I hand picked these 10 Totally Terrifying Toys for your reading and visual cortex massage. Lists like this are just this are just guilty pleasures and fun. I thought we all needed a little escape blog today…there a video too!
BIG LOO
Coming in at #10 is Big Loo by Marx. He was advertised as your "Friend from the Moon" and stood at over 3 foot tall. He was $9.99 and could do everything and anything a kid could want...he had a sight scope with cross-hairs, two flashing battery-powered red eyes, a hand-cranked mechanical voice box that played 10 messages, two rubber-tipped darts that were fired from triggers on his back, a left arm that held four red balls which were fired from his elbow, and a right arm that had a grasping claw. Oh wait...there's more...1 of his feet was equipped with a spring-powered rocket. He also could squirt water from his navel and had a compass, whistle, bell, Morse code clicker with and could bend at the waist. That's awesome...I wish I had a Big Loo...he falls in to my "Ridiculous Category as all his features, were simply ridiculous."
LITTLE MISS NO NAME
Number #9 creeps into my Terrifying Category....introducing Little Miss No Name. Apparently, Hasbro decided in 1965 to creep out your daughters...the Big Eye Kid and Doll fad of the 1960s was personified or dollified in this gem. Just when Barbie was getting into full swing with all her glam, accessories and goodies, Hasbro decided to release a shoeless girl with only a burlap sack dress. Marketing genius, well apparently no. She didn't sell well...which apparently made her sad. You'll be happy to know that she was later offered as a $3.99 mail in offer on Borden's Instant Chocolate Milk Powder.
MILKY THE MARVELOUS MILKING COW
And speaking of Milk...#8 is Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow from 1977. I was 6 then and remember watching the commercial during a pre-Christmas Saturday morning scooby doo and even then, thinking...who the hell would want this toy. I believe it was a school bus joke of ours and when of the local boys got one, he was ridiculed for the rest of the school year. Oh Milky, you have a special place in my memory banks.
GROWING UP SKIPPER
Okay...we have a few inappropriate or just kind of awful feeling one's coming up and #7 would probably "enrage the twitter" if it was made today....it Mattel’s 1974 Growing Up Skipper...The advertising geniuses marketed her as "2 dolls in 1 for twice as much fun" as she had a "super power"... Skipper would grow taller and develop small breasts when her left arm was rotated forward, transforming her from a "cute little girl to a tall, curvy teenager"...yup, creepy language, right from the box. Don't know how people would take her today...but that's Kind of like watching reruns of Archie Bunker's Character in All in the Family.
BREAST MILK BABY
I do have an Honorable Mention from 2011...Breast Milk Baby...the doll that you would breast feed. I decided not to do a full feature as the pictures online I felt were fairly awful. Here you'd put on a bra with sensors that would make the baby breast feed. Yes...this was released and sold in the US.
PIE IN THE FACE
Shake that off and lets get in to "family fun ?" with #6 and it's Pie Face from 1968 and was by Hasbro again. A fun game where you each take your turn with the threat of having a piece smashed in your face. That sounds like a great time. They actually reissued this game as no generation of families should ever miss out on this chance for self-inflicted drama at the kitchen table.
CLACKERS
And speaking of the potential for violence...#5 is Clackers, c. 1970...if you know what these are, and I mean the real ones. Hard Acrylic Glass Balls on strings with a metal ring, you know what pain is. Most often they turned in to weapons, or shattered, or were used by the neighborhood bully or....insert your experience here....but if you don't, these babies were a blast, until they weren't and loud ! Clackers made parents insane throughout the 1970s and kept emergency rooms well-staffed.
JARTS
I just want to give an Honorable Mention to JARTS...the lawn dart game that often went horribly wrong. Today, original sets are valuable and can pull in a $100 or 2 online. I've never met anyone 40+ that has had a lawn dart injury story to tell or know someone that does.
ET FINGER LIGHT
Alright, the next two will not take much explaining of the disturbing nature of these toys....#4 is the ET Finger Light from 1982...this toy was quickly pulled from shelves and replaced with the ET Whole hand version....better, I guess.
DORA AQUA PET
I have an honorable member here too...it's the Dora the Explorer Aqua pet. This got thru a design committee, the marketing department, corporate and they all thought.... yes, great kids’ toys.
BATMAN WATER GUN
Okay that leads me to #3 and maybe the same marketing team worked here.... it’s the Batman Squirt Gun...sound harmless...fill with water and squirt...these didn't last long on the shelf.
DADDY SADDLE
Here’s a terrible segue….Being a new Dad...you may or may not know, I just became a new Dad at 48...and she's now 17 months old… let’s just say I am so glad they don’t make these anymore...at #2 is Kenner's Daddy Saddle...a classic from 1965 the advertised "for hours of the most exciting fun any child and parent ever had." Really...hours of this kind of fun is back surgery for one of the people involved. I do like the line "fits any size daddy."
U-238 ATOMIC ENERGY LAB
But here's my absolute winner and one I have told people about before and know a few people don't believe me...this is real and my Number #1 by the AC Gilbert Co, famous makers of the classic Erector Sets comes the U-238 Atomic Energy Lab Kit...released in 1950 this kit allowed children to create and observe nuclear and chemical reactions using radioactive material. Now Gilbert made other Chemistry Kits and Labs that had potentially dangerous substances if instructions were not followed but this was another level. This kit actually gave children radioactive materials to play with. It has been ranked #2 on the most dangerous toys ever made. I believe it was only number 2, to Lawn Darts #1 because of the numbers of injuries inflicted. The set was never popular and was soon taken off the shelves. Fewer than 5000 kits were sold. It was quite expensive for its time. $49.50 which would be over $500 today.
My favorite "experiment" the kit suggested was to play hide and seek with the gamma ray source and challenge your friends to use the Geiger counter to locate a radioactive sample hidden in the room....I guess it was better than the game, can you guess the color of the lead paint by tasting it ?
Anyway, There you go.....as promised, I gave you my picks of Totally Terrifying Toys. I know there are more out there and that’s what sequels are for...please like, click subscribe, and place your comments below. Please feel free to share some of your strange facts with me....all my contacts and social media links are below.
If you enjoyed this blog and or video....go check out one of my last Toy Blogs & Videos...
Until next time, my friends!
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