Remember when the words “Made In China” meant quality? Actually, I don’t either, but at least they didn’t translate to “deadly”, as they seem to in the past few weeks. Now Mattel is recalling millions of Chinese-made toys that contain magnets that can be swallowed by children or could have lead paint. For me, it begs the question: Are there other smaller toy manufacturers without the exposure of a giant like Mattel that are still selling dangerous toys?
I can remember some dangerous toys. My little pal Gumby wasn’t really made of clay, as he was purported to be in his theme song, but green rubber molded over wire. As long as he wasn’t asked to bend back and forth abruptly, his limbs stayed intact. It was only after a furious flapping of his spindly arms that one of the interior wires would tend to find it’s way to the surface, a kind of claymation compound fracture. Those were very pointy wires, and it took about two tries to figure out that Gumby would hereafter have to reside on the “Physically Unable to Perform” list. The same condition could be found in Major Matt Mason after several voyages beyond the rim of our galaxy. It was almost as difficult to avoid gnawing on the limbs of these bendy folk, with their satisfyingly rubbery texture, always with the potential of introducing one’s lip or tongue to the endoskeleton of their favorite playfriend.
Dangerous toys never really frightened me, as I have mentioned before. And the label “non-toxic” was more of a challenge than a caution. Kids in my neighborhood who ate too much lead paint were following a Darwinian path that would culminate in the accidental swallowing of any number of quarters during their adolescent beer-drinking games. Still, as a parent, I understand the fear of anything that will fit through a toilet paper tube (of course, we know that a lot of things will, if you push hard enough) and I don’t want my child to lose a limb or one of his five senses because of faulty engineering.
The toys may be Chinese, but takes good old American know-how to hotwire an Easy Bake Oven.
©Dave Caven, 2010
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Dave Caven is an Oakland teacher, father, and skee-ball hustler who learned everything he needed to know about bending from Paul Atreides in Dune. You can read more of his essays about bending at http://entropicalparadise.blogspot.com/search?q=bend
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