Old School

Remember the good old days? When kids had the good sense to know how to play with the toys that were given to us? Here are a few of my favorites that I think are gone because they"might pose hazardous to children."


This one was my favorite! The Creepy Crawler oven set! This is how it worked: you plugged in the oven part, and yes, this baby got hot, just ask my niece Kary. She was about 3 at the time and always a real pain for me, so I asked her to touch the burner to see if it was ready for me to bake my creepy concoction. When she wouldn't comply with my request, I proceeded to grab her little hand and put her finger on it. Yep. Her high pitched-blood curdling scream told me that it was ready! So you pour this solution in the metal forms, place the little handle on it, have to use the little metal handle so you don't get burnt! Then you waited, usually when it started smoking and smelling bad, you knew it was done. Then you pick your little creature creation out with yet another special tool, and viola! You have creepy crawlers! I loved this toy! Kary.....not so much!






Oh man! Little green Army men! My brothers had a whole box of these! Sometimes, they would even let me play with them. They would hide them around in the grass and trees and then they got real creative and started burning them! Wow! They were sooooooo cool melting! Then my dad would find them with the lawn mower. Not so cool.


Weren't these the funnest thing! Clacker Balls! Not much skill to this, other than trying not to break them and have the balls shatter into a million pieces and take your eye out, or worse, behead you! Awwwwww, the innocence of youth.




Poor kids today are missing out on the Wham-O! You hooked your hose up to the clown head, turned on the faucet and, wham-o! The hat would blast into the air and you had a water party!
Now, this was really nothing more than just your average water sprinkler but this was better! This creepy clown was probably the inspiration for Stephen King's "It." Too bad it was taken off the market but, inevitably, you knew some kid wanted a top view of the projectile hat. Dumb kid. Probably lost an eye and ruined it for the next generation!


Hey! Remember the Sit and Spin? Should have really been called the "Sit and Puke." What great mind-bending, nauseating excitement! You would sit down on a spinning disk that had a stationary handle and spin around and around. What you really discovered was what it's like to be drunk without the booze!




And now, this last one really makes me sick to my stomach! I had all, yes, all FOUR of the Beatle Bobble-Head dolls! Do you have any idea what they're worth today! LOTS! And so now, I'm going to find some old yard darts and stab myself in the head with them!