Remember when toy safety meant “try not to put your eye out”? The 1980s were a magical time when parents handed us contraptions that could double as medieval torture devices and called it “character building.” Back then, warning labels were suggestions, and if you made it through childhood with all your limbs intact, you’d earned some serious bragging rights.
1. Lawn Darts (Jarts)
These weren’t just toys – they were legitimate weapons disguised as backyard entertainment. Picture heavy metal spikes with fins that you’d hurl through the air toward plastic rings, hoping nobody wandered into the danger zone. The fact that they were marketed as a family game makes you wonder what kind of families the toy companies had in mind.
By 1988, the Consumer Product Safety Commission had banned lawn darts after thousands of injuries and several tragic deaths. But for those glorious years before common sense prevailed, every barbecue and family gathering was essentially a game of dodge-the-flying-spear. If you survived a summer of Jarts, you probably developed the reflexes of a ninja.
2. Slip ‘N Slide
What could go wrong with a sheet of plastic, a garden hose, and the promise of endless summer fun? Everything, as it turned out. Kids would launch themselves onto these slippery death traps, only to discover that momentum plus plastic plus inevitable rocks underneath equaled instant regret.
The real danger came from older kids and adults who didn’t quite grasp the physics of their larger bodies hitting an unforgiving surface. Paralysis injuries were so common that Wham-O eventually had to add age and weight restrictions. But in the ’80s, if you weren’t nursing a Slip ‘N Slide bruise by July, you weren’t living your best summer life.
3. Original Easy-Bake Oven
This pink plastic kitchen appliance used an actual 100-watt light bulb to “bake” tiny cakes – and occasionally, tiny fingers. The oven could reach temperatures of 350 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause serious burns. Getting your hand stuck in the front-loading slot was practically a rite of passage for aspiring young chefs.
Hasbro has redesigned this toy multiple times over the decades, adding safety features that the original sorely lacked. Back in the day, the Easy-Bake Oven taught kids valuable lessons about cooking, creativity, and the importance of keeping your appendages away from extremely hot appliances. The FDA even got involved after numerous burn injuries, which should tell you everything you need to know about its safety record.
4. Clackers (Click Clacks)
Two heavy acrylic balls on strings that you’d swing to make them “clack” together – what could possibly go wrong? When you got them going fast enough, these things sounded like a machine gun and hit with the force of a small meteor. The balls would occasionally shatter mid-clack, sending sharp plastic shrapnel flying in all directions.
Most schools banned them within months of their popularity peak, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission eventually recalled them. But not before an entire generation of kids learned to duck and cover whenever they heard that distinctive clacking sound. If you mastered these without losing an eye or chipping a tooth, you deserved some kind of medal.
5. Pogo Stick
The pogo stick promised to turn every kid into a bouncing acrobat, but mostly it turned sidewalks into obstacle courses of scraped knees and twisted ankles. These spring-loaded sticks required perfect balance, coordination, and a complete disregard for personal safety. One wrong bounce and you’d find yourself eating pavement or crash-landing in the neighbor’s prize-winning rose bushes.
The handlebars had a particular knack for finding their way into soft tissue when things went wrong, which was often. Emergency room visits spiked every summer as kids tried increasingly dangerous pogo stick stunts. Yet somehow, the rhythmic “boing-boing-crash” sound became the soundtrack of every suburban neighborhood.
6. Metal Playground Equipment
Playgrounds in the ’80s were basically outdoor torture chambers disguised as fun zones. Those towering metal jungle gyms could reach surface temperatures hot enough to fry an egg on a sunny day. The slides were essentially solar-powered branding irons that would leave you with geometric burn patterns on your legs.
Monkey bars were strategically positioned over concrete or gravel, ensuring maximum injury potential for inevitable falls. The merry-go-rounds spun fast enough to generate their own weather systems, launching kids into orbit at regular intervals. If you made it through recess without needing a Band-Aid, you’d either mastered the art of playground survival or you weren’t playing hard enough.
7. Chemistry Sets
These weren’t the watered-down science kits of today – we’re talking about boxes filled with actual chemicals that could create explosions, toxic fumes, and permanent stains on everything. Kids could mix compounds that would make a hazmat team nervous, all in the name of “educational fun.” The instruction manuals read like bomb-making guides, complete with warnings that nobody’s parents ever seemed to read.
Gilbert and other companies packed these sets with enough dangerous substances to stock a small laboratory. Burns, poisoning, and accidental explosions were just part of the learning experience. Looking back, it’s amazing that an entire generation of backyard scientists didn’t accidentally discover how to split the atom.
8. Creepy Crawlers
This toy let kids create their own rubber insects and creatures using a metal mold and “Plasti-Goop” heated to ungodly temperatures. The ThingMaker oven could reach 390 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause severe burns that would leave permanent scars. Kids would inevitably touch the metal molds or try to peek inside the oven, leading to predictable and painful results.
The toxic fumes from heating the Plasti-Goop probably violated several environmental protection laws that didn’t exist yet. Parents would find their children creating monsters in the basement while simultaneously creating clouds of potentially harmful vapors. The fact that this toy remained popular for years says something about our collective relationship with danger in the ’80s.
9. Super Soaker (Original Models)
What started as innocent water gun fun quickly escalated into neighborhood warfare with weapons that could strip paint. The original Super Soakers could shoot water streams up to 30 feet with surprising force and accuracy. Kids would pump these things until the pressure was so high it could knock over smaller children or leave welts on exposed skin.
Pool parties became tactical combat zones where getting hit by a Super Soaker felt like being power-washed by an angry maintenance worker. The pressure was so intense that direct hits to the face could actually cause injury. But nobody cared because finally, finally, we had water guns that could reach the kid hiding behind the shed.
10. Big Wheel
These low-riding tricycles turned every sidewalk crack into a potential launching pad and every hill into a death trap. The plastic wheels had absolutely no traction, so stopping was more of a suggestion than an actual function. Kids would hurtle down hills at breakneck speeds, desperately trying to steer with their feet while sparks flew from the back wheel.
The hard plastic seat provided zero cushioning for the inevitable crashes, and the handlebars were positioned perfectly to inflict maximum damage during wipeouts. Road rash was basically a fashion statement among Big Wheel riders. If you didn’t have at least one scar from catching air on a Big Wheel, you probably weren’t pushing the limits hard enough.
11. Slinky on Stairs
While the Slinky itself was relatively harmless, putting it on stairs transformed this simple toy into a trip hazard of epic proportions. Kids would set their Slinkys loose at the top of stairways and then inevitably chase after them. The result was usually a tumbling mess of child, spring toy, and gravity working together in the most painful way possible.
The metal Slinkys were particularly dangerous because they’d stretch out and create wire snares across the stairs. Family members would encounter these booby traps in the dark, leading to spectacular falls and colorful language. Every household had at least one permanently stretched Slinky that served as a reminder of someone’s close encounter with the stairs.
12. Roller Skates (Metal Wheels)
Before inline skates revolutionized rolling, we had those adjustable metal roller skates that clamped onto your shoes. The metal wheels had no give whatsoever, so every pebble, crack, or leaf became a potential face-plant opportunity. These skates would regularly separate from shoes mid-roll, sending kids sprawling across the pavement while their footwear went flying in the opposite direction.
The key that tightened the skates was invariably lost within a week, leading to creative solutions involving pliers and considerable profanity from parents. Stopping was achieved through controlled crashes into mailboxes, parked cars, or sympathetic neighbors. Knee pads were for quitters; real skaters wore their scabs like badges of honor.
13. Rubik’s Cube
This innocent-looking puzzle cube was actually a psychological warfare device designed to drive children to the brink of madness. While not physically dangerous, the Rubik’s Cube inflicted emotional damage that lasted well into adulthood. Kids would spend hours, days, even weeks trying to solve this colorful torture device, often resorting to peeling off stickers or taking the cube apart entirely.
The cube taught valuable lessons about persistence, problem-solving, and the limits of human patience. Parents would find their children staring blankly at the scrambled colors, muttering about algorithms and corner pieces. More than one family gathering was ruined by arguments over whether dismantling the cube and reassembling it counted as “solving” it.
Those were the days when childhood was an extreme sport and playground equipment came with the implicit understanding that injuries were part of the fun. We survived an era when toy safety was an oxymoron and “parental supervision” meant making sure we didn’t set anything on fire that couldn’t be easily replaced. Sure, we’ve got the scars to prove it, but we also have the memories of a childhood that was genuinely adventurous – even if that adventure occasionally required a trip to the emergency room.
This story 13 Toys from the ’80s That Were Basically Designed to Hurt Somebody was first published on Takes Me Back.
