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Selects: How Toy Testing Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's your friend Josh. And for this week's select,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I've chosen the November twenty seventeen episode on toy testing.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's a kid's dream job, definitely supposing they can circumnavigate
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the confusing world of child labor laws. But it's a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: nightmare to that kid's parents, as I stress multiple times
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: in this episode. So I hope I really got that across.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Enjoy it in good health.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Rowling in there, and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know for all the kiddies
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: out there. For the cats, the kiddies, there is a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: d d Oh, gotcha, two d's and an ie.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Not kitties.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: No, not kitties.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Not the Miamio.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Nice callback man.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that was a good one.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Basalts probably should have mentioned that on the one for
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the kiddies. Chuck, Yes, have you ever tested a toy?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: No?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Did you ever want to?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, I mean I've done some product testing before
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: because I have a friend or had a friend that
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: worked in market research and She would occasionally hit me
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: up for a burger taste or a beer drink nice,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: or a tool test, but never toys.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, I'll bet the beer drink was fun.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It's great, drink a little beer and you get paid
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: like a hundred bucks?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Was she like? No, No, you can't swallow. You have
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to swish it around in your mouth and spit it out.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Actually, most of the beer ones, the only one I did,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I think there was only one that was a taste.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: A lot of times it's just like, what do you
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: think of this logo type of thing?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So like the beer wasn't even in the room with you.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: No Ah, what a tease?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah? They just throw things up and I just go
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: so boring?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you like you probably could have explained this
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: better when you asked me to test the beer.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Well you get that little envelope on a hundred bucks though,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: so who cares? Oh? Nice?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Is that how much that pays?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes more?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Wow?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Sometimes fifty. I did a frozen yogurt win for fifty
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: bucks one time, but it ranged between fifty and a
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: couple one hundred.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Very cool.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cash money, yeah, why not?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: You know you can go buy a lot of beer
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: with that totally. Well. I remember hearing about the idea
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of toy testing as a kid and just being like,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: how how do I do this? And my parents were like,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we both work were busy. Go be
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a latch key kid.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially after the movie Big.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there was like a lot of toy testing
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: in that.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean that was his job.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Totally forgot about that. I just
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: remember the piano scene and then the scene at the end.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Well, they'll spoil it, Okay.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I said the scene at the end, Hopefully
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it didn't spoil it for anybody that Big ends eventually.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't spoil it. But it has something to do
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: with a dirty bomb, right, that's the next stepisode, the
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: big surprise ending.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I remember wanting to be a toy tester
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and it never panned out for me. And now that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I have grown up a little bit and I've read
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: this article, especially during a little research, toy testing still
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: sounds awesome if you're a kid, oh yeah, But if
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you're a parent, it does not sound all that great.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Uh what do you mean, like if your kid does that?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like a lot of work, man, what.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Like getting the toy and having your kid play with it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not like that's the end of it. Like,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of extra stuff you
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: have to do. You have to pay attention to your
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: kid while they're playing with it. You have to You've
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: got to write reports and stuff. But there's like if
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: there's work to it if you're the parent, for sure, So.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: In other words, you have to take them out of
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: their their small, plain brick room and actually let them play.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, take off their Hannibal Lecter face mask and their
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: straight jacket.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I never thought about it that way.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It don't get to work and then put them back
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: in after they're done with their toy.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: No, this again, if you're the kid, great job. If
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: you're a parent, it seems tough. Plus also, one of
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the things that's tough about it is that this is
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: not something that is easily come by. I think. Although
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: it's a lot easier today to get a job for
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: your kid as a toy tester than it was, say
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety, yeah, I.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Think back then you had to literally depend on someone
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: getting in touch with you.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Right or you had to like go show up at
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: headquarters and be like, hey, what do you think you kid?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Huh right?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: You know, all right, well, let's let's go a little further,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a little further back, Chuck, because there's a lot of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: different testing that goes on with toys. There's the kind
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I was just talking about research market research, right, like
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you and your beer logos.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, play with this toy, kid, what do you
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: think does it stink?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: There's also the kind that has to do with like
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: actually making sure it's safe, which is another kind of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: toy testing, and we're going to cover both. But the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: idea of testing toys to make sure that they didn't
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you know, disembowel the kid that was playing with them
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: with some weird sharp edge or a missile that was
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: actually you know, would stick in your gut and catch
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: fire or something like that, that's actually a relatively new concept,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like surprisingly new.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Actually yeah, I mean toys have been around for thousands
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: of years. Like they found toys that are potentially four
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: thousand years old. I saw a rattle that was from
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Turkey that maybe like four thousand years old. Yeah, And
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: by all accounts, this Italian find was a sort of
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: like an early easy bake oven kit.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a toy kitchen basically kitchen said.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, like little kids have always wanted to play
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: with stuff. It's just part of being a child, whether
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: it's tuk took junior or you know. Although up to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: my times and in the eighteenth century, it became a
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: thing to where the Enlightenment philosopher said, you know what,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: learning through play is a really valuable thing. So like
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: legit toy started being developed for the first time.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is about the time, maybe a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: little before, but this is probably the seeds of where
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: childhood came from. And we need to do an episode
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: just on childhood. I think man like when it was allowed. Yeah,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: like this is not it's not like a natural It
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: may be natural, but observing it is not a long
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: standing thing among humans.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Well, it was like, well, you're five years old. Time
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: for you to get to work exactly.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Like here you get a little more cold dust on
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: your face. You look jobless.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So the idea of kids playing, especially to kind of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: learn and grow into adults, that that, yeah, that's like
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: finds its roots in the Enlightenment, and so you've got
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that one branch or that one sapling coming up up
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and it starts to integrate and merge with another one
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: that comes up later on in the nineteenth century industrialization. Yeah,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: so now you have the idea that kids should play
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: with toys because prior to industrialization, families may have made
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: them themselves. Like the kid may have been just playing
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: with a kitchen utensil, forced to use its imagination.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Just realized I keep referring to the kid, is it?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Yea his or her imagination, Like a broom becomes a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: horse pretty easy?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or you know, I mean, look at stickball. Sure
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: is there anything simpler than cutting a broom into a
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: broomstick and playing baseball? Right?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Or a nice ladle can become an electric guitar. Sure,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that's always my thing. I always played air guitar whenever
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I could. I would give entire God Man, when I'm like,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: now that I am older, how torture must just have been.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I would give entire concerts of like bon Jovi's Slippery
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: When Wet No Boy, but like it would be an
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: either air guitar or a drum set made of like
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: country crock lids for symbols, And then the tubs for
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the drum themselves, or like a Quicker Roads box or
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: something like that. But I have like a whole like
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Tommy Lee drum kit made up.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: All right, I got some questions here, Okay.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I wasn't I wasn't done. I was on. Yeah, I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: would give this whole concert and like everybody would come
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: into my room and sit there and listen to like
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the first song and be like, okay, well more, and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I'd try to go through at least one whole side
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of the tape. Okay, I don't think I ever made
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it through a whole side, but my aim was to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: do the whole album.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, that that answered all my questions. Actually, Okay,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I want to know how long were these performances? Who
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: you subjected them to?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: My family? And they were long? They must have been
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: excruciatingly long.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, right, So.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure how I got on that.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: What my point was, Well, because of your imagination of
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: turning household items into fantastical toys.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: That's right, So thanks to industrialization and mass production, toys
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: could be made and sold and distributed, and all of
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now you have something like the beginning of
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: a consumer culture, especially in America.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're talking nineteen fifties. It became a real thing.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Except back then the toys were highly likely to injure
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: or kill your child, right, not highly like you, but
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of them were pretty dangerous.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: There. I found this one stat from nineteen sixty eight,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and like I've seen it, like question, no one was
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: keeping track. Apparently, no one really started keeping track to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: toy injuries and deaths until like the twenty first century.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Until the great lawn dart incident of fourth of July.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Isn't that jaw dropping? Man first century is when they
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: started releasing reports with injury and death statistics from toys.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So I saw this one. It was a guestimate, but
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I saw seven hundred thousand injuries from toys in nineteen
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: sixty eight. And that's not including jungle gyms and swing sets.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Bikes, trampolines, probably scooters.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Nothing like that. These are just straight up toys. By
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve, I saw that there were eleven children who
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: died in the US. Five of them were from tricycles,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: two of them were from scooters, two or from balloons.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: So really, technically only two children died from what you
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: would consider like just a straight up toy like a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: dollar or stuff toy or something like a crane or plato.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I think both of them were asphyxiation. So the idea
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that there was this huge change from very very very
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: dangerous toys into actually a pretty safe industry that has
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to do largely with toy testers.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was nineteen sixty nine that they finally
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: passed what's known as well the first federal safety Standards
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: for toys into law, and then the National Commission on
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Product Safety that same year said all right, we've got
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: eight recommendations for banning toys. And I look these up
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: in picture because they're kind of fun to look at. Sure,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the Empire Lady Empire Little Lady stove, which is basically
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: an easy bake oven mixed with a pottery kiln six
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: hundred degrees fahrenheit. This thing would get.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It's three hundred and sixteen degrees celsius.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Like your home oven doesn't get up to six hundred
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: degrees Probably.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: It genuinely does not. I think mine goes to five
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: point fifty. Maybe in cleaning self cleaning mode it gets
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: up that high but this is not something a little
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: toddler needs to play with.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Right in self cleaning mode, it locks it self shuts
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: he can't open the door even right. What else the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Bird of Paradise slingshot, which looked innocuous enough, but it
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: the deal with that one was that had these sharp
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: missiles that could make you bleed. Yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I think slingshot it just begins and ends at that
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: as far as the safety's concerned.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I looked up slingshots today because I had remember the
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: wrist rockets, Yeah, I do.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Those things were so dangerous.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Did you have one?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: No? I was never allowed to have one.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So I had a wrist rocket and I looked up
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: today after this article. I was like, I wonder what's
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: going on in the world of slingshots? And dude, you
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: should see some of the slingshots on the market today.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Are they even more dangerous than the wrist rocket? Oh?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow? And like there are YouTube videos with people
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: with these things that they look like little musket balls
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: that you can fire. Sure, And I mean this guy
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: was shooting these balls with a slingshot through like half
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: inch plywood.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It's like a that is a dangerous toy. Wow.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really just look up extreme sling shots at
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: some point and go get one.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe if you're eighteen year older and don't have
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: like some you know, grudge against anybody.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: This last one, the Zulu blowgun, was that period in
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: America where you could have some a kid's toy that
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: was highly racist and very dangerous, all in one one
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: convenient box. Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine what the packaging looked like on that onine.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: It looks like what you think it looks like.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So kids were choking on the darts, I'm sure, like
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: putting the dart in then taking a deep breath exactly.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: They were like, I should have thought this through first.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, I regret nothing.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: And that was that, right. So that was nineteen sixty nine.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: That was the first time they started taking toy safety seriously.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And prior to that, the last time they had looked
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: out for little kids was I think in the fifties,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: because in the forties there was a lot of like
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: flash fire deaths among children wearing like pajamas because pajamas
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: were made of ray on, this new material at the time,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and I guess no one had ever tested it around
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a flame, and it turns out that it could burn
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: up real quick, and not only could it burn the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: kid badly, possibly to death, it could also kill them
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: from smoke inhalation from their pajamas.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And even if.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: They survived, they were again very badly burned. So Congress
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: passed the Flammable not flammable, Flammable Fabric Act. I think
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: is what it's called, not flamable? And can I go
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: off here for a second. Sure, can we all come
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: together and just agree to drop the word inflammable altogether?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Oh? That again, there's no reason for it.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: It's just a dangerous word.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Well I'm still I'm still beating the drama on that one.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Wasn't that a Simpsons thing too? Yeah?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Doctor Nick, He's like, right, flammable means flammable.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So the so Congress passed this act to basically say
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: all kids where needs to be flame retardant. Now, the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: problem is is the chemicals they used to make the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: closed flame retardant was were flammable. They were not. They
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: were the opposite of flammable in their credit, but they
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: supposedly were linked to kids an increase in hyperactivity and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: a decrease in IQ Oh wow. And still today it's very,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: very tough to get kids pajamas that aren't flame retardant
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: with those same chemicals in them. But apparently in the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: mid nineties, Congress allowed a loophole to keep going where
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: if the pajamas were of a snug fit, they could
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: be not flame resistant. Right, they didn't have to have
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the flame retardant chemicals because to burn, fire needs oxygen,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and if there's no oxygen really between the kid's skin
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and the pajamas because they're snugly, snug fitting pajamas, then
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the fire is probably not going to happen, so they
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: don't have to have flame retardant chemicals. That's the one loophole.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Isn't that fascinating?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and now we can get back to the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: long standing tradition of leaving a lit candle in your
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: baby's crib for the first month.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Well, there was one other thing I saw, chuck too.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: There is a long standing rumor that it was actually
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the tobacco industry that got the Flammable Fabrics Act pushed
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: through because they were trying to deflect the blame for
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: death by fire accidental fire from cigarettes to the actual
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: fabric manufacturers, gotcha. Even though a lot of people died
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in their beds from their mattress going up because they
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: fell asleep with a cigarette in their mouth.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Smoking a bed seems like such a such a thing
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that nobody would do anymore. But I know people still
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: do it, Yes, but it's still shocking when you see
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: it in a in a movie or TV show, which
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: it used to us to see that all the time
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: in movies, But now when you see it, you think
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: people really smoke in bed. I don't know.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know either. I don't I don't smoke.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's take a break and we will
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: come back and talk a little bit more about different
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: kinds of toy testing right after this. All right, So
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: there are mechanisms in place and regulatory bodies in place
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: now that are in charge of making sure toys are safe,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and these are constantly It's not like they wrote the
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: book on it and said, all right, we're good. As
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: toys expand and are developed, the safety standards need to
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: be changing all the time, and they do, which is great.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: So one thing I saw, ironically enough, is that somebody
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: actually did write the book on this.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but it's not a finalized version, right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, oh, I see you too, mean like they updated
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: as new science comes in. Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed. But
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: even that, you know, just the idea of creating standards
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: again is pretty new, because I think until like the nineties,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: they didn't really update the toy safety requirements for a while,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and it started to finally pick up, I think in
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the nineties, and then in the two thousands there is
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: a group, an organization called ASTM. Could not, for the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: life of me find what that stands for, but they
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: created the Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety, which
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: apparently is the universal guidelines for toy.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Safety American standards for toy manufacturers. Oh maybe that's not bad, chuck,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: all right, that was my first stab at it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: You also have companies like in our article here at
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: how Stuff Works called intertech, not in a tech.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: What's in a tech?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: I think that was office space, wouldn't it? Oh? Was it?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I think so inner tech, which basically they they're professional
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: toy testers. They have laboratories where they have technicians that say, here,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: let me, let me see if I can bite the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: eyes off of this doll into my mouth and let
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: me see if it's so small that I can swallow
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: that eye. Let me rip it apart, let me light
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it on fire. In England they have I think actually
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: not even just England and all of Britain. They they
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: have a rule that a toy burn rate can be
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: no more than one inch per second, with the idea
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that if a toy does catch on fire, at least
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: your kid has enough time to throw it away, throw
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: it towards the gas can and run, right.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And then the EU has their own set of standards too,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: So with that burn thing, I should say at least, yeah,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: if a toy burns faster than thirty millimeters a second,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: which is a little over an inch, then it can't
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: be sold in the EU.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And then if it burns between ten millimeters a second
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and thirty millimeters a second, it still has to have
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a warning that says warning, keep away from fire.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can get Bernie right, right, And.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole idea is like, if that kid sees
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the thing on fire, they're gonna throw it and run
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and the house will catch on fire. But the kid's
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: not gonna burn up, right unless the kid goes and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: tells a grown up. I think that should be in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the in the warning too.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Throw doll, run, tell grown up.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Right, don't go make like a ham sandwich. I saw
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: this really great video from Innertech and it's called Teddy
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Bear Testing. Did you see it?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It is great. It's that they clearly are aware of
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: what that what they're doing is bizarre and morbid if
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you just are standing there watching it as an observer,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: but you know, the point to the whole thing is
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: actually quite quite noble and heroic. But one of the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: things that they did was there's this like three pronged
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It was almost like you know those things that a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: jeweler uses to pick up diamonds with tweezers kind of,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: but they have one that's like a three prong thing
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: where you push down on the end and the prongs
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: extend and open a little bit, and you pick something
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: up and then release the end and it draws it
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: up and tightens it and holds it stung trysers, tryesers.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: That's going to be in the OED one day, I think.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: But with this there was a little bigger and much sturdier,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and they hooked the dolls the Teddy Bear's eye up
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to this thing and then pull the teddy bear back
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to see how many pounds of pressure it could be
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: stand before it came off. And that's the other thing too.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: They're not just like pulling this and like having fun,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Like they're making measurements and they're using like standardized force
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that they're applying to this, right, Like the seams. The
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: sewing has to be able to with stand like one
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: kilogram of weight for ten seconds without opening up. Just
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: things like that, right, And it's thanks to these groups
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: like the EU or the ASTM and who have gone
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: through and said this is like if your toy makes
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a sound, it should be no louder than this, or
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: if you are manufacturing a toy gun, it should be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: marked like this, so it's obviously a toy and not
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a real gun. Like just comprehensive standards that everyone could
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: adhere to to keep little kiddies two d's safe. Yes,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I just think it's great that there's people out there
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: doing that because it's a kind of a new thing.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Well sure, and they ostensibly have done the research on
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: like they really cover all their bases, like what what
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: could we imagine a child doing with this thing? You know?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I suspect that even as much time as they spend
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: doing that. Oh sure, kids still come up with some
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: whack stuff to do with toys.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I told the story during the evil
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Canevil thing, we used to make a coat hanger hoops
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: and dip them in gasoline.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I wish I would have known you back then so
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I could stand there and watch that.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Man. Well you would have been putting on your we
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: would have been running the pyrotechnic for your Bonjobi concert.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, thank Scott, and I would have been all
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: over that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not too late.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: That's true, all right. So that's toy making sure toys
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: are safe. Once a toy is safe, then there's this
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: whole second thing that we were kind of talking about
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: from the movie Big, Like the great scene when Tom
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Hanks is first and grown up Josh Baskin is in
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the office.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Did you look up his name or do you just
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: walk around knowing it?
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: No? No? Another movie Big Inside and Out?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, is that one of your favorites?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, You've been running around asking people on movie Crush
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: with their favorite movie? Is what's yours?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Is Big It?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: No?
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: No?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: No, but it's up there I love the movie Big,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I've seen it a dozen times or more. Gotcha easily?
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Josh Baskin, Yeah, so a little Josh Baskin's all grown
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: up in the office. And what's his name? Was it?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: John Hurd that he recently passed away. He's the evil
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: corporate executive that has his idea and as I.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Remember his famous line, stop having fun.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he makes his big presentation. I think it
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: was like a building that turns into a robot and
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Tom Hanks very sweetly just raised his hands. I don't
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: get it. He's like, what do you mean? I don't
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: get it? And that's basically what they want to ask kids,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: like do you want to play with this? Is it fun?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Like adults to design these things? And they might. I
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: would assume that if you're a toy designer, you have
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: a mind of a child to a certain degree, but
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: you're still not a kid. Yeah, it's got to pass
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: that test, right exactly.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: That's the whole point of having toy testers. It's kids
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: like that's they're not adult toy testers. Maybe their parents
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: are there or something like that, but the whole point
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of actual market development toy testing is by just giving
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: kids some toys and seeing what they do with it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: That's right, and there's a lot of a lot of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: places that do this right, Like apparently Mattel has something
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: called the Mattel Imagination Center in El Segundo. And if
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you live around El Segundo or willing to travel to
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: El Segundo, and you have a child that's zero to thirteen,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: there's a pretty high likelihood that you will be able
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to get into the door and your kid will be
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: able to play with some toys and be watched by
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: scientists behind two way mirrors. But that's pretty I mean,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that's a little I think that's pretty close to reality.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I think the places where you go to actually test
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: on site with toys are a little more fun than
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like a like a room with a two way mirror,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: but it's still the same principle. Generally you're being observed
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: while you're playing with toys as a kid.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's to get these gigs the dream job
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: for a kid or I guess you think the job
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: from hell for a parent. Pay attention, Like sometimes they
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: might get in touch with you. Sometimes you might can
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: follow the social media page of like the Mattel Imagination
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Imagination Center they. I mean, if you just google toy
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: testing jobs, there are pages and pages on places where
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: you can submit your name and it's you know, from there.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It's probably a bit of a lottery like experience, depending
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: on what exactly they're looking for. Like you might fit
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: your kid might fit a demographic, but there's still a
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: lot of kids in that demo that they have sip through.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So it's not like you can say, you know, don't
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: promise your kid you can get them a job as
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a toy tester.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Right, well, oh yeah, you may want to not in.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I don't even tell them that that's a job right
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: until you've secured it.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Just don't even say the word toy around your kid.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: So there's that's there's the old school way is like
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: going directly to the company, like to go to Mattel
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: or Fisher Price maintain something called it's play Lab, and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you can email these companies directly basically send your kids resume,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: maybe a video of your kid playing with a toy.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: What they would be looking for, Like you said, they
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: might be looking for a certain demographic, but they more
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: often than not if they're just looking for like a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: go to toy tester to where your kid actually has
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the job of being a toy tester, where somebody, some
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: company or companies are mailing your kid toys to test you.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: You basically need to audition for that, and you would
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: want to include a video and that your kid in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the video would want to be using like coherent words
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that express how he or she's feeling about that toy
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: at that moment. Yeah, and you may get picked up.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: That's the old school way of doing it. Although if
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you want to do super old school like use a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: video camera and send in like a VHS tape of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: your kid playing with the toy, that's the old school
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: way of doing it. Now, you can go onto social media,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, Chuck, and there's a lot it's
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: a lot easier for companies to reach out in a
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: targeted way to basically tap kids to become toy testers.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you are a mom, mommy blogs are huge.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: They are huge on the Internet and they get sent
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: everything from you know, baby products that they can use
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: to mommy products to toys. So tell your mom start
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: a blog, become a top blogger, and she'll thank you
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: because then she'll be rich.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say, mom, start a viral blog to day.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Who is it? Ellen DeGeneres has a show feature where
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: she has these kids that come out and test toys
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: on TV. You're not gonna get that job because these
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: two kids already have it.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Well, that one of the kids. I'm not sure what
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Trey Hart's background was, but Noah Ritter, he was the
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: apparently kid on Alan Remember him?
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Nope?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: He came off ride and was asked by a local
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: newsperson like what he thought of the ride? And he's like, well,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: apparently I thought it was great. It had me scared
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: half to death. You've ever seen the video of that kid?
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: No?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's beyond adorable. Yeah, he's one of the two
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: toy testers. Now, oh so that's how he got that gig. Yes,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: good for him.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: What else? You can start a YouTube channel? There are
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: actual kids out there with their own YouTube channels where
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: they test toys. And beyond that, I want to recommend
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: have you ever seen our buddy Joe Randazzo's Lego Dude reviews? Yeah?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Have I don't know if you have to be a
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: friend to Joe or not, but go out there and
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: look at Lego Dude reviews, Lego City Logging, truck and
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: our friend Joe formerly of The Onion and formally of
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: at Midnight Fame, our comedian writer friend. It's just the
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: funniest thing I've ever seen. And it doesn't translate to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: everyone because there are comments like is this guy for real? Right?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because he's doing it straight.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like all those reviews, like they start
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: off with the box that it comes in, and so
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Joe starts off with the box and how well taped
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: up it is. It's just really funny.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a nice, nice spoof Lego.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Dude reviews and there are all kinds of those, but
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: specifically Lego City Logging Truck, and you'll just see that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: sweet face of Joe's and you'll know it's him. But
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: there is a boy called well, I don't know what
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: his full name is. Was Evan Tube HD is a
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: YouTube channel. Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: He and his sister do reviews.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he is. He has four and a half
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: million subscribers.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Is that as of today?
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, four point six.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I noticed that they did like a pizza challenge where
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: they just put weird stuff on pizza and it has
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: like sixty five million views.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: It is unbelievable. It's crazy, Chuck. You if you ask
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: somebody like back in nineteen eighty to conceive of like
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: what TV's like in the future, and they said, it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: people just opening up toys on on TV and that's it,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, that's a pretty good, pretty good description.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I would buy that. Well the futures.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Now, well there's the other one, the Disney collector br.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Right, this is who I'm talking about.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Nine and a half million subscribers, and like you said,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: there it is literally nothing but the hands of some woman,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: some anonymous uh robot ai creature.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: No, it's a real person's opening up toys and playing
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: with them and talking a little bit in a very
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: creepy voice. If you ask me, I think it's great.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: You think the voice is great, dude, Yeah, Pepa pig.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: It creeped me out.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Oh I liked it. Her Okay. So her name probably
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: is Vera Creditio.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Uh a woman, vera money bags.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a woman. Yeah, get this, she's even more wealthy
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: than you realize. She's a woman in winter Park, Florida.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: If that's her, then that's so that's that's supposedly her
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and her husband Messius Creddio.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, he has.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Something called Blue Toys Club Surprise, which is the boys
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: version basically uh huh of Disney Collector br and together,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: they seriously are probably clearing twenty plus million dollars a year,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: making a video every day and uploading it. And she
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: will say pepai or something like that and say what
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: it is the product that she's holding or opening or
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: playing with or whatever, and that like that's it.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's like you were saying, like all you see are
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: her hands, she's opening the packaging. She's actually really good
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: at opening packaging. She never gets frustrated. I didn't see her,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Like I didn't see them have to cut and like
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: there was no jump cut or anything like that. She's
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: really good at opening packaging. And then she kind of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: says what it is out loud and then just like
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: sets it down to the side, and I was watching
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it like, this is ridiculous. This is the first ten seconds.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: This is ridiculous. People actually watch this. I can't believe this.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing I knew, the next four
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: minutes were me sitting there with my mouth kind of
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: open a little bit. Yeah, just zoned out watching this.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I think that's the whole point. It's kids love it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Toddler's love watching stuff.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I can see why. Yeah, her husband though, or I
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: should say Blue Toys Club, surprise, he didn't talk at all.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And then I find a little creepy.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: He just breathes heavily.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: He did. He just like plays with them. He plays
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: with them more than she does. She just opens them.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: He opens them and plays with them. But he doesn't talk.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: But again, you just see the hands. Yeah, twenty million
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: dollars a year.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what a world.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: It is quite a world. It's the future, all right.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Should we take another break? Yes, all right, let's do that,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: and we're going to come back and finish up with
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a little fun with some of the most dangerous toys
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: of all time right after this.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back, man, Are you ready?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: I'm ready?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So this, this list could go on for years.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are lots of list like this out there.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: So this and it's not meant to be comprehensive. This
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: is just a selection of some of our favorites. Doujour
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: huh sure? So one that I saw was the snack
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Time Kid cabbage patch doll, yes, which you could feed
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: real stuff to that in the ad they feed, like
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the cabbage patch kid a French fry or two, or
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: maybe I think it came with food, That's what it was.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: It came with food and you could feed it and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: it would just keep chewing and swallow and then bam,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the plastic French fry was gone. Your cabbage patch kid
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: just ate a French fry, can you believe it? And
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: that was the whole thing, right, Yeah. But they would
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: chew no matter what was placed in their mouth. Yeah,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: like fingers or hair, right, and they wouldn't stop either. Yeah,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So your little kid could end up with like a
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: crushed finger or lose a big tuft of hair, and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the cabbage patch kid would just be all fitts and elbows,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: say more and more, give me more.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's something for your nightmares. There's a
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: cabbage patch kid just chewing their way towards.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: You, exactly connected by your hair to you.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So that was recalled by Mattel in nineteen ninety seven. Yep,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: So they did the right thing there.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did. Probably The most famous one of all
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: time is lawn darts.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lawn darts. I played it when I was a kid.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: If you haven't seen lawn darts just you're of a
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: newer generation, just google it, and they were you. You
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: would have two big kind of hula hoop rings, kind
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: of like a horseshoe game, and you would launch these large, plastic,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: sharpish darts.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Plastic on one end.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the fins were plastic. Yeah, the stick part or
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the what would you call that, the dead end, the pizzer, sure, yeah,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: was metal and it was sharpish. It wasn't like a
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: you know, like a razor or anything, but it was
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: sharp enough to where if you launch this thing from
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: across the yard and you look up and go, I
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: can't see it. It's in the sun, all of a sudden,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: it's in your eyeball. Yeah, and you're blind.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that happened to some people. Like people were getting
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: injured by these things. Apparently there were seven thousand reported
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: injuries from lawn darts. What'd you call them jarts?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Mmm? No, I never said that.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I thought you call them jarts earlier.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: No, okay, that is a thing. Though I've heard of jarts.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: What are those?
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I thought that was the same thing.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: It may be the same, So maybe that was the
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: brand name.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not sure, but they were banned. Actually, they
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: didn't even have a chance to be recalled. They were
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: banned in nineteen eighty eight. So it is illegal to manufacture, sell, possess,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and certainly play with lawn darts in the US by
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: punishment of death by lawn darts.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, I just looked up quickly. By the way, Jarts
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: was the brand name. Oh, okay for at least one
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: of them. I'm sure there was more than one kind.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: There definitely was, because the one I saw was Franklin
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: yard Darts. Franklin, they made the shuttlecocks that my family
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: used to play badminton with. Did you know I was
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: like a world class badminton player. I'm just learning so
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: much today now that I think about it. World class
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: is probably misleading.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Neighborhood class.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Neighborhood class for sure, Yet right, I could destroy the
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: neighborhood at least.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will still play a game of badminton. My
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: brother set one up a couple of years ago.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, how'd you do?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: It? Was okay?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Good enough?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: So have you ever watched it? Like Olympic badminton?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's awesome.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: It's so crazy, it is amazing.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: But I can't even follow it. I'm just they might
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: as they could be out there faking like there is
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: no shuttle cock and I would never know.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The only way it could get better is if
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Disney collector b R commented on it but didn't even
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: talk about what was going on. She just said extra squeeze,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: all right.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: So this next one is actually these next two are
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: legit scary. The Atomic Energy Laboratory. In nineteen fifty one, A. C.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Gilbert and vented the Erector set and he released this
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: energy lab like a it was sort of like a
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: little chemistry lab set thing, but it actually had uranium.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: It had real radioactive materials. Yeah, so you could see
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: like you could create mistrails and things. Yeah.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It was like a chemistry set for kids, but with radioactivity.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: That was the point of it. This is at a
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: time when the government was like, no, no, it's all fun.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Radioactivity is fine. It's good for you. It gives you
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a healthy glow.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the next one the CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: This was on Ion nine's list was the number two
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: most dangerous toy of all time.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think also thanks for saying that the last
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: three were from the band toy museum online.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like we said all these and I looked at
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: a bunch of these lists and it's mostly the same stuff.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Sure is good to know that it's not you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: like there's really one hundred things and we're just picking our.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Favorite, right exactly.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: So the CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, you could play CSI
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: you could dust for fingerprints with trimolite, which is one
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: of the deadliest kinds of asbestos. The powder that you
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: used to dust had about seven percent trimolite, and this
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: was really scary and it's amazing that it got through
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: because this was not the nineteen fifties.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it was just like the early two thousands,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I believe, because it was a CSI brand fingerprinting kit.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And I guess so I saw that that what is
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it tremolite? Yeah, is a it's an actual like I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: think they used actual fingerprint dust and that's like part
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of something that fingerprint technicians have to work with, is
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: this asbestos. But they packaged it up and sold it
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: for kids, and the company went bankrupt pretty quickly.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would imagine.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So what about Bucky Balls. It's kind of a legendary one.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: You remember those, Yeah, I didn't know that these had
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: a bad ending, because I remember my nephew and niece
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: got Bucky balls for Christmas whenever, I mean not too
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: long ago, and they were awesome and cool and I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: played with them like crazy at their house.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're fun. Were great. They're like ball bearings that
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: are super strong magnet.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it's really neat.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: So far, so good. You can build stuff out of them,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you can hold stuff to a refrigerator with them, whatever
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you want to do. It's just a great round magnet.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: But the problem is is that if you swallowed more
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: than one, you could be in big trouble because these
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: things were very strong magnets, and if you had one
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: in your intestine and another one and a part of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: a different part of your intestine, they would come together
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: and your intestine would be pinched off right there.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this actually happened to the extent where about
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a thousand or so kids required surgery to get these out.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And they were a big hit. It was kind of
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: one of those, uh, just one of those Christmas toys
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: that really captured Yeah, I must have Christmas toy. And
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I guess the inventor did not want to acknowledge this,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: so he basically said, I'm not recalling these. These are
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: a hot item. The federal government sued him. He dissolved
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: his company instead of funding a recall, and so they
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: went after him personally to try and get fifty seven
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: million bucks out of them.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, supposedly settled for about one percent of that. Yeah,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I know, fifty seven million down to.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: What five hundred and seventy thousand, right, Yeah, that's.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: That was my calculation too, But I was like, that's
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: so small. I'm not very confident about saying it out loud.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you for swooping in.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's right. I didn't calculate it, and
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I'm terrible at math.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: We'll find out I am too, buddy. And look look
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: how far we've gotten in life. Yeah, it's five seven,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: So thank you for using the coca sure. And then lastly, Chuck,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: we've mentioned it before. We mentioned the prototype four it
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that was banned, the Easy Bake oven itself, the famous
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: one that was in the National Toy Hall of Fame
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, was itself banned?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this one did not. So was that the deal
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: with the other one that was a prototype?
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: No? No, it was like a predecessor too, Okay, I
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: guess that is what I mean.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the easy Bake oven never got up to
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: six hundred degrees No, but.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: It got up to two hundred degrees cel c s
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: four hundred degrees paraheight. That's you don't bake anything that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: like that much like that hot? That is hot.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you could cook a pizza in that thing.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, not well, but you could, yes, if.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: You had time. Sure, But they had some problems with
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: them over the years. I mean, this is a is
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: a like you said, a Hall of Fame toy that's
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: been around forever and beloved by boys and girls for generations.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: And two hundred and fifty incidents reported sixteen cases of
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: second or third degree burns.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was specifically a design flaw that got
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: little kid's fingers trapped in the oven when it was hot. Yeah,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and one little girl apparently had to undergo a partial
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: finger amputation, says I Owe nine.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Very sad.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: It is sad, But we wouldn't know about this stuff
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: if it weren't for consumer protection. And I guess that's
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the moral of the story. That's becoming the moral of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the story lately. Our Restaurant Inspector's episode. Oh yeah, now
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: toy testing.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. Good point.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about toy testing, you
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: can type those two words into the search bar at
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: House of Forks dot common and it'll bring up an article.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for listener mail.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this something we missed in the Foyer episode.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Hey guys, long time stener, first time writer, just listen
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: to the Freedom of Information Act episode acknowledge this. He's
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: a little behind and I wanted to bring something to
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: your attention. Many states have laws modeled after the FOYA,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: and there's a disturbing trend the last few years. There
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: are many special interest groups and activists out there that
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: have begun using Foyer requests to stall legitimate research.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: This sounds familiar, Yeah, exactly.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: With facilities having hundreds of terabytes of data to potentially
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: sift through, complying with a request or say every inter
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: departmental email from twenty to twenty seventeen, they can completely
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: shut down an operation with only a handful of researchers.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Another tactic is to cherry pick from tons upon tons
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: of data to attempt to piece together an argument to
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: discredit unfavorable study results. The group's making the request know this,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: so it's a win win for them. They get tons
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: of private emails to look through to spend into something nefarious,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: and even if and when they find nothing, they still
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: throw a wrench into legitimate research. And how about that man?
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: He said he was a little disappointed we didn't mention it.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: But first of all, Brandon, I didn't know about this,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, same here, Brandon Ley. That's why. But he said,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: you guys, I realize you focus more on the federal version,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: so that's not much of an issue there, So let
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: us off the hope. Yeah, he Since you guys are awesome,
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: keep up the great work. Sincerely, guy you should Know,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Brandon Benzac.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Brandon. That was pretty smart. Thanks for
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: letting us know so we could, in turn let everybody
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: else know terrible stuff. Yep, I gotta look into that now.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: If you want to alert us to something that we
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: walked right past, please do we always want to know
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You could send us an email
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: more podcasts, my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.