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The deadliest toys ever made include "what were they thinking?" oddities like a children's laboratory kit that included uranium; but other, more seemingly innocuous recreational offerings, make the list—including the Slip 'N Slide and trampolines. You'll learn why you should always heed the age limits printed on toy packaging, wonder why lawn darts ever seemed like a good idea, and hear about an awful incident in Victorian England that may have helped inspire future safety reforms. In case you forgot, The List Show is a trivia-tastic, fact-filled show for curious people. Subscribe here for new Mental Floss episodes every Wednesday: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZ5qUqpW4hW4zdfuBxMSJA?sub_confirmation=1 Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss?sub_confirmation=1 About Mental Floss: Mental Floss is where curious people come for trivia-tastic information. Mental Floss produces lists of fun facts, debunks common misconceptions, and tells untold stories from history, science, culture and more. Website: http://www.mentalfloss.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mental_floss Facebook: https://facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine Copyright Notice: This video and YouTube channel contain dialog, music, and images that are property of Mental Floss. You are authorized to share the video link and channel, and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to this YouTube Channel is provided. 2025 Mental Floss 8 of the Deadliest Toys Ever Made | Mental Floss https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss
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In the 1970s and much of the 1980s, kids throwing deadly projectiles around the backyard was
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considered good, clean fun. Lawn darts, or jarts, were just one of the, what-were-they-thinking
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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
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the world's most dangerous toy box to discuss some of the deadliest toys in history, including
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lawn darts, the surprisingly lethal slip and slide, and some science kits that were way
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too well-stocked. Fair warning, a lot of the items in this episode are not the kind of fun
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whimsical history we often share on the channel. Some really awful things came up in researching
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this script. If you're curious, though, there are some interesting, if at times tragic
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stories. Let's get started. A sort of cross between traditional pub darts and horseshoes, the game of lawn darts involved
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players tossing large, weighted metal darts with plastic fins up in the air to try to hit targets
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placed at specific distances across the yard. It doesn't take a psychic to predict that children
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haphazardly throwing pointy projectiles across their lawns could go bad in a hurry. And unfortunately
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one California family found that out firsthand. In 1987, a nine-year-old boy stumbled across some
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lawn darts in his family garage, part of an outdoor game set that his dad had purchased
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The boy and some neighborhood friends took the darts to the backyard to play. And it wasn't long
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before an overzealous throw launched one of the mini missiles over the fence. The dart
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came down directly onto the skull of the boy's seven-year-old sister, who had been playing
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in the front yard with her dolls. Some researchers estimated that the dart hit her with a force
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of up to 23,000 pounds per square inch. She collapsed soon after and died three days later
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The tragedy spurred her father to launch a crusade against lawn darts. In response to
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his lobbying, the Consumer Product Safety Commission conducted research that uncovered more than 6,100 lawn dart-related injuries in less than a decade. More than 80% of those
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injuries happened to children ages 15 or younger, and many of those injuries caused permanent
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damage to their head, eyes, or face. With such damning evidence, jarts were pulled from US stores weeks before Christmas in 1988
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and Canada soon followed suit. They've been banned in both countries ever since, although
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a spikeless version has found its way back to summer barbecues and backyard gatherings
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in recent years. Thanks to YouTube commenter First Cynic for mentioning their experience with lawn darts
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on our video about old-timey life hacks, along with two more toys we actually have coming
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up later in this list. Honestly, props to First Cynic just for surviving into adulthood
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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 category drop it in the comments for a chance to be featured in that episode
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The slip and slide was invented by a dad who, ironically, wanted to help his son have safe
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summer fun. During the summer of 1960, Robert Carrier returned home from work to find that his son
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and some friends had turned the hose on their painted concrete driveway, creating a rudimentary
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water slide on the sloped surface. Convinced they were going to hurt themselves, because, you know, concrete, Carrier soon constructed
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a similar setup out of some vinyl-coated boat upholstery material, and sewed a tube down
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the side for a hose. The simple, yet ingenious invention was sold to the Wham-O Company and released in 1961
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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
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kids who were getting hurt. While some children were injured, those injuries mostly amounted to bumps and bruises, with
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a few sad exceptions. For adults, the consequences of taking a trip down the slip and slide tended
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to be much more serious. Because adults weigh more, they didn't glide across the slick
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surface as easily as children. Instead, they had a tendency to stop abruptly, causing the
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forward momentum to drive their body weight into their necks. In extreme cases, this could
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and did, result in neck injuries, quadriplegia, paraplegia, and even death. Reported injuries
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included at least six adults who suffered broken necks, an eight-year-old who suffered
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brain damage, at least one death in the 1970s, and 5,000 slip and slide related injuries in
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1988 alone. People were awarded millions of dollars for their injuries. One takeaway
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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
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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 Neeson
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who became fascinated with the safety nets used under the trapeze after he visited a circus in
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1930. He attempted to recreate the net's spring by dismantling his bed and stretching canvas
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across the frame, much to the dismay of his father. Many prototypes later, the U.S. military
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used Neeson's invention during World War II to help train pilots to orient themselves after air
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maneuvers. NASA later adopted the trampoline to help astronauts with conditioning for space
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But it's not these applications that generally result in injury. It's the backyard version that
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that contributes most to the 100,000 trampoline-related injuries that occur yearly. Most injuries happen
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when there are multiple kids getting their jump on, which may also explain the increase
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in injuries at trampoline parks. It's all fun and games until someone breaks an arm
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but unfortunately a busted arm is 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
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Georgia, and Alabama offered the Gunfighter Toy Cork Gun for the bargain price of just $1.27
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Of course, kids are known for dismantling things. So it didn't take long for them to discover that
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they could remove the muzzle from the gun barrel and then take off the protective plastic plunger
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caps underneath, which exposed the ends of two metal rods. If the cork gun was then discharged
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the exposed metal rods would shoot forward, potentially causing them to be propelled
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directly into a child's face or eyes. And yes, a three-year-old boy did exactly that
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The guns were recalled in 1979. Victorian kids had it pretty rough to begin with. According to
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the BBC, kids in 1850s England and Wales had a 25% chance of dying before reaching the age of five
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We can attribute that astronomical mortality rate to a lot of things, including several
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cholera outbreaks. But toys coated in lead paint certainly didn't help matters
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And if their toys weren't coated in lead, then they were often made entirely of lead
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To be clear, we've been aware that lead is bad for a really long time
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Even the ancient Romans knew what was up. Toy manufacturers continued to use the metal because of its versatility, however, and most
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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
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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
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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
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trinket in his mouth. It is illegal for toys to contain more than 0.06 percent concentration of lead by weight
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in their paints or coatings and has been since 1978. But that doesn't mean toys with higher concentrations aren't out there
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In 2007, Mattel's Fisher-Price recalled 1.5 million toys after the Consumer Product Safety
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Commission alleged the company had imported and sold toys that tested for high levels of
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lead, in some cases up to 180 times more than the legal limit
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The company paid $2.3 million in civil penalties in 2009, but denied breaking any laws
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Lead toys seem downright quaint when you consider that one of the main components of the Gilbert
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Atomic Energy lab toy was uranium. in 1950, the kit provided kids with everything they needed to conduct more than 150 experiments
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including four types of uranium ore, as well as beta-alpha, beta, and gamma radiation sources
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Fun instruments that came in the lab included a cloud chamber, a device for watching atoms decay
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and your very own Geiger counter The 60 instruction booklet offered a guide to prospecting for uranium Now people at the time knew that uranium was radioactive and that radiation was harmful In 1927 Herman Joseph Muller discovered that radiation can
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cause harmful mutations. He won a Nobel Prize for related research in 1946. That wasn't
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enough to stop uranium from being included in this kit four years later. The makers must
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have thought this strongly-worded warning was sufficient. Users should not take ore
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samples out of their jars, for they tend to flake and crumble, and you would run the risk
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of having radioactive ore spread out in your laboratory. Apparently, the warning wasn't enough to stop the Atomic Energy Lab from getting shelled
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It was pulled in 1951 after selling less than 5,000 kits. I don't even know where to start with the number of things wrong with the Zulu toy gun
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sold in the late 1960s, but how about this quote from an ad for the toy
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A slight puff into gun, an arrow shoots with hurricane speed. I know, it's hard to imagine anything going wrong
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Not only did children load dangerous projectiles like needles into the gun, they also had a
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tendency to inhale deeply before blowing out a chute. A surge of plastic dart inhalations
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plagued ERs around the country. In 1969, the National Commission on Product Safety rightly
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recommended that the toy be banned, despite the harmless proclamation that was once boldly
9:02
printed on the box. This one isn't Death by Toy exactly, but close enough. On June 16, 1883, more than 1,000
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children showed up to enjoy a variety show being held at Victoria Hall in Sunderland, England
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well until the end of the event, when free toys started to be distributed in the main
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pit. As you might imagine, the kids in the gallery excitedly sprang from their seats
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and ran to the exit. When they arrived, however, they found that the exit door had been bolted
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in place, to allow one child through at a time—a measure intended to keep things orderly
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Tragically, it was anything but. Not knowing of the bottleneck at the front of the line
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hundreds of children stampeded down the stairwell to the exit, trampling the kids who were trapped
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at the door, unable to pass through. Reportedly, a man on the other side eventually managed to wrench the door off of its hinges
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but the damage was done. In the end, 183 children died of asphyxiation or being crushed to death
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The entire country was rocked by this avoidable accident. Even Queen Victoria sent a donation to help cover funeral costs
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But as tends to happen with such awful incidents, some good did eventually come of it
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It's said that push bars were invented to ensure easy exit from buildings, and Parliament
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passed a law that required all public buildings to have multiple outward-facing doors that
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were easy to open. That's good news for those of us who lived through more recent toy crazes
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such as the Tickle Me Elmo terror from the mid-90s and the Cabbage Patch riots of 1983
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Yes, that was a thing. That's it for today's List Show. And remember
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always read all of the instructions, pay attention to age limits, and don't conduct nuclear fission without a trusted adult nearby
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