There are some toys out there for kids that most parents would probably scratch their heads at just how they got approval! Not all children’s toys are 100% safe, and a lot of them are actually wildly dangerous. Additionally, kids love to put their mouth, eyes, and ears where they shouldn’t, and may end up getting hurt as a result.
Many toys from way back when were considered to be absolutely fine for kids to play with. Since then, many have been recalled. Here is a list of dangerous children’s toys that somehow made it onto store shelves.
1. The Gilbert Glass Blowing Kit
This terrifying toy was marketed as a necessary device to help children learn a valuable skill. When it was released in 1909, glassblowing was something of a practical skill needed for people interested in studying chemistry in college. That’s all well and good, but we are talking about giving children a device capable of heating up the included glass tubes with an alcohol-fueled flame.
2. Jarts
Lawn Darts (or Jarts) were banned in 1988 for obvious reasons. While the game could be fun, it was incredibly dangerous. People who had these things jabbed into their skulls and other parts of their bodies probably would have preferred not to be impaled. In eight years, 6,100 people playing these were rushed to the emergency room, and most were kids. There were even three deaths attributed to this deadly amalgam of horseshoes and darts.
3. CSI Fingerprint Analysis Kit
CSI has certainly been a popular series on television, so it’s no wonder they create games to promote the series. That alone wouldn’t be a problem, but they included something deadly in the kits themselves. You know those commercials that come up on television all the time asking if you suffer from something called mesothelioma? That’s the disease you get when you inhale asbestos fibers, which is exactly what they included in these sets.
The fingerprint set contained asbestos in the powder used to dust for prints. It took 20 months for CBS to agree to a settlement in the class action lawsuit and finally issue a recall of the toy.
4. Cabbage Patch Snacktime Doll
It’s a pretty cool doll on the surface—you feed it veggies and French fries while it constantly chews the items down into its belly. However, these Cabbage Patch dolls are insatiable, so they never stop chomping. That’s where this goes from adorable to horrible because numerous incidents came out where the doll would get a hold of a young girl’s hair and chomp away until it pulled it right out of her scalp.
5. Slip ‘n Slides
Who didn’t love their Slip ‘n Slide as a kid? Running and sliding headfirst into the water was the perfect way to cool off in your childhood. The problem was if anyone other than a child used it, they risked slip-sliding straight into a concussion. Between 1973 and 1991, at least seven adults and one teenager suffered severe injuries, including fractured necks, paraplegia, and even quadriplegia.
Slip ‘n Slides are still a thing today, but now they make it perfectly, 100% clear that nobody over the age of 12 should use them. Anyone older than that should find another way to cool off.
6. Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher
Launched in 1978 with stickers that read, “Do not put or fire red missiles into mouth or towards face,” the Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher was inevitably used to hurl said objects directly into mouths and towards faces, causing asphyxiation. The toys were recalled a year later, in 1979, after choking, eye gouging and even a fatality.