In the 1970s and much of the ‘80s, kids throwing deadly projectiles around the
backyard was considered good, clean fun. Lawn darts, or Jarts, were just one of
the “what they were thinking” toys children played with that could end in disaster.
Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, and this is the List Show. Today we’re going to rummage through the world’s
most dangerous toy box to discuss some of the deadliest toys in history, including Lawn Darts,
the surprisingly lethal Slip ‘n’ Slide, and some science kits that were way too well stocked. Fair
warning: a lot of the items in this episode are not the kind of fun, whimsical history we often
share on the channel—some really awful things came up researching this script. If you’re curious,
though, there are some interesting, if at times tragic, stories. Let’s get started.
A sort of a cross between traditional pub darts and horseshoes, the game of Lawn Darts involved
players tossing large, weighted metal darts with plastic fins up in the air to try to hit targets
placed at specific distances across the yard. It doesn’t take a psychic to predict that
children haphazardly hurling pointy projectiles across their lawns could go bad in a hurry—and
unfortunately, one California family found that out firsthand. In 1987, a 9-year-old boy
stumbled across some lawn darts in his family garage, part of an outdoor game set that his
dad had purchased. The boy and some neighborhood friends took the darts to the backyard to play—and
it wasn’t long before an overzealous throw launched one of the mini missiles
over the fence. The dart came down directly into the skull of the boy’s 7-year-old sister,
who had been playing in the front yard with her dolls. Some researchers estimated that the dart
hit her with a force of up to 23,000 pounds per square inch. She collapsed
soon after and died three days later. The tragedy spurred her father to launch
a crusade against Lawn Darts. In response to his lobbying, the Consumer Product Safety Commission
conducted research that uncovered more than 6100 lawn dart-related injuries in less than a decade;
more than 80 percent of those injuries happened to children ages 15 or younger,
and many of those injuries caused permanent damage to their head, eyes, or face.
With such damning evidence, Jarts were pulled from U.S. stores weeks before Christmas in 1988,
and Canada soon followed suit. They’ve been banned in both countries ever since, although a
spikeless version has found its way back to summer barbecues and backyard gatherings in recent years.
Thanks to YouTube commenter First Cynic for mentioning their experience with Lawn Darts
on our video about old-timey life hacks, along with two more toys we actually have
coming up later in this list. Honestly, props to First Cynic just for surviving into adulthood.
We’ve got an upcoming episode all about animal sex. Wish I had a more graceful way to say that,
but there you have it. If you know a fascinating fact about animal sex—non-human category—drop
it in the comments for a chance to be featured in that episode.
The Slip ‘N Slide was invented by a dad who, ironically, wanted to help his son have safe
summer fun. During the summer of 1960, Robert Carrier returned home from work to find that
his son and some friends had turned the hose on their painted concrete driveway,
creating a rudimentary waterslide on the sloped surface. Convinced they
were going to hurt themselves— because, ya know, concrete—Carrier soon constructed a similar setup
out of some vinyl-coated boat upholstery material and sewed a tube down the side for a hose.
The simple yet ingenious invention was sold to the Wham-O company and released in 1961. By September,
more than 300,000 slides had been sold. It didn’t take long for the injuries to start rolling in—but
surprisingly, it wasn’t just kids who were getting hurt. While some children were injured,
those injuries mostly amounted to bumps and bruises, with a few sad exceptions. For adults,
the consequences of taking a trip down the Slip ‘N Slide tended to be much more serious. Because
adults weigh more, they didn’t glide across the slick surface as easily as children. Instead,
they had a tendency to stop abruptly, causing the forward momentum to drive their body weight into
their necks. In extreme cases, this could—and did—result in neck injuries, quadriplegia,
paraplegia and even death. Reported injuries included at least six adults who suffered broken
necks, an 8-year-old who suffered brain damage, at least one death in the 1970s, and 5000 Slip ‘N
Slide-related injuries in 1988 alone. People were awarded millions of dollars for their injuries.
One takeaway? Heed the age limits printed on the box. They’re there for a reason.
Trampoline: The word that strikes fear into the heart of every insurance-paying homeowner.
But long before these bouncy platforms could be found in suburban backyards, they came to life in
the brain of 16-year-old gymnast George Nissen, who became fascinated with the safety nets used
under the trapeze after he visited a circus in 1930. He attempted to recreate the net’s spring by
dismantling his bed and stretching canvas across the frame, much to the dismay of his father.
Many prototypes later, the U.S. military used Nissen’s invention during WWII to
help train pilots to orient themselves after air maneuvers. NASA later adopted the trampoline to
help astronauts with conditioning for space. But it’s not these applications that generally
result in injury - it’s the backyard version that contributes most to the 100,000 trampoline-related
injuries that occur yearly. Most injuries happen when there are multiple kids getting
their jump on, which may also explain the increase in injuries at trampoline parks.
It’s all fun and games until someone breaks an arm - but unfortunately, a busted arm is the one
of the more minor trampoline injuries kids can experience. According to the American
Academy of Pediatrics, stunts gone bad can cause permanent cervical spine injuries.
In 1976 and ‘77, Eagle Family Discount Stores in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama
offered the “Gun Fighter” Toy Cork Gun for the bargain price of just $1.27. Of course, kids are
known for dismantling things, so it didn’t take long for them to discover that they could remove
the muzzle from the gun barrel and then take off the protective plastic plunger caps underneath,
which exposed the ends of two metal rods. If the cork gun was then discharged, the exposed metal
rods would shoot forward, potentially causing them to be propelled directly into a child’s
face or eyes. And yes, a 3-year-old boy did exactly that. The guns were recalled in 1979.
Victorian kids had it pretty rough to begin with—according to the BBC, kids in 1850s
England and Wales had a 25 percent chance of dying before reaching the age of 5. We can attribute
that astronomical mortality rate to a lot of things, including several cholera outbreaks. But
toys coated in lead paint certainly didn’t help matters—and if their toys weren’t coated in lead,
then they were often made *entirely* of lead. To be clear, we’ve been aware that lead is bad for a
really long time - even the ancient Romans knew what was up. Toy manufacturers continued to use
the metal because of its versatility, however, and most people believed that minimizing their
exposure was enough prevention. In fact, many people considered daily exposure to
lead relatively safe as long as the levels were low. As we now know, that thinking was flawed.
While we don’t know exactly how many kids have died after ingesting lead from a toxic toy,
we do know that, horribly, it still happens today. In 2006, a 4-year-old boy from Minneapolis
died from poisoning after putting a lead-laced trinket in his mouth. It *is* illegal for toys
to contain more than .06 percent concentration of lead, by weight, in their paints or coatings
and has been since 1978, but that doesn’t mean toys with higher concentrations aren’t out there:
In 2007 Mattel’s Fisher-Price recalled 1.5 million toys after the Consumer Product Safety
Commission alleged the company had imported and sold toys that tested for high levels of lead,
in some cases up 180 times more than the legal limit. The company paid $2.3 million in civil
penalties in 2009 but denied breaking any laws. Lead toys seem downright quaint when you
consider that one of the main components of the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab toy was
uranium. Released in 1950, the kit provided kids with everything they needed to conduct
more than 150 experiments—including four types of uranium ore, as well as beta-alpha,
beta, and gamma radiation sources. Fun instruments that came in the lab included a cloud chamber, a
device for watching atoms decay, and your very own Geiger counter. The 60-page instruction booklet
offered a guide to prospecting for uranium. Now, it was known at this time that uranium
was radioactive and that radiation was harmful. In 1927, Hermann Joseph Muller discovered that
radiation can cause harmful mutations; he won a Nobel Prize for related research in 1946.
That wasn’t enough to stop uranium from being included in this kit four years later;
the makers must have thought this strongly-worded warning was sufficient: “Users should not take ore
samples out of their jars, for they tend to flake and crumble and you would run the risk of having
radioactive ore spread out in your laboratory.” Apparently, the warning wasn’t enough to stop the
Atomic Energy Lab from getting shelved; it was pulled in 1951 after selling less than 5000 kits.
I don’t even know where to start with the number of things wrong with the “Zulu Toy Gun,” sold in
the late 1960s, but how about this quote from an ad for the toy: “A slight puff into gun and arrow
shoots with hurricane speed.” I know—it’s hard to imagine anything going wrong. Not only did
children load dangerous projectiles like needles into the gun, they also had a tendency to inhale
deeply before blowing out to shoot. A surge of plastic dart inhalations plagued ERs around
the country. In 1969, the National Commission on Product Safety rightly recommended that the toy be
banned - despite the “HARMLESS” proclamation that was once boldly printed on the box.
This one isn’t death by toy, exactly, but close enough: On June 16, 1883, more than one thousand
children showed up to enjoy a variety show being held at Victoria Hall in Sunderland,
England. All was going well until the end of the event, when free toys started to be distributed
in the main pit. As you might imagine, the kids in the gallery excitedly sprang from their seats and
ran to the exit. When they arrived, however, they found that the exit door had been bolted in place
to allow one child through at a time, a measure intended to keep things orderly.
Tragically, it was anything but. Not knowing of the bottleneck at the front of the line,
hundreds of children stampeded down the stairwell to the exit, trampling the kids who were trapped
at the door, unable to pass through. Reportedly, a man on the other side eventually managed to
wrench the door off of its hinges, but the damage was done. In the end, 183 children
died of asphyxiation or being crushed to death. The entire country was rocked by this avoidable
accident; even Queen Victoria sent a donation to help cover funeral costs. But as tends to
happen with such awful incidents, some good did eventually come of it—it’s said that push
bars were invented to ensure easy exit from buildings, and Parliament passed a law that
required all public buildings to have multiple outward-opening doors that were easy to open.
That’s good news for those of us who lived through more recent toy crazes, such as the Tickle Me
Elmo terror from the mid ‘90s and the Cabbage Patch Riots of 1983—yes, that was a thing.
That’s it for today’s List Show! And remember: always read *all* of the instructions,
pay attention to age limits, and don’t conduct nuclear fission without a trusted adult nearby.