I remember when Toys r us literally had an entire aisle devoted to "weapons".

- "Ain't no water in this gun" - "Oh yeah, what's in it then?" - "PISS!"

I was poor so when you found that tree branch that was shaped like a gun the whole neighborhood was jealous.

makes me wanna hijack a radio station so my band can get some air play.

True story: When I held the Entertech as a kid, I basically was Rambo.

That Entertech commercial is trapped in my brain forever. "The Look. The Feel. The Sound; So Real. ENTERTECH!!" I've forgotten so much in my life, yet that still haunts me. (In fact, my brain seems to be comprised of mostly commercial jingles these days. Curse you, Saturday Morning Cartoons!)

5:25 30 years later and everyone wants neon vomit skins for their guns in every popular fps

I had a realistic .45 Beretta squirt gun when I was in High school. I kept in my pocket when I was in school to squirt the other kids. One time some of my friends and I were walking on the sidewalk by the cafeteria, I was riding my bike slowly along side the other kids when someone drove up beside us, I looked at them and the guy in the passenger seat lifted up some kind of gun, an Uzi I think. Not to be made a fool of, I pulled out my squirt gun thinking I was all bad. They looked shocked, then drove away. I always wondered if that was a real firearm in that car, or another squirt gun.

Brave topic. I had an Entertech- one of the black ones (I believe the Centerfire). Searched about every Toys R Us in Northern California before we found it. Even before the “ban” they were ridiculously hard to find. Ironically as far back as 1980 my brother and I used to spray paint the cheap plastic water guns black and would play SWAT in the neighbourhood with other kids. They looked ridiculously real painted up. It’s a miracle we weren’t shot.

"Kids didn't want guns that looked like neon vomit" Have you seen how much today's CS:GO Weapon skins sell for?

Dear lord, I remember walking into the toy aisle of K-Mart looking like Punisher walking into his armory.

In the mid 80s, I purchased the entire entertech line, and still have them today! All still work, and are in working order. I have collected toy guns since the 70s, and continue to do so today. With the regulations regarding realistic toy guns, spray paint is cheap, and when they were manufactured in neon colors, reffer to my previois statement. Criminals will find a way. I've also collected Crosman and Diasy air guns, along with other manufacturers. To say I have an obsession with toy guns is an understatement, and it doesn't stop there. Great video!

Man, I need that Tech-9 water gun to complete my Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China) costume!!

"Mine's vintage" is one of your best lines. Well done.

I remember going to toys r us when I was like 5 years old and buying a realistic looking double barrel shotgun. It was made of wood, with full metal barrel, cocking hammers, trigger and breach. No orange tip; just brown and black. Looked real. Different times back then...

I wanted one of these guns and my mom looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I was a black male living in a rough neighborhood, she was not going to let me run around with a realistic looking water gun, or any toy gun. She was a very smart woman.

Fun fact: The Entertech Centerfire was used in Child's Play (1988) as one of the many toys in the Good Guys toyline. The prop guys painted it grey, put it in a Good Guys theme box and slapped a Good Guys sticker on it.

Channels like yours are the reason why youtube is still great. Your videos are so amazing and entertain us in maximum. I feel like a child everytime you upload a new video cause you remind me so many childhood memories but also i learn so many details about toy collection, and toy history. You are a master in toys education! I love your easy way to explain extensively the diferences in toys As i always comment that your voice calms me so much that some times before i go to sleep i wach your videos in compilation !!! One of the best channels in you tube man. Keep rocking baby! Love from Greece.

I still have my original Entertech water gun with both water “magazines”.

And in the later 80's and early 90's, I remember so many people just painted over or removed the orange tips...

So we have state legislation to blame for those terrible LJN NES games... PS, loved that angry interjection from Megatron at not being the pinnacle of ‘80s toy gun technology!

For some idea of just how realistic the water and toy guns were getting, there was a 20/20 episode in the 80s where an FBI agent un-threaded a real sound suppressor from a real Uzi, then threaded it onto a replica toy without any issue (not an Entertech, though). The molds used in the plastic gun production were so accurate and so detailed that they were good enough to duplicate exterior barrel threads. The footage is a bit hard to search for without running into a lot of non-toy related content.

*_You’re never too young to have a Vietnam flashback_*

True story - When I was 14 on the first day of Summer vacation I had an Entertech 9mm and someone called the cops on me. The Cop frisked me, found it and flipped out. They were just gonna take the toy away but the other cop suggested they take me to my parents (who didn't know i secretly purchased the toy). Lets just say the Summer was short.

Oh Megatron...always trying to steal the spotlight lol.

The best thing about the supersoakers was that, if one was clever enough, one could turn them into bongs. Supersmokers, if you will.

Found one of these while digging through someone's garbage can as a kid in the mid 90s. It was like finding gold.

I had the Entertech pump-action shotgun as a kid. At the time the "heroes" I was imitating were from VHS videos like Arnie, Stallone, Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal.

I remember having the Tech-9 model when I was a kid. The summer they came out it was like everyone in my neighborhood had one. The 80's was a fun a time.

When the kid appeared on screen with the bazooka I laughed for a solid minute.

Remember the movie "Gotcha"? Where a college student who gets caught up in a spy mission but showed off a special game of tag they used with the paint ball guns, which was where he gained his skills that helped him survive. Wanted to do that so bad.

Also, they still make realistic toy guns, they just call them "Airsoft" now.

the "neon vomit" toy guns maybe can be appreciated today for the nostalgia aesthetic, and feel it like a "contra"'s guns

These were awesome. My friend and I had a couple Entertechs. Some lady called the cops on us. Luckily we were dressed in camouflage and easily vanished into the surrounding foliage.

On my fifth Christmas, my parents gifted to me an entire soldiers outfits including fatigues, equipment belt, canteen, other ancillary and quickly lost accessories, a holster with a flap, a plastic replica M1911 pistol with fully working trigger and awesome clicking bang sound, and a sub machine gun with fully working trigger and even aswesomer multi-clicking sound to simulate full auto fire. The only instructions from my parents was "don't play in the street". My recollection of details like color is hazy, but I think everything was olive drab green, so perhaps not the most exact of replicas, but these were models of real guns meant to be played with as if they were the tools of a real soldier. A few years later, a new next door neighbor with a more progressive view chastised my mother for allowing our clan to play with toy guns and for promoting violence and said her kids couldn't play with us if we had toy guns. My mother smiled at this younger woman and agreed, took all the toy guns, and told everyone to go play. A few hours later, as my mother and this young woman sat on the porch, my brother and her boys ran by, all happily pointing fingers at each other and screaming "Bang" at the top of their lungs. My mother asked the neighbor mother if it was time to take the children's fingers away?

These were great. They made us kids graduate to pellet guns. 'The look, the feel, the sound, so real.......Entertech.'

Man me & my brother & cousins used to have a blast with these. Damn I miss this America

What's to stop someone putting a neon-orange tip on a real gun?

Oh man, I remember those guns, I think one of my neighbourhood buddies had one, we used to run around our houses in the 80s with toy guns that looked quite real. We even made bazookas out of carpet roll tubes and used hockey sticks to make a handle.

My young friends had a couple of those. In our water gun battles they were easy to defeat. You just had to get them to shoot the thing for 20 or 30 continuous seconds, that's about all it took for the batteries to run down and reduce their range to about six inches. Then we could lay into them with our cheap little squirters until they called a time out and spent the next 4 hours combing their house for new batteries. "Honey! The TV remote doesn't work again!" "The boys were having a squirt gun fight this afternoon!"

I had the Entertech M16, and recently spotted the henchmen in Return of Swamp Thing (1989) wielding it in many of the action scenes.

I remember having the M-16, those were fun. Gotcha, wasn't that also a movie starring "Goose" as well?

Yes! I had an Entertech Uzi. I still do. It probably won't work anymore. Especially because we figured out it would work as a flame thower if loaded with paint thinner.

As a certified RSO, huge gun nerd, and and an amateur gunsmith, I see where the problem really lies. It’s not the fact that the guns look real, it’s the fact that they act simi-realistic; Therefore teaching the kids (because let’s face it, unlike airsoft, water guns won’t be used by anyone older than like 10) will be learning how to operate these guns.

Laramie battery powered squirt guns that look like a Mac 10 were the coolest ever.

“Why can’t I get one of those neat water paint guns I saw somewhere?” Me, 1990. Well now I know the answer to that question from childhood.

I remember my Entertech water gun. Man, this channel is great. I love the coverage on every piece of 1980s toy nostalgia and I really appreciate how clear, concise and professional Dan's read is. Without facial hair he kind of looks like Dracula, though. Yeah, that's actually kind of also a compliment.

I remember these as a kid as well. Think we bought them for summer water fights in the neighborhood. As the super soaker goes they found a new market in Thailand and other parts of Asiaduring Songkran the Buddhist new year. In Buddhist culture pouring water was considered good luck for the next year. It turned into a wild party where kids and grown ups run around with high powered water guns and get eachother wet. The festival would go on for days and in many Thai cities you couldn't leave your house without getting soaked wlth water guns or buckets. It happens in April and definitely worth checking out. Every store sells all types of wild neon colored guns and animated characters as well for collectors.

Friend of mine had a powered Mac-10 squirt gun. Got it on a trip to California. These guns were banned shortly after.

I swear i had one of these as a kid! Do a video on photon!

I had the grey Beretta, loved that toy even after it broke! (water and electronics were not the most compatible features) Thank you for doing an EnterTech episode.

Had the very one on the thumbnail. Even after it broke and wouldn't shoot water anymore it was still the sweetest toy guy on the block. Great toys in the 80's!

I still have my Tec-9 water gun. Cann’t bring myself to part with such an obsurdly american part of my youth. The motor and pump have died long ago but man as a kid I was GIJoe with that thing.

Federally banned for using my likeness!

Your description of you playing alone at your grandmas and then the finger gun effect that followed got me. Here’s your subscription, never change

I am impressed by your covering this topic, as I am46 born 1974, and I remember "Entertech" as well as its disappearance. I knew the super soaker was better. Great video. New sub. Peace!

I loved my zap it!!! I forgot about it until this video. I remember the disappearing ink not working right for some reason

Neon Vomit is one of my fav band btw wish they'd do a reunion tour

As a kid, I had a neon green/black camo Water Hawk that I loved. The battery compartment was built into the grip and eventually the battery cover latch wore out and had to be taped/rubberbanded closed Fond fond memories.

I had a bunch of cap firing metal toy guns as a kid. Later black plastic replicas but much smaller for kids hands

ahh Photon!

I had the bazooka. So many batteries.

When I was a kid in the 80s my friend had this water gun that had a selector switch on the side and each flip of the switch would change the firing pattern and the sound the gun made. There was this one setting that sounded like a bomb dropping and it would be accompanied by a long single stream of water. There was a machine gun mode with staccato shots of water, it was the coolest thing ever. I don't think it was the same gun as those in this video. I've been looking to buy one but I can't find it anywhere.

I had the enterteck uzi, I can still hear the mechanical pump sound it made. I thought it was awesome. Thanks for the reminder Dan.

Fun april fools prank: take a real gun and paint it's muzzle blaze orange, then use it in a liquor store robbery

Ah yes, the good old days... They even used them in the movie "Airheads" (well, close to it, they were the motorized Uzi's)

I had several cap guns in the '80s that looked like real revolvers. One was more of an old west gunslinger type. I remember it had the cap tape rolls that you fed into it. The other had a swing out cylinder that you put a cap ring on.

All the kids in my neighborhood strived to own an Entertech water gun as we rode our bikes all over the place playing “guns”! Interesting to hear it was only around for a couple years. I was in the sweet spot for 80’s toys and cartoons!

Gotcha was a game and a movie way back into the early 70s Entertech stole that.

The Look! The Feel! The Sound, So Real! ENTERTECH!

Wow! Great video brought back some good memories with my Entertech. Fought way more battles with my Entertech in the backyard then my 12 years in the Army. lol

i had the sub machine gun in the clip used for your video, it was the best water gun i ever owned, hands down. the gun took so much abuse over the years and never stopped working. i can still remember the sound it made. it was like hearing an electric can opener struggling with a worn out motor. the only problem i had with it was the hole to put the water into the clip was Way to small. thank you for the nostalgia trip.

To find out what happened next to LJN, go watch any Angry Video Game Nerd video. Seriously, just pick any one. There's like a 70% chance he'll be discussing an LJN game.

I had realistic looking guns as a kid. Yet I have a strong dislike for real guns even though I fired them in the military. (Not at people thankfully.)

1:55 My man Tyrone is competitive, he didn't even buy an Entertech product, he smuggled an actual rocket launcher through the black market, ain't no way he's letting the kids down the street beat him and his homies in this watery war.

Thanks for the review, I had the Entertech M-16 and .45 pistol. Me and my friends play war and fight the Soviets or Terminators with them, it was a lot of fun. Then kids started to get shot by the cops because the guns looked so real. My M-16 broke and I had to go get another one and that’s when they started to put the orange tips on the barrels, my Mom was happy about because she didn’t have to worry about me getting shot. But I would take the orange part off and use black spray paint, then let it dry and put it back on the barrel, couldn’t even tell. The Super Soakers took care of Entertech and all of the off brand realistic water guns. Us kids started growing up and using real guns, I got a.22 rifle when I was 14 and never looked back. Still use Super Soakers for the kids put by the pool, but no one runs around and play war anymore unless it’s Call Of Duty. I miss those days.

I say "Guns for All" "Open Carry" Just don't commit crimes!

I can remember all the guns we had as kids in the 80s. Sometimes they just appeared too. I don't remember where it came from but my brother and I had an orange Beretta 9mm that we used all the time. We got some knock off Entertech water guns way back, then had the actual Photon sets. Some kids moved in next door who had Photon so we'd combine the two yards and go crazy. The best was when I started making my own guns out of scrap wood in my grandfather's wood shop. I learned things about tools I use in my career as a props master.

I absolutely loved entertechs guns line. I had the M16 and it was my favorite toy gun in a huge arsenal that my mom still has in a box in her garage somewhere. My childhood was all about fake wars with my friends (my best friend had a realistic AK47 which I was so jealous of) with guns that looked real. I was never stupid enough to point it at police and my parents educated me on not pointing guns at people (friends excluded during playtime) real or fake. I look fondly back on those days of play battle and will carry that joy my friends and I shared for the rest of my life.

I'm a late 70's kid, raised in the 80's & 90's. Hell yes, I had plenty of realistic toy guns. My local Toys R Us and Child World had an entire wall isle dedicated to boy dress up, bows & arrows, knives, swords and a gun wall! We had realistic revolvers, glocks, dessert eagles, tech's, pumps- holy cow those were the days. This is well before the orange plug era. I remember my dad buying me a battery operated 45 that not only looked like the real thing, it had sounds for when you pulled the trigger, fired a shot, cocked the hammer, etc.

I loved my arsenal of toy guns. Without doubt my favourites were the tommy gun (in plastic )and my FAL SLR in metal, made in Merthyr Tydfil, the later particularly was a cap gun and was brilliant. I carried on the interest by joining HM forces, where I spent a huge chunk of my adult life. Great video, a lovely walk down memory lane.

I completely forgot about these! I loved my Entertech M-16 and Beretta, so much fun in neighborhood water/army fights.

No freaking way! Talk about nostalgia! I had the Uzi as well as the 45 caliber Rambo edition. I remember seeing a picture of myself that my mom took of me holding the 45 with the red bandanna wrapped around my head. Had no idea that’s why it had an orange tip.

Totally had the mac 10. My cousins had more. We used some dye from some other line of squirt guns to make them squirt red, making you "bloody".

I had the uzi looking one. Only water gun fighting I ever liked and by age of the super soaker I was done with this kind of play. Great video! 👍🤘

I bought the Entertech AK Centerfire, black paint job, no orange tip, with my HS graduation money in 1987 at the Glendale Galleria. My friends and I used to drive around town and squirt unsuspecting pedestrians. Yep, drive-by squirtings with a surprisingly realistic looking water gun. It was astonishingly stupid and it’s pretty amazing that we didn’t get killed.

Had two of these growing up, plus one of the Neon Vomits that i immediately spray painted Black, but nothing beat the realism of Edison Giocattoli cap guns we used to jave 8n the early to mid eighties. Those things were a work of art.

I just paint the muzzle devices on my rifles bright orange for extra safety. You want to be compliant with the law! Glad they do that for toy guns too.

Pretty spot on assessment. I grew up with realistic guns and remember this brand vividly. They were awesome looking, but expensive. I wasn't able to get one until the neon vomit phase. And while they were cool as a novelty, the battery issue was a problem. I distinctly remember the transition from realistic to unrealistic guns, and it's true: if you grew up with realistic guns, you fucking HATED the neon versions. There's a movie with Tommy Chong called Far Out Man that has a really funny scene where he's looking for realistic toy guns and finds a black market toy dealer selling them who says "It's easier to get the real thing than it is to get these."

I still remember visiting my aunt in Phoenix (we are from Chicago) for summer vacation. She bought me an AK centerfire while we were there. And I vividly remember strapping it into my CARRYON bag and taking it on the plane home with me. Imagine that situation today.

I owned the entertech uzi. Loved that thing. Great video!!! Totally forgot about "gotcha"

I had that TEC-9 version. Got it as a present from a family friend. Man that was awesome. Hours of play time imitating all my fave action movies in my back yard. That was fun...

80s in England, we had some of those realistic type guns. One I remember was very popular was an M16 rifle, which had the sound built in, and also a small red plastic window with a spark inside to add more realism. That was solid black. My mates across the road had police crawling in the garden under the front room window, because of playing "army" in the back garden and I guess a neighbour calling them. Common occurrence I'm sure. Another classic was the Spud Gun, a metal cap gun that also fired small cork or bits of potatoes. Those were black in my day. Still sell now, but are red or blue painted.

Excellent video. I had one. It lasted 10 minutes till I dropped it on the cement, the frame cracked all the water leaked into the motor shorting out the whole thing.

I bought a broken one from Goodwill just to have it again. When my original centerfire broke, i still played with it. I loved that thing!!!

My brother had the AK and I had the Uzzi styled Entertech water guys but after the color change. His was blue and red while mine was green and black tiger stripes (the 80’s rocked!). It was around 1990 and we were in high school that I used to take mine to school in a small duffel gym bag with just the nozzle sticking out. I could actuate the trigger from outside the back as it hung under my shoulder and surprise my friends with a single short, concentrated blast of water. Not enough to mess up their clothes, but enough for them to know that they got “tagged”. The noise made by the single firing was easily covered by the normal commotion of a high school hallway so it was a perfect gag amongst my friends. No one saw, and no one knew the game we played. Anyone else would’ve probably ratted us out. Good times!

The funny thing is, that the most realistic toy gun that I ever owned as a kid was bought at Disneyland. One of the shops in Frontierland sold these lever action rifles that were made from wood and metal. The lever action cocked back a hammer and trigger pulls activated the lever action of the hammer. It was the most realistic toy gun that I have ever seen and there was never any controversy about them.

No only did I own the Entertech guns, I also had these life-sized replicas of an Uzi and a MAC-10 that operated on batteries and fired caps! The Uzi used plastic strips that were inserted into the top of the weapon and the MAC-10 had a door on a hinge that opened to place a paper roll of caps inside. It had a folding stock, removable suppressor and removable magazine. I don't remember who manufactured them but they're packed in a box in my basement along with most of the other toys from that era you guys have discussed on this show

I still have the M-16 in the loft somewhere. As a student in 1987, we all had either the centrefire or the waterhawk except me who had the M-16 and later the pump action shotgun, happy days. We'd go on the roof of the accommodation which was 3 storey and play "Die Hard" when we'd had a few brewskies, now filed under "seemed like a good idea at the time".

I had lots of toy guns. From cap guns, to disc shooting guns to early version of air soft that shot yellow rubbery bbs, I was a huge Rambo fan as a kid and had all the guns of Rambo including the belt fed m60. It has a snap together “belt if bullets” As a kid I hooked the belt into a loop for “infinite” ammo. Later on we had the super soakers. And now today I manage a gun store and range, shoot some competitions and have a nice collection of real ones.