Jarts, Lawn or Yard Darts, Sod Rockets, YarDarts, Rocket Toss, Weighted Points of Death!

   It didn't matter what you called them, Jarts were incredibility dangerous! They were fun when played correctly and even more fun when you didn't. As you can see from my collection, there were dozens of manufacturers. Hasbro, Sears, Franklin, Town & Country, King, Eagle, Kent, Free Former, D.P., Pace Setter, Regent and many more. If you were making outdoor games at the time, lawn darts were latest and greatest fad and corporations wanted in on it. And then it happened. People were getting hurt with them. Huh, go figure. Regular darts have been played for hundreds of years and folks knew if you threw them at each other, it would hurt. Now lets make a giant one for outdoors and see what happens. Soon people all over the United States were being impaled with Hasbro lawn darts. The horror!!! The Jart lobby must of been fairly strong at the time because instead of putting a cease and desist on production and pulling them off the shelf, they put warning labels on the box. This is from the Hasbro website- "In addition, two products from Hasbro's 1970 line turned into public relations disasters: Javelin Darts were declared unsafe by the government, and Hypo-Squirt, a water gun shaped like a hypodermic needle, was dubbed by the press a "junior junkie" kit. Both products were promptly removed from the market." One box has a happy family playing with the warning "Keep out of reach of children" boldly underneath it.  I counted five warnings on one box. Raise your hand if you think that worked. No, it didn't. Consumers don't read the instructions so you know they would ignore any warnings about their precious past time. The best part of collecting are the stories you hear from people who actually played the game. One little boy kept sticking his foot in the scoring ring. After being warned numerous times, guess what happened? Yep, bulls-eye! Another friend grew up with a kid nicknamed "Jart". If you have any stories, I'd love to hear them. If we don't learn from history, we're bound to repeat it!
Thanks, uncletom

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