Jarts were a brand of lawn dart toy first sold around 1950 per some sources, or 1940s per others. You would toss them, trying to land inside a circular target. They had a weighted metal tip so they would stick upright into a lawn.
This was not a very good idea.
The metal tip was heavy and could fall with enough energy to penetrate a skull. At least three children were killed, with many thousands of injuries from mild to severe. Over 6100 in the US alone were sent to emergency rooms.
Attempts to ban the toy started around 1969. The US took them off the market in 1987, and Canada in 1988.
Similar toys are sold today, minus the deadly weapon part, with nerf or blunt tips designed to avoid penetration injuries.
Here are some actual jarts.
In the 70s, when I was a wee lad, my mom worked as a volunteer at the local hospital. One of the cool things we got to see on her tours around the place were x-rays of kids with lawn darts stuck in their skulls, hands, and legs.
It was real, eh, as in real scary product.
My friend told me one day he was out in the garden throwing darts as high as he could, because why not? His little brother went out, got hit in the head with a dart, but didn’t understand what the hell this sudden extreme pain came from so he just froze, started screaming, and ran inside. With the dart stuck on top of his head.
Yeesh. I hope that was a regular dart, not a lawn dart.
Yeah I had a set and we would huck em up in the air as far as we could all the time.Just pure luck no one got impaled.
Same! My great aunt and uncle had an old set. The fact that they were banned only made them more appealing to me and my young relatives.
So they made cap grenades (like cap guns).they had heavy metal tip pieces where the cap was placed. Bad things ensued.
I made a post about those a couple months ago!
Had this exact set growing up! We’d take it camping, getting as far from a hospital as possible.
I’ve got a set of original Jarts in my living room! In the box and everything. My dad has a scar on his forehead from getting hit with one when he was young, he got super lucky to not die lol
They should have just rebranded it the game with a chance of a late term abortion.
My dad had 15 siblings. His parents could afford to lose a few lol
Hmm, who should they market it to? I have a few ideas…
Very fun game until it gets boring. Then it’s all about “throw it as high as you can and just make sure you don’t get hit when it comes down”
Good times!
Used to do this as a kid with our bows. Fire an arrow up in the air, try keep sight of it, run under rocky overcrop if you lose it.
Yep, we have this exact box in our shed. They’re pretty fun, as long as everyone stays a hundred miles away from the target.
my fam had the red vs yellow set pictured there.
I had to look it up and while there were definitely hundreds of injuries, there were only 3 direct deaths (head trauma) from them before being “safety’d”.
The world’s most deadliest game!
The green package is clearly a later variant, and it’s interesting the tagline has changed from “An outdoor game for the family” to “An outdoor skill game for adults”
I can only assume at that point they were well aware of the danger and figured they could swerve some of the legal liability if they branded the game as adults-only (despite also knowing most of the time it was kids playing)
Even as kids we knew these were a Bad Idea.
We still threw them in stupid, crazy ways and ran like hell hoping to not get hit.
I can’t believe my parents bought them. Come on, you’ve seen the dumb shit we do with much safer stuff.
My brother and I did the same with my parents’ old set. This was in the 90s. Some things are timeless.
The best part is it got banned.
It got banned in the times where kids breaking was the norm.
Like this shit was so dangerous that even in a culture where broken limbs were the norm they balked at it.
Your comment reminded me of the Thingmaker by Mattel. A toy featuring an exposed hot plate that Wikipedia says got up to 390 degrees F.
https://clickamericana.com/topics/featured/thingmaker-mattel-vintage-toy-with-plastigoop
The two most dangerous things we as a kid were Jarts and a swing set that had two benches facing each other. Soany broken ankles from kids letting their feet dangle on the upswing and then snapping on the down swing after getting caught in the ground.
Jarts. They’ll make your parents shart!
deleted by creator
we had a set growing up.
They should bring these back in those axe throwing places.
AKA Canadian darts
*Force.
