Ah, the exquisite noise of Clackers! We could listen to it for hours--or until our mother took it away from us. Then we had to play with Dee Dee's down the street.
Stolen from www.toynfo.com:
It was essentially two large marbles attached by a sturdy string with a ring in the center. You would put your finger in the ring allowing the marbles or balls to hang below. Here is where the fun starts. The idea was to get the two balls tapping (or clacking if you prefer) against each other by pulling up on the ring lightly. Once you got the hang of it, you could get them going faster and faster until they were smacking each other above and below your hand in a stunning arc.
These toys are now legendary. They started finding their way into the schoolyards in the early seventies and in 1971 were yanked from shelves because kids were suffering eye injuries when the fragile, glass-like balls were shattering from the violence of contact with their mates. I believe a plastic version may have been released after the original and the more menacing version was pulled, but I don't think that it enjoyed the same popularity.
****Here are the Romper Stompers--another favorite toy-- Collin referred to in the comments:
13 comments:
the noise those things make is maddening. i might have been able to tolerate it as a kid. in fact, i probably would have used them right in somebody's ear just to see how long it would take them to beat me up.
So is this another Friday nostalgia item you actually know about?
My husband didn't know what they were.
i've seen and heard them before. we, of course, didn't have them in our house. we didn't have any toys at all. biggy probably blocked them out of his memory for similar reasons.
I never owned these, although I did own a pair of those plastic cup things you walked on while holding on to rope from Romper Room. They seemed so cool when I was five.
uh, T, this looks like some kind of perverse marital aid.
Biggy, That's what I thought. I was like "oh, my god, T's got her ben wa balls up on Friday's Nostalgia." "Clackers," my ass.
Hmmm...
I have to admit, ben wa balls did cross my mind at first, but I'm a perv...
biggy: sick.
jennifer: sick.
collin: sick.
poor jack.
Collin, in the interest of education, I've posted a picture of the Romper Stompers at the end of today's nostalgia.
Collin, Jennifer, Biggy: I thought the same thing, too...and, quite honestly, couldn't think of anything else to say after that so chose not to comment...thank you for being courageous enough to tell the truth ;) ...now maybe MF can come out and admit she thought it too.
More importantly, will T post a pic of the balls like she did the Romper Stompers?
mary: if i thought anything like that, i would have been the first to say it.
t: please don't take jennifer's advice. think of the children.
poor jack.
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