Toy Weapon - Popularity and Proliferation

Popularity and Proliferation

Children have always had small imitations of things from the adult world and toy weapons are no exception. From a hand-carved wooden replica to factory-produced pop guns and cap guns, toy weapons came in all sizes, prices and materials from wood to metal.

With the influence of Hollywood and comic strips, tie-ins could make an ordinary toy gun a major bestseller. In the 1930s Daisy Outdoor Products came out with a Buck Rogers Rocket Pistol (1933), Disintegrator Pistol (1934), and Liquid Helium Pistol (1935) that sold in record numbers.

In 1940, Daisy went from spacemen to cowboys with their Red Ryder BB Gun that still is in production today. Though the Red Ryder comic strip is not as popular as it was with its spin-offs on radio and the cinema, the Red Ryder BB Gun gained a new life from the film A Christmas Story based on Jean Shepherd's short stories. However, it was the Buck Jones BB gun, rather than the Red Ryder one that featured a compass and sundial in the stock. In the 1950s motion pictures and television heroes Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and Davy Crockett added their names to toy six shooters and rifles.

Mattel had used television advertising to sell their "burp gun" on The Mickey Mouse Club in the mid 1950s to great effect. In 1959 Mattel sponsored their own television show Matty's Funday Funnies with their trademark little boy "Matty" showing cartoons and advertising their products. Mattel toys came out with Dick Tracy weapons in 1960 that were state of the art. Not only could the "Dick Tracy Crimestoppers" have a realistic snubnosed revolver in a shoulder holster, but Mattel also boosted junior law enforcement firepower with a Dick Tracy cap firing tommy gun that fired a burst of 6 caps automatically when the M-1 Thompson-style bolt was pulled back. One commercial featured Billy Mumy demonstrating the weapons to his father prior to watching Dick Tracy on TV. Mattel also came up with a "Dick Tracy Water Jet Gun" that was a miniature replica of a police pump action shotgun that fired caps when you pulled the trigger and squirted water when you pumped the slide. When the Dick Tracy craze faded the same two weapons were reissued in military camouflage as Green Beret "Guerrilla Fighter" weapons. (see United States Army Special Forces in popular culture). Mattel later issued the same tommy gun in its original colours as a Planet of the Apes tie-in complete with ape mask.

In the mid 1960s, Multiple Toymakers/Multiple Plastics Corporation (MPC) came out with James Bond's attache case from From Russia With Love. Topper Toys replied with a copy called "Secret Sam" that featured a toy gun that fired plastic bullets through the attache case and had a working camera that outsold 007's kit. MPC toys replied with a "B.A.R.K" - "Bond Assault and Raider Kit" an attache case that opened up to display a firing mortar and a rocket shooting pistol. MPC also provided a "Bond-O-Matic" water pistol. Bond's television competition The Man From UNCLE had their pistol with attachments that turned it into a rifle made by both the Ideal Toy Company in the US and the Lone Star Toys company in the United Kingdom. Mattel came out with a series of "Zero-M" secret agent weapons such as a camera turning into a pistol and a radio turning into a rifle demonstrated by a juvenile Agent Zero M played by Kurt Russell.

Perhaps inspired by Zulu but not advertised as a film tie in, a mid 1960s child's toy blowgun the size of a ball point pen called a "Zulugun" was produced that shot plastic sticking darts that were often inhaled and swallowed.

In the 1970s, the Star Wars motion pictures provided new rayguns and lightsabers produced by Kenner Toys.

Perhaps the ultimate toy weapon was the 1964 Topper Toys Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army) where an exciting television commercial showed one little boy using each of the seven weapons of the gun to wipe out a neighborhood full of children armed only with ordinary toy guns. Though an amazing seller, the Captain Kangaroo television program refused to air the advertisement. The proliferation of toy weapons was satirized in the "Our Man in Toyland" episode of Get Smart.