• From sky-dancing Barbies that can cut your face open, to sticks that can gouge out
your eyeballs, we count 15 dangerous and ridiculous toy ideas to get recalled en masse
15 - Easy Bake Oven • These were originally made for kids in
the 1960s when companies noticed they liked to mimic things adults do, so they'd manufacture
toy cars or, in this case, a cooking appliance • And apparently kids also liked getting
their fingers burnt off, which we can see here with the Easy Bake Oven
• In 2007, Hasbro recalled almost a million ovens after 200 reports of kids jamming their
appendages in the oven's opening, and a 5 year old girl whose finger got partially amputated
from severe burns • I'd like to believe her finger got stuck,
and she didn't willingly sit for hours wondering why her skin seemed to be melting off
14 - Clackers • These came out in the 70s, and they're
still around today - two rock-hard balls held together by cords with a design inspired by
nothing sexual • The problem with Clackers is that they're
adept at caving in your face, breaking off teeth and causing violence on par with acts
of terrorism • In fact, the design was so shoddy that
most of the time the ball would break off the string and go flying off to break some
expensive china or kill a small infant • They weren't technically recalled, just
redesigned to be safer, so you might still encounter these in dark alleyways
13 - Aqua Dots • You know these - the small jewellery beads
you glue together under water to form patterns • What you didn't know is that they could
also be used to drug and rape women at nightclubs • In 2007, it was discovered that the glue
contained chemicals that metabolised into GHB, the date-rape drug
• The toy's manufactorer blamed a Chinese subcontractor and recalled all 4.2 million
Aqua Dot kits, then rebranded them Pixos still available today
• So if you're ever in a dark nightclub and you manage to avoid the Clackers, be wary
what jewellery might end up in your drink 12 - Plush Toy Uterus
• A common gift for any child, this adorable female genitalia toy was manufactored by I
Heart Guts - and while you might think it was recalled because someone came along and
said it was inappropriate, no, the truth is those ovaries could be detached and transformed
into a choking hazard for infants • Yes, that which gave the child life could
also take it away with a big smile on its face
• Thankfully they voluntary recalled it and released a new version that probably can't
kill you
11 - Barbie Sky Dancers • A lot of people should remember this one,
I know I certainly do since my sister was always catapulting them through the air where
they'd spin all the way to the ground • And now I've just learned these twirling
death machines caused innumerable blindness, broken teeth, facial lacerations, concussions
and even comas in kids - so now I feel quite lucky to be alive
• Almost 9 million were recalled in the year 2000, and the bloodshed concluded
10 - Lawn Darts • Nothing spells death like throwing a weighted,
sharp, metallic flying object at your sibling only for it to impale them because, whoops,
someone gave you a lawn dart • These came out in the 70s, when dangerous
toys seemed to roam freely, and it took 18 years and three deaths for Health & Safety
officials to realise that maybe giving infants a metal tipped projectile wasn't the smartest
thing to do • Ideally you throw the dart at a ring on
the ground, but this was clearly not so, thus: not only were these darts recalled - they
were banned forever 9 - Burger King Pokeballs
• This one is just ridiculous and just shows how far kids are willing to go to suffocate
themselves • The pokemon craze, mid to late 90s, Burger
King hands out pokeball toys with little figures inside, not really a problem and we all remember
this promotion • But somehow, heaps of kids were getting
half the ball stuck between their nose and mouth, choking themselves to death with 3
inches of plastic • I don't even...
I can't...
I don't understand 8 - Inflatable Baby Boats
• This one happened not too long ago - 2009, a scumbag move by company Aqua-Leisure who
designed these floaty boats for infants • There was a problem with the leg straps,
they would tear and the child would sink straight through it and drown
• Over four million boats were recalled after Safety officials found out Aqua-Leisure
had KNOWN about the issue for 6 years and done nothing - they were fined $625,000
• Personally, I would've made their employees sail across the Pacific Ocean on a boat filled
with holes, but I guess a fine works too 7 - Dive Sticks
• These are thrown into a pool with certain number scores printed on them - the objective
is to dive under the water and collect as many as you can before they sink to the bottom
• The obvious conclusion you might come to is, well, kids are drowning looking for
all the damn sticks - but you're wrong • The reason these were recalled?
Impalement, oh yes, eye gouging - these sticks butcher up kids aged between 6 and 9
• You can still get them today, but they've been redesigned to not carve up your face
meat 6 - Yo-Yo Water Balls
• Or more commonly known as explosive suffocation bombs - some of these balls were made of a
flammable diesel hydrocarbon, which means if you take it near an open flame, the ball
will ignite and the fire will climb the yo-yo rope to burn your finger off - not an ideal
way to spend a Sunday afternoon • Likewise, the long stretchy cord has been
known to strangulate people from time to time - and there's even a health & safety law prohibiting
yo-yo water ball cords over 500mm in length in Australia
• That's IF you've survived a Clacker assault in a nightclub with one hand cupped over your
beer glass 5 - Mini-Hammock
• More strangulation for the little guys, a problem for children in the years 1984 through
1995 • These tiny hammocks didn't come with a
spreader bar like you'd expect in a full-sized version, which meant they'd get twisted in
the net until they lose all oxygen • It got so bad that one child even suffered
permanent brain damage from oxygen loss, prompting 3 million hammocks to get recalled
• The ones that didn't go back are now thrown over bombs to choke the blast
4 - CSI: Fingerprint Examination • A way to let your infant children participate
in a gruesome murder show without even seeing a dead body
• The powder used to examine fingerprints contained asbestos - and the toy makers didn't
even care, when told to take it off the shelves, they refused because the Christmas rush was
about to start • The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organisation
replied, nup, nup, you think you can do this, but, you're wrong - and they filed a civil
action lawsuit to stop sales of the kit 3 - Toy Penguin Figures
• On the surface, this one looks alright - just a cutesy penguin that jingles when
you shake it • Then one kid wanted to see how it worked,
so he pulled the penguins head off and exposed a series of sharp, deadly nails holding everything
together • So the kid was all like, nup, you THINK
you can lacerate me, but nup • The company recalled thousands of these
penguins in 2008 2 - Spanish Barbie
• Everyone knows Barbie, a massive age-old collectors series of dress-up models
• Then one day, along comes Spanish Barbie wearing the typical matador's costume wielding
a red sheet on her arm • So then everyone turned around to say,
hey come on, you can't portray the costume worn when bulls are slaughtered en masse for
the amusement of a crowd on a Barbie - or any other doll
• Thousands wrote to Mattell asking them to discontinue the toy, including actress
Alicia Silverstone 1 - Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
• Well, geez, why was this one recalled?
It couldn't be because the kit included actual Uranium, and order forms so you could actually
get MORE Uranium delivered to your house - could it?
• This children's lab set came with real radioactive material, and you could witness
mist trails created by particles of ionizing radiation - and nobody took a step back to
say, well, actually, now that I think about it, maybe we SHOULDN'T irradiate our children