The Worst of the Best Podcast

Oh, whenever you're ready there, get yourself comfortable.
Remember that song?
I think it was Sister Christian by Night Ranger.
Sister Christian, the time has come.
You're the only one.
For me.
Something like that?
Yeah.
Was it that song that started at the beginning?
If you're sitting comfortably, then we'll begin.
No, no, no, no.
That's Rock Me On My Dance.
No.
I think it's Platinum Blonde.
But you were getting yourself ready for the podcast.
So I was like, if you're sitting comfortably, then we'll begin.
If you're sitting comfortably, let us begin.
Platinum Blonde.
Doesn't really matter.
That's right.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Then we'll begin.
I am brother.
How about you?
How are you doing?
Good.
Welcome to the worst of the best podcast.
You wanted the best.
Well, they didn't freaking make it.
So here's what you get.
From Canada, Ryan and Ruben.
Welcome.
Welcome to the worst of the best podcast.
I am your host, Ryan.
With me is Ruben.
Just a few weeks ago, we had Christmas.
And I wasn't going to mention Christmas, but I brought it up.
It's kind of silly.
But throughout the year of 2020 and throughout the years to come, you're going to also have
birthdays.
Your kids will have birthdays.
Ruben and I want to make sure that you, our dear listeners, don't buy the worst gift.
You want more birthdays.
Don't kill yourselves.
Don't kill yourself with toy gifts or gifts that are toys for your kids or for yourself.
For somebody that owns a toy store, let me just say this.
Dangerous toys.
Yes.
That's what I'm getting at.
So Ruben and I have compiled the list of the 10 most dangerous gifts or toys of all time.
All time.
All time.
So if you will find these on eBay, for example, don't buy them.
They are dangerous.
Just don't do it.
So you definitely, Ruben, should not take home any of these toys on this list.
However.
If you do have a ginger stepchild.
Yes.
Which I almost do.
But you don't.
No.
You definitely, Ruben, should not take home any of the toys that we're about to mention.
Because if they don't outright kill you, you have a good chance of at least maiming you or causing some good old-fashioned brain damage.
And we'll talk about some of these dangerous gifts.
And this is real.
These are all real gifts.
Because most of these toys, not all of them, but most of them have been pulled off of the shelves.
And you're going to have to go out of your way to find them.
But heaven help you if you do.
So, yeah.
We're the worst of the best podcast.
We don't come out with the list, the best of lists.
We just pick the worst of the best.
So for this list, yes.
These are the best, most dangerous toys.
They don't get more dangerous than these toys.
So they're the best in that category.
They have exceeded other bad toys.
Number 10, Ruben.
Have you ever heard of Aquodots?
I have.
Okay.
So Aquodots, they seem like the safest thing you could buy as a present for your kids.
They're just soft little beads that stick together when exposed to water.
No heat.
No messy glue.
And they're small enough to be vacuumed out of the rug if they spill.
So what could possibly be the harm in buying them for your child?
You're probably asking yourself.
Well, as we all know.
Or the environment.
So well, as we all know, kids like to swallow just about anything they can get in their mouths.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Aquodots, these can be deadly because Aquodots, Ruben, when digested, turned into GHB, the date rape drug.
No.
Yes.
One child, having swallowed a handful of these little beads, had a seizure and fell into a coma.
He did eventually awaken from it, but suffered permanent brain damage as a result.
Oh.
Crazy.
Aquodots.
It turns into a...
Ugh.
Ugh.
It's probably invented by some Uncle Fester.
Hey, kids.
So here is the original Aquodots commercial.
What can you dot, then spray, for fun that stays?
Aquodots!
The magical dots you create, spray and play.
And get ready for the all-new Aquodot Super Studio Play Set.
Start with a design and pop, pop, pop your Aquodots.
And here's the trick.
Spray with water to make them stick.
Aquodot colorful balloons.
Or an awesome aqua rocket ship.
It quickly dries, so you can make it fly.
You can even Aquodot in 3D to make a palace, a train, or an Aquodot farm.
The complete Super Studio Play Set includes the Pop-a-Lo bend, the speed dryer, the aqua sprayer,
two trays with hand designs, a dot scooper, and a lifter.
600 Aquodots, plus the model-making guide, all for $29.95.
You'll also get 150 aqua glow dots that light up in dark spots.
You can call it all around and we'll double all your Aquodots free with your paid order.
Aquodots.
Approved by Prince Andrew.
Aquodots.
Adorsed by Bill Cosby.
All right.
Go ahead with number nine, Rube.
Easy Bake Oven.
How could that be dangerous?
I know.
Easy Bake Ovens are small.
True.
They are heated only using a light bulb.
Yes.
But they also eat temperatures of 350 degrees.
That's hot enough to bake a chicken breast.
Not to mention the several cakes, cookies, pies, and other assorted treats that come in the little boxes for the Easy Bake Oven mix.
In 2007, Easy Bake Ovens suffered a recall.
Not once, but twice within a few short months of each other after several children got their fingers caught in the doors and burned them.
Often, severely.
Unfortunately, one child reportedly even had to have portions of their fingers amputated after the little powerhouse and oven cooked it to the bone.
Yeah, I remember these Easy Bake Ovens.
They're basically the size of a microwave.
And they just literally, yeah, they heat up and you cook.
You're basically giving your child a portable stove and oven.
Well, what makes you think they couldn't burn themselves?
Yeah, it's really quite bizarre.
It is bizarre.
And it's just your basic, yeah, you can make cookies and bread and these things.
And give this to your six-year-old daughter to take things in and out of the oven.
My kids would love this.
Oh, they would love it.
That's the thing.
They would actually love it.
Well, Ruben, we recently did an episode.
I think it was our last week's episode was on the future.
And hoverboards, though they're not really hovering over the air.
However, they are called hoverboards.
They're not quite what we think they are.
But basically, you've seen these hoverboards.
They're two wheels.
It's like a sideways skateboard with two, like, I don't know, like bike wheels on training wheel size wheels on the side of the hoverboard.
The hoverboards have wheels, making them less hoverboard and more like a Segway without handlebars.
The darn thing is bursting into flames, however, the worst possible time, which is to say any time ever.
So why are hoverboards bursting into flame?
Well, we don't know, actually.
Some of the reported explosions of fire and melted plastic happened with the hoverboard was simply sitting still and unused.
On the bright side, this is a great way to burn down your business for the insurance money and not get caught.
Terrible.
So, Ruben, if you have hoverboards sitting in your shelves at Tumblebums and they light on fire, you're like, hey, man, I didn't start a fire.
I do not.
I do not.
I had a house fire once.
And I'm stressed out about fires ever since.
That's fair.
That's fair.
Yeah.
Like, genuinely stressed.
Go on YouTube and look up Mike Tyson on the hoverboard.
I haven't seen it, but obviously he crashes.
Because there's nothing to see.
Does he do boxing match on a hoverboard?
Few things have knocked Tyson into the canvas.
One of them is a hoverboard.
Oh, hilarious.
Hey, do you want another dangerous one?
Sky Dancer dolls.
For a short time, every girl's dream was to have a Sky Dancer doll.
Like a mix between a Barbie and a Beyblade.
Yeah.
These little fairy-esque toys would soar in the air, spinning circles, blade-like wings, whirling away right into your face, where they would proceed to slice and dice you like a discount ham.
Sky Dancers were beautiful, but so, so dangerous.
And would apparently often rocket right into your face.
Slice any bit of your unprotected flesh that could, with axes including your eyes.
Not suitable for children, but great for a ranged weapon in a 90s-themed battle.
I remember these toys.
Yeah, they would spin and fly.
There's a great YouTube video, again.
I think it might have been this toy.
I've seen the video.
I don't know if it's this toy.
It's certainly something like this.
This girl, it was Christmas morning, and she got one of these.
It must be this toy, because it's about the age a girl would have of this toy.
And it flew up in the air and zipped by her face, but it went right into the fireplace.
Yeah, I saw this.
It's a great video.
Look up flying girl toy fireplace.
It'll come up.
It'll come up.
I forgot about that.
You know, maybe that was fortuitous.
It was a Christmas miracle.
Exactly.
The Sky Dancer doll turned sentient and knew that it would only harm the child,
and it sacrificed itself to the fiery flames of extinction.
It was the good one.
Yeah.
Did you ever watch the TV show CSI, Rube?
I never have, no.
I'm still familiar with it, though.
Well, right.
It was on for, what, 25 seasons?
Was it David Caruso?
Yeah, David Caruso left NYPD Blue after the first season to start a movie career,
which did not happen.
And he came slinking back to a TV to stars Horatio Crane in the CSI Miami spinoff from the CSI original series.
But anyway, it was a very highly, highly popular TV show.
And of course, it spawned games, books, all the stuff that a successful TV show will do.
Well, one thing it did create was a CSI fingerprint examination kit.
So you can do your own fingerprints, Rube.
Sounds harmless.
Sounds easy enough, right?
Sure.
Well, you get to feel smart and catch the bad guy by simple mistakes he can't help but make.
So with the CSI fingerprint examination kit, you can play this little game even better,
picking up actual fingerprints to inspect and compare.
Finally, you get to solve the mystery of who really took the last cookie from the jar.
Then, of course, you get cancer and die.
What?
Well, Rube, the fingerprint powder contains asbestos.
In fact, the powder was roughly 7% asbestos.
7% asbestos is high enough to give you mesothelioma.
I'm saying that wrong.
Yeah.
Thank goodness we don't know it well enough, John.
Well, I can't pronounce it right, but basically the cancer that comes from asbestos.
Crazy.
Yeah.
So the mystery here, Rube, is that they should have been solved here is how this ever passed
any safety checks.
Well, there wasn't any, probably.
So who knew that someone's love for David Caruso?
Well, to be fair, this is the original series, CSI, the fingerprint examination kit.
I think CSI Miami paraphernalia is just sunglasses.
Which you just take off your face in a really cool manner.
You get skin cancer or something.
Yeah.
Crazy.
Now, number five.
Roller skating Barbie.
Harmless enough to me.
Barbie has more careers.
We got two Barbie dolls for Christmas.
Nice.
It was astronaut and lawyer.
Nice.
Barbie has more careers and expertise and hobbies than one can count.
One of the forgotten hobbies that few remember is roller skating Barbie.
Barbie is allegedly quite skilled at it.
Moving so fast on her skates that she leaves a trail of fire in her wake.
Literally.
Rolling out in the 80s, roller skating Barbie was a big hit.
Until it was discovered that her skates were literally creating sparks.
It was like anything.
A little flammable like a candle.
After a few fires and burns, roller skating Barbie and the matching Ken were discontinued
and recalled to never to be seen again.
So, basically, the way they would sparkle when they rolled, they could have that sparkly effect.
It's almost like a lighter top.
Oh, hilarious.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Use your imagination there.
I'm going to help that at the barbecue.
What I love about the 1950s is they just didn't care.
And I would love to have this set today just to have it and use it as safely as one would as an adult.
But this was given to kids.
This was the Gilbert U238 Lab.
It's an atomic energy lab.
It performs over 150 exciting experiments for the junior scientists.
Okay.
Also, the kit contained a small lab with which to examine the materials and a Geiger counter.
In case you wanted to know the exact dose of radiation that was making your skin green and itchy.
And the stuff that was making you green and itchy was that children across the U.S. were getting contaminated with three different samples of active uranium ore from this kit.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Give the kit some uranium.
The kit says here on the actual kit in the picture, exciting.
Safe.
Maybe that's where Doc, Doc Holliday got his, not Doc Holliday.
Dang it.
You know, Doc.
Back to the future.
Doc Brown?
Is that his name?
I think so.
Once I said Doc Holliday, I lost my name.
That's the tombstone.
All right.
This one's not as funny, but go ahead.
Definitely not funny.
Aqua Leisure Inflatable Baby Boat.
Oh, you know these things tip.
Yeah.
Imagine this.
It's summer.
You're throwing a party to celebrate.
The fact that you've got a new pool.
You have your baby in the pool with you.
The little baby boat you just bought her.
You look away for a second.
Ugh.
You hear the sound of tiny stitches popping.
Swim back around just to see your baby slip under the water headed for the bottom.
This, unfortunately, was a situation that faced many parents after the baby boat from Aqua Leisure was found to have a defect in the stitching of the seat, which, when it ripped, dumped the baby straight down into the water, where several almost drowned.
So, thankfully, the parents were there watching their kids float around the pool, and the kid goes, whoop.
Crazy.
So, they're able to get the kids out.
But, yeah.
So, the seat, that little seat they're sitting in, little mesh-like seat, the weight of the kid tore the stitching off.
Oh, my goodness.
Ugh.
Yeah.
Not a fun one.
No.
Remember slip and slides?
Love slip and slides.
When we were kids, we were having a slip and slide, which we never owned.
It was like having a PS4.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, like, it was just like, oh, you have a slip and slide?
You got water running?
Yeah.
You have a lawn?
You get to slip down this plastic-y thing, and everyone listening to this show knows that you go on YouTube, you go to slip and slides on YouTube, and people, the velocity that you fly down, there's not enough real estate on the slip and slides.
No.
Okay?
Things are going good until you hit the end of the slide and nearly break your neck because you're being thrown onto the grass with a sudden stop.
They still sell these.
I used this a couple years ago at a friend's house.
Sure.
They're fun for little, little kids.
I think the bigger you are and the more velocity you throw yourself on it, yeah, the more dangerous it becomes.
His backyard's been on a bit of a hill.
I slid for longer than a slip and slide.
Oh, sure.
Of course you would.
Did it feel good?
No, no.
It was terrible.
Yeah.
Every kid needs a Gilbert Caster kit.
Oh, another kind of scientific kit here, eh?
Yep.
These guys, again, last time you saw them, they're letting kids play with radioactive materials.
Let's see what they're up to this time.
According to the description of the product, you simply cast your own little soldier toys and paint them lovingly.
Well, that sounds really nice, actually.
What could be the problem?
Oh, right.
You were meant to cast the soldiers out of melted lead.
Real, actual, brain-damaging lead.
The kind, you know, that gives you brain damage or poisons you and sends you to the hospital?
This product has been off the shelf for decades.
This product has been off the shelf for decades, but it's still incredible that a toy so damaging to your health can even get on the shelves at all.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
This was called the Caster Kit Jr.
They're melting lead, and you put it into a toy soldier mold.
It looks like you've got a guy on a horse, like a soldier on a horse here.
It is a really cool idea.
And then you paint your toy model, you know?
Yeah.
Okay, so, Ruben, I guess for this one, since we both have children, which of the ten you have to give your children all nine?
Yeah, you have to give them nine of the ten.
Terrible.
Terrible.
Which one would you think is the most likely to hard work kill your child?
They're all terrible.
So, Aquodots.
So, let's just scroll here.
Yeah, Aquodots is a date rape drug.
Okay.
Easy Bake, you burn your hand off.
Okay.
Hoverboards will burn your house down.
Mm-hmm.
Skydancer dolls will slice your eye open.
So far the best one.
CSI fingerprint examination.
This one's not too bad.
It just gives you cancer.
Another fire has a roller skating Barbie.
Burns down the house.
Possibly.
It could start a fire.
The Atomic Energy Lab.
Rear them?
Yeah, it gives you three different samples of active uranium ore.
That makes your skin itchy.
Aqua leisure inflatable boat will drown your toddler.
Water slides could break your neck or back.
And lastly, lead poisoning for the caster kit.
These are very terrible.
These are the best and worst things that you can buy your kids for toys.
So, which one is the worst?
I have my pick.
I have my pick.
It has to be the inflatable boat.
Yeah.
Everything else is like, because you're really, you're putting in, you know, you have your six-month-old, 18-month-old in this.
Now, granted, you're supposed to be watching your baby.
I get it.
But look, the baby boat, it goes out to the current a little bit and the kid falls out.
I'm just saying everything else has like, cancer can be cured, houses can be replaced.
You know, your eye, you can have two of them.
Only one eye gets poked out.
And sure, you...
You only have one life.
Yeah, that's right.
Exactly.
So, I think the worst of these most dangerous toys is the, in my opinion, the Aqualeisure Inflatable Baby Boat.
I agree.
It's strongly tied to...
It's a close tie to the rest of them.
In a close second, it's one through all the other ones.
Right.
All right.
So, that was fun.
These toys were made, Ruben, for us to enjoy.
Oh, crazy.
If you're making toys out there, make sure that's not going to kill the kid.
I would recommend that.
Another point for video games, I guess, eh?
Yeah, another one.
All right.
Well, remember, in front of every silver lining, there's a cloud, and we're here to help you find it.
Thanks for listening.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Crazy.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you.