Potentially Dangerous But Undeniably Fun Toys

There are so-so toys, fun toys, and then there are toys that are potentially dangerous but can, under the right amount of adult supervision, of course, be undeniably fun. These are not all toys that most of today’s parents would recommend that their, or anyone else’s, children play with, but they are likely toys that most parents have played with, and are yet somehow alive and kicking today, despite the potential dangers they faced.

I, nor the owners of this site, recommend that anyone play with these toys today, except, as I mentioned, under adult supervision. The last thing we’d want is for someone to get hurt playing with any of these toys. Also, this list is meant to be at least slightly humorous, and maybe put a smile a two on our readers’ faces, and maybe bring back some fond memories. If you have any additions, or comments to make, please by all means add them in the form provided below–I’m looking forward to hearing from you, our loyal readers!

(10) Rubber Band Guns: Fun, until someone loses an eye. The rubber bands can leave unsightly welts on your arms, legs, etc., also, and have someone go running, crying, to their mothers or fathers. Or, maybe, to the Emergency Room. Other than that, rubber band guns are great toys!

(9) Boomerangs/Yo-yos. Hey, if a toy at one time in history somewhere in the world was ever used as a weapon, as both boomerangs and yo-yos were, then it deserves to be on this list. I’ve had both, and got tired of both fairly quickly. I could get a boomerang to more or less return somewhere close to me, but never all that close.

Maybe if I’d practiced more with one, I’d think it was cooler, and still mess with one to this day. But, I didn’t, and I don’t. And, as far as yo-yos go, if you’ve got the talent or the time to learn the many tricks it’s possible to learn using them, they can be pretty fun. But, I never learned any tricks, other than making the yo-yo go back up after I sent it down.

(8) Pogo Sticks. They can be tremendous fun, but you can damage delicate areas of your body, and/or break bones using them.

(7) Croquet. Sure, it may not seem all that dangerous, but if you don’t think it is then you haven’t played Ultimate Croquet, in which shins and kneecaps are not considered off-limits and can, according to a very loose definition of the rules, be clobbered by mallets and flying croquet balls. If you haven’t been hospitalized after one game, then you aren’t playing it right.

(6) Skate Boards. Hey, at least this can be (and is, by many) called a sport. It takes a lot of skill, time, practice, and talent to be able to perform some of the wilder tricks possible using a skate board, and I think highly of anyone who can do them. I can’t, though, and can barely stay balanced on one even now. But, again, since one can relatively easily lay major portions of their skin on the pavement, or break bones (including necks) using skate boards, I’ve included them on this list.

(5) Sling shots. This is a step up from rubber band guns, and any toy that Dennis the Menace and Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer used has got to be pretty cool. But using innocent animals or people for target practice isn’t cool at all, and, as with rubber band guns, since a person can get his/her eye shot out, sling shots are on this list.

(4) BB Guns. Talk about eyes getting shot out!  These toys are infamous for that possibility to happen. This is even a drawback mentioned in the great, funny Christmas classic, A Christmas Story, from 1983. The toy the kid in the movie wanted the most for Christmas, a Red Ryder BB Gun, ends up breaking his glasses.

(3) Chemistry Sets. I had one of these, also, as a boy. I never started a fire in our house that raged out of control (for very long, anyway), nor caused any explosion, or clouds of poisonous gas to mushroom out of our house and force the neighborhood to be evacuated, but such things happen sometimes. You can learn a lot using chemistry sets, they’re educational and can be great fun, but because of the possibility, however remote, that you could burn your own house down, etc., I have included chemistry sets on this list.

(2) Creepy Crawley/Shrinky Dink/Incredible Edibles Machines. I had all of these at one time or other, and more, like a Creeple People Thingmaker Set one, and one which you could use to make plastic colored molds of car bodies. The cars and the Creeple People Thingmaker Set had electric motors, so you could race the cars afterwords or make the Creeple People walk. They were all great fun, but having an extremely hot heating element close to a shag carpet isn’t probably the best idea in the world, and there was the possibility of getting burned from the hot plastic–though this never happened to me.

(1) Lawn Darts. While they’re not potentially the most dangerous toy on this list, they injured enough people that they got themselves banned from stores around the country. I played with them and thought nothing of any potential injury risk they might represent at the time. I and most people just considered them to be an alternative to the game of horseshoes, and it was a fun outdoors activity.

There you have it, my Top Ten Dangerous Toys List! I will periodically, as time allows, write more lists about a wide range of topics that I hope will interest our readers here. Until then, keep it real, keep playing with toys and games, and if you have any comments or additions to make, please do so in the area below!