If parents could ban a toy, it would probably be that little
shark that keeps singing that one song…over and over and over again.
But countless toys have wound up in permanent time out over the years.
Some were defective. Some were offensive. And some…were even deadly.
Many of the most popular toys let kids pretend to be grown-ups. That was the enduring appeal
of the Easy-Bake Oven, which let kids safely make small baked goods out of cake mix and molds. Well,
semi-safely. The toy was on the market since 1963, but in 2007 it suddenly became very hard to find.
Hasbro received many reports of kids getting their fingers burned or caught
in the front-loading door, and voluntarily pulled it from the market. It was eventually
re-released - but with added safety features and a much smaller entry
that didn’t let kids anywhere near the heating element. Bake away, kids - carefully.
Sometimes, even the simplest toys can be hazards.
They didn’t get much simpler than Clackers. A pair of spheres attached to a string,
they were played with by swinging them around, making a large clacking sound
when they smacked together. It seemed like a harmless game and a way to annoy mom or dad,
and the worst that could happen was a bruise when a clacker went in the wrong direction - right?
Wrong! Clackers were originally made out of tempered glass, and they would eventually
shatter. Nothing says playtime like some shrapnel, right? They were pulled from the
market not long after their 1968 introduction and replaced with a plastic version.
Sometimes, a little error can cause a big problem.
Polly Pocket was a popular toy line in the 1990s and beyond,
playsets featuring a little girl who can shrink. And it was tiny things that caused
one toy’s undoing. The Quick-Clik Polly Pocket was designed to let kids accessorize her in seconds
with outfits with magnets in them - but the magnets hadn’t been glued on properly. They
were starting to come loose with regular play, which not only made the toy useless but raised
the risk that kids or their little siblings might eat the magnets and have to undergo
emergency surgery. From then on kids would have to accessorize their dolls the old-fashioned way.
Teachers everywhere were probably happy this next product went away.
Slap bracelets were one of those weird fads that only 90s kids would understand.
A flat strip of layered, flexible metal covered with a colorful coating made of fabric,
silicone, or plastic, it didn’t look like much - until you slapped it against your wrist.
The impact would make the bracelet curl into an instant bracelet, and it became a must-have
fashion item for kids everywhere. The problem was, not all slap bracelets were created equal. Many
used steel that was too thin or inferior covers, and the metal would break or tear out and cut the
user. Bandages were NOT a great fashion accessory, and this led to school bans and recalls.
This next one seems like a bad idea.
If you were going to build a floatation device for small children, especially babies,
you’d probably want it to be pretty secure, right? Which made it all the more shocking when
Aqua Leisure’s inflatable Baby Boat proved to be lacking in exactly that area. Sure,
the colorful little inflatables looked adorable and made for irresistible mommy blog photos,
but the leg straps had a flaw that meant at any moment the baby could drop straight out of the
boat into the water. While thankfully no children drowned, there were enough close calls that the
government issued a recall of four million boats and fined the company over half a million dollars.
This next one may be familiar to movie fans.
What is Flubber? It’s most famous for being the title of a 1997 Robin Williams
film about a wacky scientist who invents a bouncing goo - but it was actually a real
toy decades before. In the 1960s, the bouncing goo was sold to slime-loving kids everywhere,
but it didn’t live up to its promise of being non-toxic and harmless.
Kids who played with it started coming down with sore throats and rashes,
and it was determined it caused an inflammation of hair follicles. The product was recalled,
but there was so much of it that Hasbro couldn’t burn it due to the toxic fumes it would create.
No one knows what happened to it, but legends say it was buried at one of their warehouses.
This next one went flying off the shelves - but also sent kids flying.
Which kid wouldn’t like to jump like Shaq? That was one of the big selling points of Moon Shoes,
novelty footwear that was packed with trampoline-like springs in the base.
The original 1970s models had powerful springs which sent kids flying down the street. They
caused a multitude of broken legs and ankles - no doubt boosting orthopedists’ business - but
could also send kids flying into objects head-first and causing more serious injuries.
The moon shoes were eventually pulled off the shelves, returning in the 1980s with a
safer model which had much less jumping power. They’re still on the shelves,
but given how rarely you see kids wear them, the danger might have been the appeal.
Water toys are always popular - but some go terribly wrong.
Wham-O is one of the most iconic toy makers in the United States, but one of their 1960s inventions
had terrible fallout. The Water Wiggle was a simple toy - a hose with an aluminum jet nozzle
and a silly plastic face attached. When hooked up to the main hose, it would flop around and shower
kids with water on a hot day. The problem is - kids put things where they’re not supposed to.
The extra hose’s nozzle was just the size to fit in a kid’s mouth,
and two young children died from drowning because of this in the 1970s. Ultimately,
Wham-O decided to pull more than two and a half million Water Wiggles from the market.
A new soft plastic one was later introduced - but most reviews indicate it just doesn’t work.
They had other products to fall back on - but they weren’t without problems.
What kid doesn’t have fond childhood memories of the slip-and-slide?
You and your siblings are sliding away on a hot day, and sure, you might crash into a few things,
but young bodies are made to take it. That’s the key word - young bodies. The iconic Wham-O toy is
little more than a plastic sheet that becomes very slippery when wet. When it debuted in the 1970s,
it became a hit - but when teenagers and adults used it, some turfed out
and suffered serious neck injuries. This led to it being taken off the market and retooled,
and the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued warnings that it’s not to be used by adults.
That hasn’t stopped it, though - thirty million slides were sold in 2011 alone.
This next one probably led to the creation of a common warning.
“You’ll shoot your eye out!” Not only is it an iconic line from a beloved movie,
but it’s something kids have heard any time they even look at a toy gun.
That was probably the appeal of the Wham-O Air Blaster Gun. Can’t shoot your eye out
if there’s no ammo - the gun used compressed air to blast things off the shelf and make
a dramatic sound. Maybe a bit too dramatic - not only did the gun annoy parents to no end,
but there were reports that kids were damaging each others’ eardrums by aiming it at close range.
Ultimately, Wham-O voluntarily recalled the product. You’ll shoot your…ear out?
Even some of the biggest franchises out there can be health hazards.
Barbie can do it all! Dance, perform surgery, even run for president, despite being approximately
nineteen years old for half a century. But when she decided to take up rollerblading, things got
dangerous. Rollerblade Barbie, a 1991 variant, took advantage of the new craze for in-line
skates. Her skates had a cool feature - built-in LED lights that flashed as kids pushed them.
Unfortunately, these skates also released sparks when rolled over a flat surface,
which turned out to be a fire hazard. The toy was quickly recalled, and the only way to get it now
is through very expensive second-hand sources who managed to get ahold of a vintage Arson Barbie.
This next iconic toy made mealtime a little dangerous.
Kids love to play pretend with their toys, and taking care of baby dolls is a common activity.
But it’s rare that the dolls actually eat the food they’re offered!
That changed in 1996 when the Snacktime Kids Cabbage Patch Kids were introduced.
They could eat plastic snacks that would be pushed into their mouth, with their
mechanical jaws pulling the toy in and releasing it into an attached backpack. The problem was,
the jaws were pretty strong - strong enough to pull in and crush little fingers that got stuck in
there! While the toy did have a release mechanism and there were no reports of serious injuries,
Mattel and the government agreed to recall the product less than a year after release.
This next toy sent danger flying everywhere.
If there was a cartoon on the air in the 1990s, the odds are it had a toy line attached. That was
the case with Sky Dancers, a show about young heroes with magical powers that let them fly.
The toy line got a lot of hype in 1994 for actually being able to fly - when you released
a pull-string base, the foam-winged dolls would actually take off into the sky - in any
direction they wanted. That was the problem - they were powerful and hard to control,
and would occasionally go flying into faces and eyes. As a wave of emergency room visits - not to
mention a lot of broken vases - proved they were dangerous, the toys were recalled by manufacturer
Galoob, resulting in any animator’s worst nightmare - a cartoon with no tie-in products.
Sometimes, danger can lurk in the most unlikely places.
Parents are probably pretty relieved when they see their kids playing with cards. After all,
what’s the worst that could happen - little Billy taking his sister’s allowance in Poker?
But one card game packed a hidden danger. Branded after a popular TV show. Hannah Montana,
the Miley Cyrus Disney Channel sitcom, this card game spin-off from 2007 packed a hidden danger
due to the manufacturer cutting corners. The cards were tainted with lead - a shocking
seventy-five times the recommended amount! It was part of a mass expose of the lead
content of toys that led to more than six million playthings being recalled.
Usually, one reason is enough to get a toy banned - but how about three?
Yo-yo water balls were more of a novelty than a beloved plaything in the 1990s,
but they were still everywhere. Neon-colored, liquid-filled plastic balls attached to a stretchy
string, they were mostly used by kids twirling them around and whacking each other with them.
But these little novelties packed a lot of hidden danger. The stretchy
cords could get tangled around necks, the liquid inside wasn’t actually water
but a chemical solution that could cause poisoning - and the elastic material was highly flammable!
Kids could get strangled, poisoned, and burned by a single product! It’s no wonder
that several states banned them outright and the company had to eventually redesigned them.
One popular franchise launched an iconic toy - with deadly consequences.
Battlestar Galactica might have been a cult hit, but kids loved its colorful spaceships. In 1978,
the Colonial Viper ship was a hit not just for its design,
but for its missile-launching action. However, this proved to be its undoing - because
the tiny plastic missiles were just the perfect size for a little kid to swallow.
When a four-year-old boy shot a missile into his mouth and choked to death,
the toy was yanked off shelves. Not only did the original ship never resurface, but it became
the origin of most toys with small parts like projectiles getting choking warnings on the box.
But sometimes, toys seem dangerous from the start.
Who wouldn’t want to see a little kid behind the wheel of a car?
Fisher-Price wasn’t concerned when they released the Power Wheels toy,
a battery-powered mini-car that could send kids around the neighborhood in style. Many parents
were already worried due to the chance kids could drive into traffic or other danger, but it soon
turned out there was another problem - the brakes in a 1991 model could fuse together, making it
impossible to stop the car. Then in 1998, the vehicles had the unfortunate tendency to catch on
fire. But despite these failed models, the brand continues to send kids zooming around to this day.
Parents didn’t even have to buy these next toys.
Is there any greater joy as a kid than finding out what toy you’re getting in your fast food
kids’ meal? Burger King upped the ante in 1999 with one of the most popular franchises of the
day - Pokemon. Kids would open up a plastic ball to find a plastic figure of a random critter,
and parents found themselves buying a lot more nuggets and burgers. But the
figures themselves weren’t the danger - the shell was. The halves of the plastic ball
were the perfect shape to fit over little mouths and get suctioned on,
which led to two babies dying. The company sprung into action, recalling twenty-five
million of these fast food toys in one of the biggest toy recalls of all time.
Turning back the clock, a lot of toys in the 1940s and beyond were shockingly dangerous.
The Easy-Bake Oven may have been unintentionally dangerous at times, but that wasn’t the case
for its predecessor, the Little Lady Stove. No, this one was designed to be dangerous!
This was a fully-functioning electric stove with both a pair of compartments
to cook food and a heated stovetop for simmering rather than baking.
That meant it could get hot. Very hot. Needless to say, this caused no shortage of burns,
but ultimately it wasn’t the many, many hazards that spelled the end of the Little Lady Stove.
It was the metal shortages of World War 2 that saved the fingers of many children.
Cooking isn’t dangerous enough for kids? How about glass-blowing?
Gilbert was a craft and toy company in the first half of the twentieth century,
known for the Erector Set and toy trains. But many of its craft sets packed a hidden
danger - starting with its glass-blowing kit. Glass blowing is dangerous even for professionals,
as it requires heating glass to around a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, but it used to be an essential
skill for students taking chemistry - they had to make their own test tubes! Gilbert decided to
train them in this skill early, with predictable results. The toy, which came with a portable torch
for heating the glass, resulted in many cuts and burns and was soon taken off the market.
Gilbert just couldn’t stop giving kids the opportunity to maim themselves.
Glass-blowing is pretty dangerous, so how about letting kids make model figurines?
Sounds nice and safe, which was the goal of the Gilbert Kaster Kit Jr Set.
The problem was, kids wouldn’t just paint figures, they would make them
by pouring molten lead into molds! This had many of the same problems as the glass-blowing
kit - namely, little kids playing with hot flames. Making it even worse, this was long
before people knew just how dangerous lead poisoning was to kids. No surprise this kit
too was soon pulled off the market. It’s enough for mom to say “Stop playing and watch some TV”.
But Gilbert was about to top themselves with their most dangerous kit ever.
In 1950, nuclear technology was the talk of the world - both in terms of weapons of war
and domestic energy. But that doesn’t mean anyone should be letting children
in on the fun. That didn’t stop Gilbert from introducing the U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory,
which let kids conduct experiments to determine if objects were radioactive.
And that meant, you guessed it - the toy actually contained traces of uranium,
one of the most dangerous substances on Earth. As soon as word of this got around,
the toy was quickly pulled off the market, with less than five thousand kids being sold.
With products like this, it’s no wonder Gilbert went out of business by 1967.
But dangerous play kits aren’t just a thing od the past.
What would make a better kids’ playset than…CSI? The gory detective thriller was all the rage
on CBS in the early 2000s, spawning multiple spinoffs. The network wanted to get new fans
started early, so they introduced the CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit. This let kids
get an up-close look at their own fingerprints thanks to a special fingerprint-dusting powder
that the toy company hyped up as just like the one real crime scene investigators use.
There was just one problem - a bonus ingredient in the form of toxic asbestos.
Fortunately, the non-profit Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization blew the whistle early,
and no aspiring detectives were harmed in this toy caper.
This next toy sounded harmless - but it was anything but!
Aqua Dots were a simple craft toy, consisting of small colored beads that could be turned into
artwork by arranging them and then pouring water on them. The water triggered glue in the beads,
permanently fusing them. A great rainy day craft project - wait, why are the kids throwing up?
Kids will always put small things in their mouths, and while the beads were too small to be choking
hazards, it soon turned out that there had been a big mistake in manufacturing. The Chinese
subcontractors that made the beads had used chemicals that combined into gamma-hydroxybutyrate
- otherwise known as the powerful drug GHB. The companies had been accidentally dosing kids and
quickly rushed to recall the entire product line in 2007. One rebrand later, they were
re-released as Pixos and Bindeez, and remain on the shelf to this day - minus one key ingredient.
The name on this next toy alone should have been a clue.
Who wouldn’t want a Creepy Crawlers’ Thingmaker in their house?
Not only was the name of this craft kit vaguely terrifying, but the Mattel playset
also packed multiple health hazards way back in 1964. It was another one of those
“toys” back in the old days that came with a working oven - giving kids the chance to
burn themselves on an element that heated up to almost two hundred degrees celsius.
Maybe the burn center was secretly funding them. But this one made its plastic critters
with a synthetic compound called “plastigoop” - that turned out to emit toxic fumes when heated
up in the oven. Predictably, it was pulled off the shelves once kids started becoming sick,
but Mattel was never one to let a bad idea die - they re-released a safer model ten years later.
This next one proves that not everything that works for adults, works for kids.
Is there anything better than relaxing in a hammock after a hard day’s work?
Lots of kids saw dad lounging away and went “I would love a hammock of my own”.
And the toy companies went “I would love the money from them having a hammock of
their own”. And so many companies released mini-hammocks, adapted to kids’ small bodies
by removing the spreader bar that kept them apart. This went horribly wrong,
as it turned out the lack of this feature made it very easy for the hammocks to get twisted up.
Not only did countless kids get tangled in the hammock or unceremoniously dumped out, but many
small children got the hammocks twisted around their necks. After twelve deaths by strangulation,
the companies recalled almost three million mini-hammocks off toy store shelves in a hurry.
And now we’re heading into the most notorious
banned toys of all time - and we’re starting small.
Construction toys are among the most popular genres of toy - as any parent who has stepped
on a Lego in the middle of the night can attest. When Magnetix debuted on the market
in the early 2000s, the magnet-based tubes and blocks were an instant hit.
But just like the Polly Pocket set, where magnets go, pain and recalls follow. Unlike Polly Pocket,
the Magnetix sets didn’t have a few magnets that could get detached - they had hundreds attached
both to the pieces and in the individual balls that could be used to connect them.
Predictably, little kids started swallowing the loose magnets, causing serious stomach issues.
When one toddler died and other children required emergency surgery,
Magnetix was quickly taken off the market - but did eventually make a comeback with a safer model.
This next one falls into “Exactly what did you think was going to happen?”
Jet-skiing is a risky activity on its own, so naturally, some enterprising toy-maker thought
“What if you could jet-ski, but also fly at the same time?”. That led to the introduction of the
WeGo Kite-Tube, a plastic disc that would be towed behind a speedboat, catching air under the boat
and being launched into the air at high speed. It was a thrilling activity - but what comes up,
must come down. The kite tube didn’t have any method to control it,
which meant the kid riding behind the boat was at the mercy of the wind and the driver’s skill.
Naturally, this soon resulted in horrible accidents, including two fatalities. Soon,
the device was recalled by the manufacturer - but no one could actually say there was a
defect in the toy that caused it. It was just a bad idea from beginning to end.
But no toy packed more danger into it than this one.
It was the 1940s, and kids’ toys were dangerous. Heck, they could just shoot each other with BB
guns and their parents would be more likely to yell at them to keep the noise down. Toy
manufacturers knew they needed to up their game - and they delivered with the Austin Magic Pistol.
Because what did toy guns need? Actual firepower and maybe some fire. The Austin Magic Pistol was
packed with an actual gas-powered combustion device. As for the “magic crystals” advertised
on the box? Those were calcium carbide, a hazardous chemical that could create an
explosion when mixed with water. All this combined to fire a plastic ball more than seventy feet,
with an explosive force that could seriously injure or kill a child at close range. It was
too dangerous even for the wild and wooly 40s and was off the shelves by the 1950s. It would not be
making a comeback - and was ultimately classified as a legitimate firearm by the government.
Want to know more about unusual things the government banned?
Check out “20 US Foods You Never Knew Were Illegal to Eat”.