I don't remember any of these.

Hey,
Lawn Darts, good golly, what a concept. I remember those, luckily my parents were bright enough not to get them for us kids. Gosh knows I did enough stupid stuff with other toys and non-toys.

Can you see the person pitching this item to a toy company and no one objected? Well, what we have are these large metal darts that children will throw high up into the air...

Peace

It was a game for the whole family! I know about them because I have a friend who had a summer job making them, so it must have been somewhere here in NY. I think he had to find another summer job when they stopped making them...

[img][/img]

But I'm still screwed up.

We won't discuss exactly screwed up I am. [img][/img]

Especially if it comes with Po-210.

I do remember begging my parents for one of these:



I can also remember throwing up after about 1/2 hour.

They did it because the kids lost interest after they discovered there's not enough material in there to make an atomic bomb.

Come to think of it...they should bring this back; the anti-bullying potential is huge. We run lots of stories about what the school systems are doing to combat bullying, and it's all posters, assemblies and essay contests. That ain't gonna work. What WILL work is to give the school geeks the football team's home addresses and keys to a room full of nuclear weapons. This is a real-world solution proven through experience; no one's fucked with Pakistan since they got The Bomb, now have they?

that would flip out and fire when you pushed your stomach out. I think it was advertised on the popular western TV show "Yancy Derringer" starring Jock Mahoney. It also came on a gun belt with two regular cap guns that used the "greenie stick 'em caps". I used to watch Yancy Derringer and Have Gun Will Travel and stick my stomach out during tv shoot-outs. I was nine.

I had one of these too. I still do if I ever get it back. I loaned it to a friend for safe keeping a few years ago and they misplaced it. Long story, but I had to have anything that looked like or was a gun (water, cap, gas cannon noisemaker, BB, paintball, starter pistol, gun shaped lighter, and of course all real guns and weapons (bows, swords, etc.) out of my home while I housed a parole for a few years.

I know this is an old thread and you may not see this, but I thought enough of you to say hello to a fellow Y.D. fan.

As to all of the other toys in this thread, my sister or I had all but the atomic kit and the sit and spin (which they still made when my youngest daughter was little. At 2 or 3 years of age and up, she loved it. She is 36 now).

What I wouldn't give for a good Vaccuform! That was technically my sister's but I could use it if I supplied my own plastic sheets. She no longer has it. Forget the molds, although nice, you could but any small item in there and duplicate it.

Lead soldiers? I never painted them. That way if (when) damaged, it was easy to melt them down and make them over again. Did yo know if you sill a small quantity of hot lead on a bare leg (without adult hair at least) it can bounce off onto the basement floor and do no harm? LOL it happened to me.

Who knew?

I love making different kinds of bug with it.

So the mold was really hot, a little burn never hurt anyone.

The toy came with a little handle that fit into the mold.

Kids today don't know the fun we had with dangerous toys.

I had lots of molds.

First had to get the mold hot and then pour in the goop.

The mold wasn't hiden but on the top.

I made money making bugs, sold them for a dime or quarter.

It depended on the size and what you wanted.

I had premade or I would custom make one.

I used a lot of goop.

Don't remember what it cost per bottle.

I lost my Thing Maker in a move, the box was lost.

I bet it would still work.

ccc


sucked into the system at such an early age. and so it goes . . .

I liked making the things so why not get payed for my habit.

I would take a jar of the bugs to the park and sell them.

Yes, in the park.

Also the school, at the lockers.

I did really well.

I ordered the goop by mail, it was cheaper then the storesl

The molds sure could get hot, really hot.

The little wire handle was really not good enough for the job.

I wish I still had the Thing Maker.

Protected your monopoly, eh?

The thing got really hot ... too hot for the competition that is.


I always gave mine away.

I also had a vacuform.

I thought the kids who received these gifts were rich.

Unlike the Thing Maker which was a type of plastic that reverted to shape this actually was hot molten liquid plastic that you used a lever to force into a mold. What Could Go Wrong???

We were tough kids.

I remember using a electric saw to build a club house.

We cut all the boards with it.

Remember when kids built tree houses and club houses.

that I got for Christmas in about 1960. Because of the cloud of lead smoke in the air when the lead was melted, my parents made me use it in the basement.

Did you paint the soldiers.

We had fun, no parents hanging over our little heads spoiling the fun.

I had a friend whose father sold dirt and sand.

He had piles of the stuff, we played on the piles all the time.

We would dig tunnels in the piles, I had Tonka trucks.

We would jump from pile to pile, playing king of the mountain.

We had a blast.

I am still always thinking about how I would build the tree house.

I had a lot of minimalist tree houses, but I am still looking for that one perfect tree.

I created legions of lizards, each group with distinctive colors.

When a supposed new Thingmaker appeared years later, I stopped by FAO Schwarz to take a look at it. It had a wimpy heating device and simplistic molds, more like an easy-bake oven than a real Thingmaker.