Top 10 Dangerous Kids Toys

These toys can be deadly... and we're not talking about Major Chip Hazard and his Commando Elite. Join WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for the "Top 10 Dangerous Kids Toys."

For this list, we’re bringing you toys that present a serious health and safety risk to the kids they’re marketed to. We’re excluding toys that are only dangerous when the age guidelines are ignored. If the toy is labeled 6 and up, it’s probably a choking hazard for infants and shouldn’t be given to them so we’re ignoring that possibility... for now.

Before she became the twerking, wrecking ball-riding, controversial pop star we all know and love today, Miley Cyrus was America’s sweetheart and role model, Hannah Montana. Little girls around the world wanted anything and everything with her name on it, including this awesome card game. Parents trusted that smiling face, making it a huge surprise that the carrying case contained over 75 times the level of lead legally permitted in consumer goods. Hannah Montana... slowly poisoning children? Even scarier, the card game avoided a recall thanks to a legal loophole (since the lead was found in its vinyl and not its paint), meaning it stayed on shelves, and in the hands of kids.

Step aside Hungry-Hungry Hippos, here come the cannibal Cabbage Patch Kids. “Snacktime” dolls were a must-have gift for Christmas 1996. They could bite and swallow plastic food! In the eyes of children, they were as good as human pets, but with no mess on the other end. Unfortunately the dolls couldn’t differentiate between plastic food, fingers, and ponytails. Over 100 reports were filed claiming the jaws clamped down on fingers and hair, slowly pulling them in. In one case, a girl’s hair was allegedly ripped down to the scalp. Mattel offered a $40 refund and took these little monsters off the shelves.

Let’s be honest—remote control planes are dangerous even when functioning properly. There’s always a risk of them crashing into a window, car or innocent bystander. Forget “with great power”... with remote control airplanes comes great responsibility. Well, apparently no one told Estes-Cox Corp., the makers of the Sky Rangers, who upped the ante by releasing a toy airplane that was prone to spontaneously combusting during take-off, midflight, and while landing. Anytime, really. Oh, and did we mention you have to throw the plane on take-off? Burns, temporary hearing loss, wounded eyes, facial lacerations, and a mandatory recall ensued.

#7: Zulu Blowing Game

When it comes to toys, the phrase “Choking Hazard” holds the title as the biggest buzzword in child safety. But toys from the 1930s through to the 1960s seem like they were designed to weed out and kill all but the smartest kids before they reached adulthood. The Zulu Blow Gun from the Zulu Blowing Game was no exception. These toys essentially streamlined asphyxiation. A number of versions were sold between 1920 and 1960, but they all consisted of a long straw and small, sharp darts. Put a dart in the straw, inhale, put it to your lips and blow! You guessed it… Tons of kids got that order wrong, and inhaled the darts. Ouch.

Remember a simpler time, when companies didn’t have to cover their products in warnings? The people at Mattel sure do. In the late seventies, there were 3 reported cases of children accidentally shooting themselves in the face with the spring-loaded missile of the Colonial Viper, inhaling or swallowing the missile and choking. One of these incidents sadly resulted in the death of a 4 year old child. Following a recall, Mattel began to place “choking hazard” stickers on all of their toys with small parts, a precaution that would go on to become mandatory for all toy manufacturers.

Before we get into what makes this toy dangerous, let’s just acknowledge the fact that toys for children should’ve never been made based on the CSI television franchise considering the grisly subject matter. Kids... should not be fans of this series. Period. Turns out this toy set was not only inappropriate, but also poisonous. The powder used for fingerprinting was proven to contain asbestos, which when inhaled can cause deadly respiratory issues and even cancer later on in life. This resulted in a class action lawsuit against CBS, the network that licensed the toy. In the wake of the public relations nightmare, the manufacturer, Planet Toys, filed for bankruptcy.

Swings, trampolines... it seems like childhood is all about trying to launch your body as high as possible. The first generation of moon shoes was released in the 1950s. Made of a type of metal, these shoes locked your feet in like roller skates and used springs to help you reach the stars! They were also incredibly heavy, resulting in a lot of property damage when kids landed on household items, and injuries when kids botched a landing, rolled an ankle or broke mom and dad’s toes. Nickelodeon released a much safer plastic version in the 90s, but sprained and broken ankles continued, minus the fun.

Between 1910 and 1950, the A.C. Gilbert Company was a big name in toys. Their 1913 Erector Set was one of the bestselling toys the world had ever seen, and over the next 40 years the company continued to put out a wide variety of scientific play sets that were quite dangerous by modern standards. The chemistry set taught young kids to make explosives. The glass-blowing kit involved temperatures close to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. But the Atomic Energy Lab wins for most absurd, with multiple kinds of uranium, a Geiger counter to measure radioactivity and a cloud chamber to observe alpha particles in action!

Guns! It doesn’t matter if kids are raised by registered NRA members or in strictly anti-gun households; they love playing with toy guns. Maybe it’s the speed of the projectiles, the loud noises, the influence of popular TV characters or all of the above. BB and airsoft guns can take an eye out, paintballs leave a serious bruise, and cap guns often lead to burns. There are over 200 incidents of toy guns being mistaken for real firearms per year in the States. While many toy guns are not inherently dangerous, they often look like the real deal and can lead to serious injury or death.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

• Gilbert Glass-Blowing Kit
• Splash Off Water Rockets
• Kite Tubes

A cross between horseshoes and darts, these oversized projectiles have plastic fins and big rounded, weighted metal (or sometimes plastic) tips that ensure they fly true and land point first. Simple, outdoor fun for the whole family… until someone gets seriously or fatally wounded by a stray dart. Also known as jarts or yard darts, they were popular in the 1950s but were later banned because of injuries. The ban was lifted in the 1970s under the condition they never be marketed to kids. When a seven year old girl was killed by one, it proved that the regulation couldn’t keep them out of the hands of kids, so this led to a strict ban in the States.

Do you agree with our list? Remember any particularly dangerous toys from when you were a kid? For more notorious top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.