And let’s not forget the toy boxes with lids that could crush your head. Ahhh, the good old days…

How about the bug factory, where you had to melt plastic and pour into molds? The fumes themselves were toxic AF, the molten plastic would fuse to your skin if you spilled it on yourself, and the melting pot was hotter than a campfire. Industrial fun for every girl and boy.

Remember the Sit-n-Spin? Or as my uncle called it, the Whirl and Hurl.. Oh and don't forget the Lemon Jump. You know the thing you attached to one ankle and then spun it around and jumped over it with your other leg, without tripping and falling on your face. Last but never least was tether ball. I was a vicious little b*tch when it came to playing that game, and intentionally aimed for my opponents face.. Good times! Good times!

I'm 61yrs this year. So I thoroughly remember all of these!! My worst accident was I went down a VERY steep hill on my bike, was forced off the side, landed on top of my bike(after a sixty foot drop) broke my collar bone,my knee-cap, and my jaw, not to mention the skull fracture. I do occasionally wear a T-Shirt that says"But did you DIE!?!" just to f-ck with the newest generation!! Good Times!!😂

Well I wasn't planning on going down memory lane but.....damn that was a great time to be a kid

Ahhhh they even set some of us up for failure with candy cigarettes.

I learned how to drift on my big wheel 😂 best toy ever

As i remember it the Easy Bake Oven would show up as a heat bloom in images from space.

See-saws taught us about who you should trust. My childhood playground had 3 giant cement sewer pipes parts thrown together to climb in and on. And the dome monkey bars no padding, hard packed dirt- packed from the previous climbers who failed.

Actually, thanks to Slim Sherry and all those that made a comment, brought back REALLY GOOD memories... Thank you all for helping brighten my day. Even if just a lil bit. 💖

I loved the bigwheel, could whip around real fast. But the devil's playground was my backyard. The monkey bars, flying off the marry go roud, good times

I actually miss those days 😂😂

Most dangerous toy GenX played with as kids was our imagination when we got bored. The crap we thought up to have "fun" ...

The merry go round was my personal favorite death defying toy, we would get that thing spinning and we were literally flying hanging on and sometimes we'd let go to see how far we flew off! LOL!🤣We were tough kids back in the day.

Loved the 70s and 80s. The good old days. Don't forget all the toys that could be choking hazards. Fun times. Now we got Tide Pods, milk crate and cinnamon challenge. This generation would have never survived.😂

Aww the good old days I remember the devils playground doing Flip Flop Cherry Drop off those bars could broke your neck several girls got concussions 😅 Were definitely Survivors 👍

We had no fear of Pandora's Box.

HAHAHA! Bull's=Eye! This was so spot on, that I wish that I could hit the "thumbs up" again! Great job!

my best friend since age 3, who died in 2019 from a faulty heart valve would have loved your humor, he was a real sentimental guy > thanks for the laughs & memories

I remember my chemistry set box. Which had zinc and sulfer that I set ablaze to get blue and green fire. And the playground deathtraps. Chipped a few teeth, got bloodied up more times than I can remember, bruised and even broke my wrist, but that's how we did it back then. Being a kid in the 70s and a teen in the 80s was a true experience. 😅

Loved all those toys; we had a great childhood, and our boundaries were endless until we were in the ER…I signed so many casts in elementary school. 🤙🏻

English Gen X here. I have a scar on my leg that starts in the front just under my knee and carries on through to the back which was the exit. It took 34 stitches inside and 40 stitches in the front and 34 in the back to close it and all the lacerations caused by the gravel. We used to play the roundabout from hell. The game was to jump on and off while others spun it faster and the longer you stayed on without wanting to hurl you were declared the winner. This particular day I was doing the same as everyone else until my foot slipped and went under the planks of wood and as it was going round proceeded to spin me around with it I had 5 nails in my leg that were ripping it to shreds by the time they got it to stop I had passed out with the pain. Fire engines were called as well as the ambulance they had to cut me out from under the damn thing. I arrived at the hospital with the part of the wooden deck stuck to the front of my leg. My clothes had been shredded my trainers had been destroyed. Nails that had travelled right on through to the other side. The leg not trapped was broken. I had gravel rash from the middle of my back all the way past my butt and down my leg. I had 3 broken toes my elbows were dislocated two broken fingers. I was 8 years old. My poor mom and pops came to the hospital dad sitting there crying right along side me while mom was shouting and lecturing me. I was in the hospital a long time. Did it stop me doing it again did it hell. As soon as I was better again I was back jumping on and off the new one that had to be rebuilt and I had bragging rights right through the rest of my childhood. Kids today are to soft wrapped up in cotton wool and need safe spaces. No they don 't they need to challenge the status quo if not where do we get the next dare devils the race car drivers the bikers the military. As an old English saying you have to eat a ton of shit before you die. LIVE LIFE and arrive at the final destination knowing you had a damn good time been here.

From one Gen X Sheri to another Sherri…. PREACH!

I loved my clackers. I hide them from my mother when she tried to take them back. But that was ok because me and my friends got back into nunchucks with helmets. Then we play fort wars with rocks. Oh my were we something else.

Yep. I loved my Lite-Brite. When the bulb died I was resourceful and replaced it myself. With a bulb that was far too hot. And I watched it melt as I played with it.

In my time; the Thing Maker. An actual small hot plate with metal moulds for cooking up plastic bugs and stuff. Got hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns and maybe melt lead. It was for kids.

There were adults injured by our toys. One time a teacher came in with an eye patch after a kid set off a firecracker, a mom broke her arm, etc.

Oh, the good ole days❤.

I lovvvved my BigWheel! But HOW could you forget the Hoppity Hop?!? Those one handle, sit upon, rubber hopping balls -most kids had to use theirs on grass…I guess my parents didn’t love me enough!😉🤪 I see they make them for adults these days….who’s with me? We hop at dawn!!

And with all that we went thru as kids..... this is why we are the second greatest generation!!!!!😎😎

You forgot seesaws that lifted you eight feet in the air. Invariably the person on the other end thought it funny to jump off you while were up there. Dirty trick. Good lesson in gravity!

What a beautiful trip down memory lane! My kids will never know the joy/terror that we lived through… I get Misty eyed!

The merry-go-round in the metal slide you talk of when I was growing up was on a playground that was blacktopped and the top of the slide. It didn’t have any side rails so if you fell off, you fell off headfirst.

lol the deliverys the killer

There were no disclaimers back in the day. PLAY OR DIE

Also lost my first nail from the monkey bars. They took them apart to paint them and still left them sitting in the playground at school. we used them like see-saws and I crushed my right hand between the ground and the bar when it was my turn to go to the ground. Will be 49 in less than 2 weeks and I still have my awesome cabbage patch doll from when I was like 8. Best times

My Second (I've had 13) concussion was on a Merry-Go-Round. The school was storing construction materials for a remodel on the playground and I lost my grip on the Merry-Go-Round and flew headfirst into a pile a bricks. I stood up dripping blood, seeing double and promptly threw up. The school nurse wrapped a towel around my head and told me to take a nap. I woke up three days later in the hospital.

Lots of good memories. Those were the days.

Not to mention Chemistry Sets with real toxic chemicals and a spirit burner! Good times. 🤣🤣

Don't forget the see saw! Lots of American Ninja Warrior moments on that contraption 😂😂

We lived through those days and we're not afraid to show our scars

We used to play Battleship with Lawn Darts. We'd YEET that sumbich over the house and then yell back, MISS! This went on until something, or someone, got a hit. We only did this once because PJ broke a window.

My personal favorite was the tire swing. The one hung horizontally so 3 friends could stand on it and swing as high as possible at the same time. Swing so high it jerked on the way down. Better hang on!

Yes!!!! Thank you! Those clackers were the worst.😂

It's why the "Bag o'Glass" skit was so accurate!

OMG I cant stop laughing of the memories and the realization how wicked we lived back then 😂😂😂

I can still hear those horrific clacks my sister would intentionally attack me with nonetheless those slides swings climbing equip musta been 20 feet up 😂

Can't forget the lead painted and asbestos filled hand me downs or donated toys of generations past we played with and sucked on. Oh, and to accompany the lite brite (which I still have) was the Easy Bake ovens. Ahhh the miraculous things you could do with a light bulb.

Well said Sherri. Amazing that we survived in some cases. I remember a bunch of us boys had tournaments of who could launch themselves furthest from the swings at school. I never won 1st place but it sure was great times! Anyone remember the game “Smear the @#$%&”? It’s sad that I have to make those adjustments these days.💡Censorship. Can you do one on Gen X’s take on censorship? That might prove interesting.

I loved lawn darts. It was like bocce ball with real life consequences.

My school had parallel bars that were about 7 feet tall. Nothing beneath them, just grass. I used to climb those like a monkey and sit and watch the kids play on recess. It's amazing I didn't fall off them and break something.

We used to have one of those all metal Devil's playgrounds too at my old elementary. I also remember when they stopped letting us play on it. The boys used to play king of the hill up at the very top of the all metal jungle Gym. I remember watching as one kid lost their balance and fell head first bonking bars all the way down. I also remember teachers scrambling to get the rest of the students away from the area while an ambulance was called. No notes home either to explain anything, just ok kids time for math let's just pretend that never happened. Next thing we knew we were banned from the metal playground from Hell and the next year or so a newer wooden one was constructed.😂

I was the kid that made a potato cannon out of pvc pipe and ended up in the hospital because I put WAY too much fuel in it and ended blowing it up giving me 2nd degree burns and over 40 stitches. As soon as I healed up I set to work on version 2. Moral of the Story. No matter how dangerous the toys were, we could make much much worse.

This singed my genx soul. The horrors we lived through! 😂 The generation that learned how not to catch a friction burn going down a 15ft metal slide in August and that you had one chance to fall off the monkey bars to the hot asphalt below!

I required ten stitches to reattach my pinky toe from a sharp piece of metal sticking out of one of those torturous slides. It was at the drive-in playground, right before the movie started. I was wearing flip-flops and didn't realize that I was even bleeding until my brother noticed. Mom was so p*ssed. My parents really should have sued.

We had a pump style merri go round.In the middle were big metal gears..the seats were wood with splinters..There were metal areas were kids could sit in the middle.WE ALSO HOT THE big tall hot slides and maypole.The town park was in my front yard so literally lived there.

Ahhh the memories ❤ My brother tried to run me over with his Big Wheels sooo many times. He still drove it when those plastic (yes plastic) tires had rips into in from tearing it up and down the gravel roads. 😂

We still have our lawndarts and the box they came. Wish I still had my pogo stick. 😂

But it was so fun, especially trying to climb up the slide backwards 😊

Good memories 🤔❤️

I miss spinning on that merry go round! 😂😂😂

Clackers was my go to....got brother real good....😂

Miss them them days

I found a metal slide a couple of weeks ago around where I live. I didn't know they existed any more!!! It's in great shape too!!! Ooohhh the memories. 🤣 I haven't went down it yet...but I plan to!!!

I would LOVE to see you do something on parent teacher conversation on Gen X kids to kids now. You will kill it.

The Merry go round is where I learned how to fly but not voluntarily & those slides were great for us girl’s since we weren’t allowed to were pants when I was in grade school. 👍🤣🤣🛝

By clacker we called them the knowledge knotters cuz their were more then once it was used up side the head

Loved my clackers!!

We even dealt with lead paint and are still here to confirm it didn't kill us. I also don't remember anyone picking it off the walls to eat either or fooling around with asbestos. We had better things to do. And all the glass jars. We could balance really well. These tiny wooden steps that were painted...frisbee was an awesome slide down those. And all the trees we climbed. We sure got pretty high. And a broken arm was the ultimate trophy. We did go outside during ice storms. These downed power lines didn't stop us. We had races to attend to to see who could survive sledding down the hill and not hitting the downed power lines. Remember playing in your parents car and releasing the brake.. good times!!

Lite Brite was my favorite toy 😂. But oh, those metal slides.... My husband and I were just telling our kids about those the other day. I got really good at sliding so my my legs didn't actually touch the metal!

And of course all the monkey bars and swing sets were built over asphalt. You ever get road rash from your swing dismount?

My husband was given a saw for Christmas at the age of 7. By the time his parents got up and out of bed on Christmas morning, he'd sawed the bedposts off his bed.

And those examples were the safest ones we had.

I dislocated my hip on a slip n slide. Still played on it that day. After about 2 weeks, my parents noticed i was walking weird and that 1 leg was shorter 😂 i fixed it when i jumped over Hale creek and landed on that hip. Fun times 😂😂

Sledding down steep streets, blowing past stop signs....hell, the cars will stop for us right?! Parents inside, drinking bloody mary's on a snowy morning....they weren't concerned.

I'm born 71. Stop your posts! I'm falling in love with you. Even with your blue hair. My God......!!..!!...

We used old mattresses we found in a barn and jumped off roofs onto them! We had a fort in the rafters of the barn. We were all over it until we finally got caught.

The witches hat, if you spun it right you could sever someone's fingers ir your own...😂

And there was also the aerobie- it, or maybe one of the knockoffs, had a sharp metal ring under the plastic . Sharp enough to cut fingers - and to cut apples in half 😊😂😅

Don't forget cap guns. So fun. Lol😮😮😮😮

The merry-go-round for real, I remember when the one at our elementary got removed when I was in like the 5th or 6th grade because a much younger kid got pulled under it and killed .😥

Don't forget the monkey bars with no mats underneath. They still make Lite Brite but it's all plastic now instead of metal.

But the best thing was all the concrete and hard edges around the playground equipment. And the hard plastic or wooden seats on the swings. I'm kind of surprised any of us managed to survive childhood

Me and a friend each got bow and arrows one year. Yes, we started at each end of the football field shooting at each other.

I nearly floated out to sea once after learning to float on my back when I was about 10... let's just say that I did the dog paddle better than most dogs as I frantically swam to shore... currents are deadly offshore in CB NS 😳 and no parental supervision... you knew it was suppertime by the smell wafting down the beach mingled with seaweed and salt spray! Best and scariest decade of my life... circa '67 ❤ ✌️ fr CB NS 🇨🇦 🍁

My brother was 7 yrs younger than me, and I remember when he got a Big Wheel. I was SO jealous. I was too big to ride it, dammit. I still have a pair of "clackers", but we called them "k-nokkers". Monkey bars were also death defying at times - gravity would win, and knock the wind out of you. And, then there was the original Spirograph. It used actual small push pins, with a green ball on the end...that was safe! Same with Mr. Potato Head parts. They used to be push pins, to be used on real potatoes. My mom loves to tell the story of how I, as a toddler, came out of a room with a mouth full of these pieces. She calmly got me to spit them all out, afraid she would startle me into swallowing them. Amazing any of us survived, lol.

We had a trampoline...metal frame with metal springs with no net! After my uncle fell thru it, we took off the mat and moved the frame into an S shape and walked back & forth on top of it! We also had a creosote beam 4"x12"x12'long (dad worked at GSU) set on its 4" side on metal posts about 2 feet off the ground. We walked and flipped on that thing barefoot as a balance beam cuz we did acrobats and gymnastics since we could walk-literally! We did 'cherry bombs' off the top bar of the swing set, hanging from our knees & swinging out & letting go & landing on our feet - or our knees or backs - on the ground. Of course, I had my yellow & black checkered BMX & a skateboard. We used to get the 5 kids that lived within 2 miles together and play dodge ball with whatever rocks we could find on the road! Exactly how are we all still alive? I'll be 50 in 3 days and I know exactly why each and every part of me that hurts hurts!😊

Let's not forget the metal monkey bars!! That were over 100 degrees in the summer. We would either have our arms/ankles sprained or cracked. The best part was the rubber mats that were supposed to be our cushions, but instead, we would end up with burnt skin, bleeding knees, cut elbos, and chin. It all depended on how we freaking landed!! Boy, those were the good old days. And guess what? We survived and turned out to be okay. We learned in the playground how to take it and keep on going. We only complained that we didn't want to go home. We also had icees, and we ate with dirty hands as we were not allowed to go inside until the lightpost light turned on.. 😊

lol as a 3 year old I remember peddling as fast as humanly possible just to slide down a gravel driveway. AWESOME Totally prepared me for adulthood.

One of my local parks has a new merry go round.

Oh man the mental slides😂. We actually had a slide that was next to a pond. Between the slide and the pond was a weak chain link fence and sign danger alligators and a picture of an alligators eating a child. Yep, we played on that slide without a care in the world😂😂😂. Now, I look back and ask how could our Mom lets us play that close to the pond, oh she had 5 kids no questions needed 😂😂

Ya... we survived... 😮 circa '67 ✌️🇨🇦🍁

I had the Dukes of Hazard big well it had a brake on it. Damn those were the days

The ones we made. Bamboo sticks and yarn(bow and arrows). Tin and boards (slide) Large trash bags with skateboard option( parachute or parasail). Stick and trash can lid (sword and sheild. To name a few.

Monkey bars on concrete, swings made of metal...ah the good old days

I still have my original lawn jarts 😊

Let's not forget the metal jungle gym with metal bars stationed on a concrete surface. That you could climb in and out of as well as to the top. One wrong fall and you're bust your face open, lose several teeth, have enough scrapes and cuts to require a medical team. Oh, and let's NOT forget the idiot who thought he was invincible and either cracked his head, busted an arm, split his chin, or just flat out broke their tail bone.

Slip n Slides! Best way to break yourself, burn yourself on hot damp plastic and find rocks in the yard all at the same time! Had a Big Wheel but not the later model that had a "brake" allowing the Tokyo drift then flip (over)

I had an emergency brake on my big wheel. It was only used to do donuts and spray everyone within a mile radius with rocks.

Yes u r my free therapy as I battle chronic Lyme disease constant hell