The Nostalgic, Wonderful, Deadly Toys of Youth

Ahhh. Memories. As a kid, when I could get them, I had the coolest, baddest-assed toys. Toys that could easily put an eye out, cause a fire, and give you really braggable second-degree burns. My toy chest caused two out of three of those outcomes and I'm not ashamed about it at all. Rather proud, actually.

Kids today are cushy wimps. Their idea of fun is wiggling around a joy stick, pressing buttons, and asking Mom for another latte. I know they don't want to hear it, but us older folks? Man, trial by play and error. Fun! And DANGER! The true meaning of toys, back when Santa wasn't so damn P.C.

"Please, Santa," I wrote one year, "bring me a Shrinky-Dink set."

The big red one answered my wishes (I'm sure against Mrs. Claus' concerns).

What were Shrinky-Dinks? Yes, I realize it sounds like an emasculated, embarrassed male, but it was one of the most totally awesome toy sets in the world! You got your own incredibly unstable plug-in electric mini-oven, toxic plastics, and cheezy designs that you'd toss in the oven and they'd enlarge! 

Now, I'm a little torn about Shrinky-Dinks. On the one hand, I shake my head about the top toy executive who thought this was a good idea to unleash on serial killer kids in the making, and on the other, I wanna give him an enthusiastic '80's high five!

I just found out there's still a bland, tamed down version of Shrinky-Dinks available these days. Forget it. No oven, no dice. I think I'd accumulated about four of those toy ovens through my youth, from various sets (one creating your own molded, electronic--although mine never worked--Frankenstein). Wish I still had them.

The '60's and '70's were a great time to be a kid. We had ovens galore, lawn darts (which had a tendency to end up in the neighbors' cat), Slinkies (kids LOVE playing with a sharp, curled wire), chemistry sets (my parents banned me from them after the second time I set off a sulfur bomb in the house--FUN!), Clackers (two glass balls tied to strings that you'd swing around like nunchuks until they exploded glass shards everywhere), Creepy Crawlers (yet another blast with highly erratic mini-ovens where you'd pour goop into blistering hot molds to make jiggly bugs), Slip 'N Slides (more appropriately called "Slip 'N Concussions"), Stretch Armstrong action figures (not "dolls," dammit!), a figure filled with unspeakable liquid that no kid could resist to puncture after the first day to see what Stretch was really made of, and so much more. And of course, the awesome Super Elastic Bubble Plastic, where you could put a dab of goo (giving off really toxic fumes!) to blow bubbles. This was fun.

Seriously, you millenials don't know what you missed out on.

Oh, sure, in my daughter's reign of terror through the '90's there were a few questionable toys I got for her such as Sky Dancers (they wanted to dance right into your eye like a bottle rocket), but the fun, mystique, and most importantly--DANGER--just seemed to have slipped out of toys.

On the fourth grade playground, girls really liked to see bad toy wounds, a lesson I quickly learned, and used to my advantage.

These weren't just toys. They were a rite of passage. A rite of passage into juvenile delinquency.

Ahhh, memories. 

Hey, on the topic of toys, there's not a single damn toy in my book, Corporate Wolf, but I thought I'd plug it anyway. It's a horror, darkly comedic, murder mystery, satire, whatsit with a kitchen sink in there somewhere. It's complicated.