Dangerous Toys of the ’50s
But oh, so much fun!
“Be aware of the dangers of choking, gouging, being impaled, being blinded, being maimed for life, and dying young,” warns Roger Pierangelo, who survived being a child of the 1950s and recalls his favorite dangerous toys of the ’50s.
Guttenberg had his Bible, Moses had his Commandments, Christians had the New Testament, and in the ’50s, we had the Sears Toy Catalog. This book, which was honored, like a sacred cow would arrive in the mail in early October filled with all the great new toys and old ones that you could order for Christmas or birthdays. Unlike today, however, where the warnings are listed on the boxes, we were exposed to toys as deadly as land mines, but who knew, except the manufacturers.
It could take out your eye!
First, there was the paddle ball toy game, which was a device that could take out your eye when you slammed the ball as hard as you could and it came back at you at 250 miles an hour with you believing you had the reflexes of a Greek god and could hit it, let alone see it. Time after time, it would either hit you in the head, the arm, the body, or you spent the entire time ducking, dodging, or diving out of the way from this “asteroid” coming at you with sonic speed.
But even after that, you’d do it again, and again, and again, and that night with salve, Band-Aids, and cold compresses all over your body, you would think about tomorrow and how you’d try to hit it three times in a row.
Repetition of worthless strategy – and a short
I remember my neighbor, Billy, who’d just got this great toy, an electric vibrating football game. Now, here was an igneous idea. Let 7-year-olds play with an electric frying pan with metal football players vibrating out of control. First of all, you had no control over the figures who looked like they had St. Vitus’ Dance. The vibrations, registered on high, scattered each of the two teams all over the board and into the stands. I don’t think anyone ever got into the end zone. So all we did was turn it on and watch this chaos, cheering, and screaming for our players to get to the end zone, though we were unsure of which one we were rooting for. After they all crashed and fell over from hitting the sides, we would line them up and do it again, over and over.
What is it they say about insanity? You do the same thing over and over and hope for a different outcome? This game should have been called “Should Have, Could Have, Would Have,” because that is all we did after it was over, talking strategy, when none was possible, talking different line ups and plays, none of which had any chance other than crash into the sides and fall over.
One day, there was a short, and when I touched the board I started to shake like the players. Billy thought I was imitating the game until his mother said that’s enough. Joey has to go home and he turned off the game. Thank God the governor called.
Short shelf life
I remember one of the most fun toys of my childhood being Mr. Potato Head. Now that was a toy that no matter how I changed the pieces, it always looked like my grandmother’s sister, Aunt Bessie. She was a woman, even though her mustache always confused me. Good thing it did not affect my gender identification process, but I did model my own mustache on hers when I was 20.
This toy came with 12 of everything: noses, lips, pairs of eyes, hats, ears of all types – along with a lone plastic potato. To make it look like some type of human, there were shoes and arms so as not to confuse you on the species. The purpose of this toy was to be a potato plastic surgery patient. After a week of stupid-looking potato heads and us saying “Hey, look at this one,” comments like f*ck off and yawns became the natural response, prompting us to place this toy in the closet.
Designed for maximum damage
One Christmas, an aunt of mine decided to give me the Scooter of Death. Whoever designed this thing must have wanted children off the planet. First of all, it only went straight, which made turning a major problem, but the first time you were on it, you did not realize that until a wall was in front of you. By the time the wounds healed and you got on it again, you looked for a straightaway. Then it went fast, but problem number two was that there were no brakes. God forbid you tried to stop short, your crotch would straddle the wooden steering poll and your voice would be six octaves higher for four days. The wheels were made with one one-millionth of a piece of rubber so it was like metal wheels on concrete. The ride made your kidneys rumble and your testicles rattle. The last problem was that it tipped forward often and you would go flying over the handle bars. Even with that, I rode it hundreds of times.
Face your fears through firsthand experience
It was the ’50s and the greatest fear was atomic bombs. We used to have atomic bomb drills in school instead of fire drills, and during those drills, the gifted kids were led to the basement and we were led to the roof and told to hold our arms out to catch something large. So, what do you give an 8-year-old for Christmas after he is unable to sleep out of fear that he could be ashes in the morning, never see his parents again since they would be burnt to a crisp and unable to identify (except my Aunt Teresa, whose mustache was so thick that it would even survive an atomic bomb), who feared that there would be nothing left of him except his dog tag? With the wisdom of a sensitive adult, my Uncle Mario and Aunt Maria gave me the Atomic Energy Lab.
The funny thing about this lab is that looking back, I really believe it contained Uranium or pure bomb grade Plutonium because after playing with it for hours, I would light up when I shut the lights off for bed. I looked like a horizontal lighthouse, and besides, the hair on my private areas did not sprout until I was 18.
I would put on my mother’s white apron and make believe I was the lab leader. With my cousin, Luigi, whose testicles were the size of walnuts until he was 20 from playing with the lab, we created an atomic bomb in the basement – at least that’s what we thought. This seven-inch atomic weapon would destroy our block and the entire next block if we chose to.
What power we felt, never realizing how hairless we would be until our 20s because we worked on the “bomb” for weeks. Luigi lived next door and at night when it was dark, we would see each other’s room light up like a nightclub from our great, fun day making the bomb. If he hadn’t passed away the following May, I think Uncle Mario would’ve have given me live polio viruses to play with as opposed to us looking like that.
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