Skip It

As Jerry Seinfeld once said, "God I miss the days when they made toys that could kill a kid."

In what appears to be a cute kid friendly ball and chain, Skip It was one of the most dangerous toys of my childhood. Unlike other dangerous toys, this was like a bet you made with yourself to see if you could injure yourself while playing with it or not, and often times, your ankles (the losers of the bet) would pay the price. They did do you the decency of pretending they cared about your safety, at least, and put that tiny strip of rubber around the outside so it would hurt less when you finally nailed yourself with this twirling ball of death, but let's be real...that thing didn't do shit to prevent pain.This toy is like something made by the kid equivalent of the mafia.

"You's gonna play with this thing, or we's gonna take yer ankles, see?"

There's no good outcome to this situation. On Wikipedia they call it an "apparatus", but I think we can all agree that "torture device" is much more appropriate. It was based on a 1960s toy called Lemon Twist which, despite sounding like a refreshing soft drink, in fact just featured a lemon shaped weight that you spun around your ankle, much like the modern day Skip It. Then, in 2013 a spin off of the board game Twister, something I have a hard time calling a board game, was developed titled Twister Rave Skip It. First of all, that's a terrible name, and it's way too long, and secondly how the fuck do you make Skip It into a board game? Was Twister not dangerous enough for you people? Twisted is a chiropractors worst nightmare. Now you're putting right foot red and left ankle twirling in the air. This is mayhem and some child is going to get their teeth knocked out.

My favorite part of the Skip It history, however is the accessory bit. See, in the 80s and 90s they had a renaissance, and due to this, they decided to pump out a lot more merchandise. Some had colorful glitter filled and covered plastic decorations that can be slid on in order to make colorful patterns while being twirled about, not unlike that of a foot fidget spinner. They also ribbon steamers, charms and stickers to decorate your Skip Its. Ribbon streamers. Like people had on their handlebars? Charms? What the fuck was going on over at Tiger Electronics? I mean, it's been thoroughly documented that we women are a vain and simple species, who, if given the opportunity, will cover things entirely in stickers. This is true, I cannot deny it. That being said, who was buying accessories for their fucking Skip Its?

The only positive upside to the entire thing was the concept of getting kids outside, and getting exercise. I wholly approve of this concept, except that this toy would often send kids back inside once they decimated their ankles to a pile of dust. For some reason, adults in the 90s really had a hard on for getting kids outdoors. I guess the 2 hour video games we had and the tiny assortment of cartoons provided to us was just too dangerous for us to engage in, unlike today, with the internet and nonstop entertainment. I'm not against getting kids outside and playing, but I AM against adults pretending they're doing it because they give a shit about their childrens health, when in reality it's because most of those adults didn't want children in the first place and simply want to be left alone.

This is why they send their kids to summer camps, boarding schools, anywhere they can where they don't have to interact with those kids for a specific amount of time, they'll send them there. Shit, even now in summer of 2020, when everything has gone all Mad Max and adults are forced to stay home with their children all day, I cannot tell you how many people I see complaining that, oh no, curses or curses, they must spend their time at home with their children. How fucking awful. Well, I hope you folks enjoy the old folks home, because your kid certainly isn't gonna take care of you if you didn't take care of them. It's a two way street, not an obligation.

So that got kind of off track, what we were talking about? Oh right, ankle bruising.

Not much more to be said about this toy except for this fun tidbit, which is that a version of it was featured in the Hong Kong martial arts movie Butterfly & Sword from 1993, where a character is seen playing with it. Shame, as this thing is clearly a fucking weapon, and could easily be used like a nunchuck. It's almost like the concept of the Skip It came from one really lonely person who thought, "Hey, I couldn't find anyone to jump rope with when I was a kid, so I'll make a toy that allows you to play by yourself, like the lonely loser I was!"

Personally, as a former friendless loser child myself, I appreciate this line of thinking. It's nice to know someone out there was lookin' out for us.

Oh, and to leave you with something of actual note, turns out that one of the creators, Avi Arad, is now the Chief Creative Officer, CEO and founder of Marvel Entertainment. Avi Arad, harming children with mindless braindead things for 30 years.