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Short Stuff: Lawn Darts · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: This is short stuff getting up. Let's go look out above?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Is that what people shout? Look out above? It feels wrong.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I think I think they say look out below. But
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: that didn't make any sense, No neither one. It just
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: say how about just look out or heads up? No,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: not heads up, you'll get a lawn dart in your eye.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Just move out of the immediate area quickly, duck and cover.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: There you go. Yeah, I don't know if that would
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: help either, because Chuck, get this. We're talking about lawn darts,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and when they get a real wind up under them,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: they strike with a force of around twenty three thousand
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: pounds per square. That's right. And we are talking about
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: lawn darts. And if you're like, what is a lawn dart?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: That means you're probably younger than we are because we
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: grew up in this seventies and eighties these with these toys.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Uh that was It's basically a giant oversized dart like
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you would throw it a dartboard with plastic fins, and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: they're about what are they about a foot long or so? Dish? Yeah,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and the idea is that it was sort of like cornhole.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: You would get on opposite sides of each other like
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: horse shoes, and you have these big hula hoops basically
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you would put on the ground and you would throw
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the lawn dart up in the air and try and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: get it to come down and stick inside of that hoop. Yeah,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and you get some points for that. You just let
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it arc gracefully back down into that hoop and that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: was it, And there was a lot of fun. The
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: problem is it was a lot of danger as well
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: because these things, again a lot of them had like
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a blunt end, but not all of them did. Some
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: were sharp, especially the first ones. Um, they would come
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: back down to earth with a lot of force behind them,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and if they happened to come back down to earth
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: via your boy, they could really mess you up, really well,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: especially if you were a little kid whose skull hasn't
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: fused fully yet because you're not twenty years old. And um,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: some kids suffered tremendously at the at the hands of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the lawn dart industry. That's right. And uh, you know,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the government comes into play here. Before we were born
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in nine seventy and this was I think they debuted
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in about nineteen fifty ish. Uh, the f d A
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: banned these things because they're like, these are really really dangerous,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and the manufacturer said, nah, they're not so dangerous. Let's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: let's send our lobby in the toy lobby and get
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: them brought back to the market, because we got to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: get these lawn darts out there. Nothing was more important,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: right right then getting the lawn darts back to market,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: getting the people their lawn darts and chuck. You lived
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: through the seventies. I lived through the seventies, although I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't fully aware except towards the end there. But do
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you know how dangerous something had to be to get
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: banned in the seventies, Yeah, I mean SNL had a
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: skit about dangerous toys exactly. So there was, um, there
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: was a push to get rid of lawn darts, but
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the lawn dart industry, very surprisingly if you ask me,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: pushed back and they struck a deal and said, look
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: how about this. We won't um, we won't market to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: kids anymore. So lawn darts are officially not a toy.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Will sell them in the sporting goods section of like
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: department stores, and we'll put a warning on the box
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: about just how dangerous they are, because we didn't say chuck.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Lawn darts are the direct descendant of a weapon of
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: war called the plume bada. Um. I read this Mashable
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: article about these, and a plume bada is a lawn dart,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: except a lawn dart that you used in war. Starting
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: with the ancient Greeks and about five all the way
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: up to the Middle Ages, people were using plume bata yeah,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to great effect. Right, And so the law and dart industry,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the recreation sporting goods industry, said we've got to get
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: these weapons of war back onto the market, and so
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: they struck a deal with the FDA, and the FDA said, fine,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you can. You can start manufacturing them again. That's right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And that's what we got in on the second wave
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of lawn darts in the seventies and eighties, when they said,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: we won't sell them in the toy section at Target.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: We'll sell them in the adjacent sporting goods section at Target.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Kids will never see them, they'll never know. It will
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: be like they don't even exist to and so um
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: they came back. And when they came back in that
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: second wave, that you and I were a part of.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: They were bigger than ever, even like lawn darts were
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a thing for a little while there. Um, but they
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: weren't any less dangerous than they were before, as we'll
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: see right after this message break. Well, now we're on
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the road driving in your truck. Want to learn a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: thing or two from Josh Damn Chuck should know? All right? Okay,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: so Chuck in that second wave, um that really began
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: in Earnest in the eighties. Um, you could go to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the sporting goods section of your department store and you
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: might be there to buy like a volleyball set, but
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: ts for you, because including in that that volleyball set
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: is a set of lawn darts and you have to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: buy them if you want that volleyball set. And that's
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: how they were sold in a lot of cases. Yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I don't that part. I don't get Oh yeah, yeah,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Like why they would include another toy, completely different toy
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in this volleyball set. I just I just don't get it. Well,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I think that they were saying, like, you, customer, have
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: shown that you have a desire for outdoor fun and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: recreate in your backyard. Here's another game that we're going
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to throw in that we apparently can't move on its own,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: so we're just was that the deal? That's what I want.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: We're gonna sweeten the pot on this volleyball net, Like
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: why are they giving away to him? That's what I
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That's how I took it well, regardless of mental Floss
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: reported that David Snow, this aerospace engineer in California, did
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: such a thing in April of eighties seven, and I thought,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: like any reasonable parent, like, oh boy, I should hide
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: these from my children, which he did in his garage,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: but his children found them, started playing with him, and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: very tragically, one hit his seven year old daughter in
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the head, lodged in her brain, and three days later
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: she was declared clinically dead and removed from life support.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And it was a big, big tragedy and a big
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: big deal. And yeah, so David Snow happened to be
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the kind of guy who like this would get to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: anybody obviously losing your child like this, but I think,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a significant portion of people who would
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: just be so dead inside that they just had no
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: driver resolved for much of anything. After that. He was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the opposite kind of guy. He went the opposite direction,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and he became a citizen activist, self taught lobbyist, self
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: funded lobbyist, who made it his mission to get lawn
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: darts banned again. But by this time, this was in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the seventies anymore. This is the regularra eighties and um.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Getting any any industry, your business, band, or or um
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: regulated more than it was before was not the easiest
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: thing in the world to do. So he approached the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Consumer Product Safety Commission, which had taken over from the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: f d A, and he said, you gotta get rid
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of lawn darts. First of all, look at what happened
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to my daughter. And they say, well, we're really sorry
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: about what happened to your daughter, But if you look
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: at the numbers, man, they're just not that dangerous. They're
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: certainly not dangerous enough to enact an outright band again.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So sorry, no, we're not going to be doing that
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: anytime soon. That's right. But what nobody noticed at first
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: was that these numbers included they were just dart injuries, right,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So that included just throwing regular darts at a dartboard. Uh.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've all had one of those
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: bounce off and sticking to our thigh. At one point,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, nothing, no big deal. You're not going to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: go to the hospital for an injury most likely from
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: a regular dartboard. No, and if you do, if you do,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: you were making a really big deal out of this,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that's right. So they said, wait a minute, what if
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: we pull all those darts out, and what if we
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: actually just did a little research on lawn darts, because
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about, and uh, it was a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: big deal. Um. Over eight years, lawn darts had sent
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: more than six thousand people to the emergency room, of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: which were kids fifteen or younger, half of which were
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: ten or younger. And they were to the eyes, to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the ears, to the face, and the head for the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: most part. Yeah, and again kids were particularly vulnerable well
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: because their skull is infused, so when a kid got
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: hit in the head with the lawn dart, it could
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: very easily penetrate the skull. And they found that this
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: was happening a lot more than anyone had ever realized before.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So now they had a problem on their hands. Now
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: they had real numbers that showed that actually, this thing
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: is bad enough to to ban. And they looked a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: little further, and they commissioned to study that found that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the lawn dart industry was not following those rules that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: it had agreed to from when the nineteen seventy band
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: was overturned. So they were marketing into toys, they were
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: selling it in the toy section, they weren't including warnings
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: on the box um and just completely going back on
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: on the agreement from before. So it started to look
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: more and more like, Okay, maybe we should ban these,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And again, Chuck, it's really hard not to step back
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and be like, these are lawn darts, Yes, just ban them.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Who cares? But that was they would not do it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: They were very deliberate and in undertaking this ban on
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: lawn darts. But finally, thanks in no small part to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: news the week that the vote on the band was
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: going to go through of a little girl in Tennessee
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: who had been put into a coma by lawn dart um,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: they enacted the band two to one. They voted in
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: favor of the band. That's right, and and Reagan's America.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They actually banned a toy. And it's so funny to
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: think there would be such pushback over this one thing,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: like yeah, you know what, let's just get rid of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the lawn darts, manufacture some other toys. It'll be fine.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: But they had to have those lawn darts out there
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: in the hands of children. Uh. And you can still
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: make your own lawn darts. You can d I y
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it if you uh, if you go to on the web.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: There are companies in the United Kingdom that will sell
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you the parts, which is a bit of a work around.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: You can assemble them yourself. Uh. And you can still
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: go to tournaments if you there is a U s
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: l d a h lawn Dart Association, and you can
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: go to tournaments and bring out your old darts and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: talk about the good old days of of no government oversight,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and you can you can pitch those things and imagine
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: drinks and beer and probably have a pretty good time. Yeah,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: probably have a great time. Really just sticking in the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: eye of the nanny state. Just yeah, do it safely though,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: keep the kids away. Yeah. And I want to say
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: one thing. The reason that you can get lawn darts
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: is because that government banned banned the important sale, not
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the possession. And this one dark company in particular from
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the UK said, oh, well, that means if we just
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: send these things unassembled. They're really just lawn dart pieces,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and so ipso facto it's great legally speaking. Yeah, so
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that's it for lawn darts, right, Chuck, that's it. Well,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Chuck said, that's it everybody. So that means that short
• 11:48
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