogun Helmet that doesn’t begin and end with “poke an
eye out”? Better to channel your child’s inner nice kid by getting him (or her) one of those goofy soft hats that look like a bear or a lion or a Rastafarian.
Anyway, the bottom line is that, when it comes to buying toys, you better W.A.T.C.H. out – and you better not cry if you go out and buy any of these toys. You have been WARNED…
And, me, I have been WARNED, too. Three of the kiddies under the age of 6 on my list are getting magazine subscriptions, and the other’s getting a jacket with an appliqued fire engine on it.
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Here’s last year’s post on the W.A.T.C.H. list.
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