I know that I am giving my age away, but I wanted to mention some very interesting things that I found out about Clackers the other day. Does anyone remember this extremely dangerous toy that was sold from the late 60s and the early 70s?
Clackers consisted of two long strings, approximately 12 inches in length tied to a single ring that was about two inches in diameter. Now that is really not the dangerous aspect of this toy that I am referring to even though we all now that those strings may be dangerous when placed in the hands of a child.
The really dangerous parts of the toy were the two large acrylic balls that dangled from the end of each string. Mine were purple. I thought they were great. They were like the “in” toy at that time. Since I did not have too many of the “in” toys while growing up, this was fantastic and I felt so important.
When you put the ring around your finger you would get the balls into a swinging motion so that they would bang into each other thereby producing the “clacking” sound. If you were really talented you were able to swing them in an upward direction producing clacking above and below simultaneously. I could only do the first one, but that was still good for me, I thought.
Unfortunately, one too many kids got it in the eyeball because the toy was taken off the market. They were also prone to shattering while they were “clacking” together, which caused even more injuries to children.
What I found interesting is while researching the famous Clacker I read that a similar device was used in the nineteenth century to scare birds away. The Clacker also resembled a boleadora, which is a Spanish weapon.
Now I wonder why anyone would make this type of toy in the first place. What were they thinking? Two big balls on a string that swung around and yet they were the next hottest toy after the Hula-Hoop. Go figure.