Slip n' Slide

You'd think with a company name like Wham-O, Inc., people would know to take these products seriously. Slip n' Slides may have slid onto the scene in the 60s, but it was not until the 90s that we got to see some good old-fashioned ambulance-chasing legislative action. The 90s showed a distinct rise in the level of safety-consciousness on the part of overanxious parents desperate to helmet and pad their children to the most insulated degree. Contrary to popular 90s parent opinion, children had once lived in a world without safety features and generally lived to tell about it; those who did not were simply sucked up by the forces of social Darwinism. In the 90s, however, the tide began to turn.

Some would say we were fighting nature. We were protecting the weak. Defying the forces of nature that acted to weed out this type of risky irresponsible behavior.

Others would say that perhaps we never should have been sliding down an glorified sheet of cheap plastic lubricated with hose water into rocky backyard terrain in the first place.

Parents succumbed to children's begging for Slip n' Slides largely on a cost-efficient and effort-exertion level. You could either install a pool, pack up every possible necessary belonging and lug it to the faraway beach, drag your kids to the suspiciously grimy public pool...or you could just run the hose over a giant sheet of yellow plastic in the backyard. Which would you choose? The answer seemed pretty clear. Or at least clearer than the public pool.

Slip n' Slide.




I know there's a Wham-O! Hula Hoop ad on the end of this, but I couldn't help myself when I saw it. It's just so 90s.


The name doesn't leave much room for questioning. No, this was a straightforward product, through and through. It didn't seem necessary for it to come with a dictionary-size manual of directions and warnings. What would they possibly say?

Step one:
Remove Slip n' Slide from package and unroll unto level ground.

Step two:
Place running hose at edge of Slip n' Slide.

Step three:
Slip.

Step four:
Slide.

Wasn't that pretty much it? You slipped, you slid, you laughed in the face of the scorching hot sun's attempt to swelter you, and called it a day.
In reality, the problem was probably not so much with the product as with the parents. In a time where everyone was quick to assign blame to anybody but themselves, it was easy to call foul on a faulty product or unsafe design. However, there were many actions taken by lackadaisical parents that were more than likely the underlying culprits of these purported Slip n' Slide injuries. In case you were unaware, I am happy to share with you a few tips for care and use of your Wham-O Slip n' Slide:

1. Do not place in an area generally abounding with rocks and boulders. I don't even know if I'm supposed to share this type of highly classified information, but some scientists report that boulders can be damaging to heads upon forceful contact.

2. Do not place your Slip n' Slide on a steep hill. As much fun as if may be to go barreling headfirst at full speed down a miniature mountain, the plastic sheet has to end at some point. Then you're simply plunging headfirst into the ground, which I've also been told can be a tad on the painful side.

3. Enormous, oversized, supposedly responsible adults should not use a toy intended for children.

4. This especially goes for any time when these adults are intoxicated.

5. FYI, this includes fraternity parties.

6. And really, any kind of party.

7. Because honestly, this product is recommended for ages 5-12.

8. And while we're on the subject, why the hell are you using this as an adult?

9. Again, I'm not sure how much clearer I can make this.

10. But just to reiterate, really, a terrible idea.


In the 90s, the major lawsuit-prompted injury warnings were not based on injuries sustained by unsuspecting children. The injuries were generally caused by grown-ups attempting to join in on the fun, especially while highly intoxicated, and smashing their spinal column in a paralyzing manner. Teenagers and adults would slip and slide as the directions indicated, but failed to take into account that they were approximately two to three times the size of the recommended users. When coupled with the mere inertia garnered from their notably heavier weights, this was certainly a cause for concern.

What should have been concern for the right-mindedness of these adults was morphed into concern over a lack of safety features. Because really, a product should probably include every possible cause of injury or death in its packaging. I'm not sure your level of marketing expertise, but it's fairly safe to say that a 3000-word brochure on potential causes of death isn't always a major selling point for your product.

Just in case you were curious (which no doubt you were!) here's a handy excerpt from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission's report on the matter:

WASHINGTON, DC -- Kransco Group Companies and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warn consumers that WHAM-O backyard water slides, manufactured by Kransco and WHAM-O for years as popular summertime toys for children, should NOT be used by adults or teenagers. The toys were designed for use by children only. Use by adults and teens has the potential to result in neck injury and paralysis.

Alright, seems pretty straightforward. Go on, CPSC.

Because of their weight and height, adults and teenagers who dive onto the water slide may hit and abruptly stop in such a way that could cause permanent spinal cord injury, resulting in quadriplegia or paraplegia. The slider's forward momentum drives the body into the neck and compresses the spinal cord.

Ouch. But again, makes sense.

Kransco reports that seven adults who used WHAM-O slides suffered neck injuries, quadriplegia, or paraplegia. A 13-year- old teenager suffered a fractured neck while using a WHAM-O slide. The incidents occurred between 1973 and 1991.

Considering this report was released in the early 90s, that's a pretty troubling grace period before taking a clear stand on this. Oh, you know, it's been happening for 18 years, but we wanted to make sure this lifetime paralysis was the real deal.

According to Kransco, 9 million WHAM-O water slides called Slip 'N Slide, Super Slip 'N Slide, Slip 'N Splash, White Water Rapids, Fast Track Racers, and Wet Banana were sold nationwide from 1961 to February 1992. The slides are long plastic sheets with stakes to secure the sheet to a flat lawn free of rocks, mounds, and depressions. Some slides included an inflatable raft to slide on the plastic sheet; others may have an inflatable pool at the end of the slide.

Oh no, not Wet Banana!

CPSC and Kransco urge adults and teenagers NOT to use the WHAM-O backyard slides. Consumers should read the warnings and instructions on the box and on the toy itself which state that the product is NOT intended for adult use. Adults should instruct children how to use the slides safely.

So there you have it. Slip n' Slide. Sure, it may be risky, but again, who wants to schlep all the way out to the beach when you can lay out a bright yellow roll of cheap, non-durable plastic?

Case closed.

A Little Something to Get You Through Your Weekend...

I have yet to get around to writing about the Golden Girls' because I'm a tad concerned about not doing this comedic gem justice in blog post form. I keep putting it off for some imaginary date when I will have adequate time and motivation to sufficiently convey its hilarity. Until then, here's a little something to tide you over and give you a heaping spoonful of 90s humor to hold you for the weekend.

As sad as I was to hear of Bea Arthur's passing, it did remind me of a little something I vaguely recollected from the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. I will admit up front that this is 100% cheating to in any way link this to Bea Arthur as she was the only Golden Girl who did not appear in this, but I remembered this clip existed earlier this week and felt it was my duty as distributor of all things sacred and 90s to pass it on to you.

This Clueless spoof had me laughing so hard I nearly ruptured an internal organ, and not because it's so brilliantly scripted. In actuality, the script is no comedic revelation and the spoof lifts many lines nearly word-for-word from the original film. No, the real humor is all in the uncanny Clueless-to-Golden-Girls visual translation. I don't want to give it away, so you will just have to watch it for yourselves.

Without further ado, the Golden Girls (or perhaps the Golden Palace, as it is sans Bea) do Clueless:





Happy weekend, everyone!

The MASH Game

We all grew up with big dreams. For some of us, it was to have a blossoming career. For others, to raise a happy and healthy family. There are some of us out there however, with more pre-specified ambitions.

Namely that you're going to marry Screech from Saved by the Bell, live in a mansion in the United Arab Emirates, have 12 children, and drive your purple subcompact car to your job as a housewife everyday.

Sound odd? Absolutely! But if the fates proclaim it, so shall it be.

The fates we're talking about here are admittedly less professional than your run-of-the-mill neighborhood psychic or carnival palm reader. Regardless of their questionable credentials, we trusted these fortune seers to predict for us a decidedly silly, squeal-inducing future. These were our peers on the playground, and they held in their hands our very fates.

The brilliance of MASH was that it became a universally known and widely accepted practice among children in the 80s and 90s. If you were to have stopped by nearly any elementary school and asked if they would like to play MASH, no one would look at you questioningly or jump in to discuss the preachy-ness of Alan Alda's television directing career. They would grab a pencil and a piece of looseleaf and start prophesying.

One of the main elements we all loved so dearly about MASH was the ability to lightly humiliate our friends by assigning to them less-than-stellar options in any of the preselected categories. The categories usually ran a little something like this, with at least 5 options listed per category:

MASH
This one was a constant; the game's namesake. MASH stood for Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House. These were your choices for living accommodations. In some circles, more creative (read: cruel) options were added, but this was the basic underlying foundation of the game. This was one of the more important categories, as we all assumed money would make us outstandingly, incomparably happy. And they say kids don't learn anything from TV.

Boys'/Girls' Names
Depending on your gender, you were ordered to name 5 people of the opposite sex. When meaner kids were running the show, they would get to select the options for you, but usually you had some say in who was listed. It was requisite to list your crush, unattainable famous people, and at least one unsavory kid; this was usually the kid who picked his nose in the back of the classroom or was forever regaling his classmates with stories about what happened last night on his ant farm. It was generally understood that the more appalling and undesirable options you listed, the more hilarity would ensue when your moment of fortune-telling came to fruition.

However, if you were lucky enough to bag JTT or Tatyana Ali in a game of recess MASH, you were certainly entitled to bragging rights for the remainder of the school day.

Jobs
This one was pretty self-explanatory, but it was always fun seeing what wacky undesirably professions one could add to the list of possibilities. Garbage collector? Septic tank engineer? Cootie quarantiner? Sure, you can always throw in some of the standard Doctor/Lawyer/Teacher/Housewife fare, but that was never quite as humorous or entertaining.

Gender role-reversal was also popular. A male housewife? An instant classic!

Cars
Again, the money=happiness paradigm reigned supreme. Sure, a Corvette or a Lamborghini would be nice, but what's that when you could have a broken down AMC Hornet?* What, I ask you?

Some versions also included car colors, which are not inherently funny but accurately reflect a child's disproportional sense of humor. A pink car? For a boy? Oh my god. Pink. And for those of us who dreamed of one day owning a shocking fuchsia Maserati, well, this was our chance. That is, if you didn't get stuck with the puce Buick instead.

City/Location
One of the games more practical aspects, we all were truly curious about where we were going to end up. However, as children our worldview was relatively limited, so we frequently had our pick of 5 neighboring suburbs of our then current location. A kid can dream, can't he?

Number of Children
This was a pretty obvious dimension; two or three were preferable, six was sort of a bummer, and ten was ridiculous. Bear in mind the Duggar family of 18 Kids and Counting fame were not yet being broadcast into our susceptible minds weekly, so we were under the impression that there was some sort of a finite cap on how many children one could feasibly physically produce. Unfortunately, most of the options listed in this category were pretty reasonable and rational and hence lacked the shock value of some of the more outlandish categories. Depending on your foreseen mate, however, the shock value could fluctuate significantly.



Once all the lists had been generated, the real fun could begin in a tedious, meticulous fashion uncharacteristic of otherwise attention spanless children. At this point, there were several ways in which to randomly select a benchmark number, all of which were terminated by the fortune seeker saying, "Stop!" Usually, you would draw spirals or tally marks and whenever the MASHee indicated for you to stop. Whatever the number of circles or tallies drawn would serve as your reference point number. If your number was four, you would start at the top, count down four items, and cross off the fourth. From that one you would count another four, cross out the list item you landed on, and so on and so forth until you had one item remaining in each category.

For those of you to whom this makes no sense at all (and let's be honest, if you never or rarely played this game, this is a pretty shaky explanation), I invite you to play the online version for illustrative and/or enjoyment purposes. Go on, I'll wait.

Online MASH game

If you ended up with less than spectacular results, fear not; the beauty of MASH is that it can be played repeatedly until you finally achieve your desired outcome. Much like a Magic 8 Ball could be shaken again and again until it displayed the coveted response, so too could MASH be reformulated and re-tabulated umpteen times.

So go ahead, keep playing. I think you'll find that despite your current status as a so-called adult, this game retains its novelty. For those of you lucky enough to possess an iPhone but are currently living in tenuous fear of being caught slacking by your boss/parent/significant other/roommate/pet, don't worry. As the iPhone commercials so helpfully inform us, "there's an app for that":



Feel free to drop your MASH results in the comment box.


Check it out:
An Amazing MASH Game T-Shirt
Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen: Bratz MASH


*My dad once owned an AMC Hornet. One day, he came outside and found that someone had stolen his driver's side door. His driver's side door. This story is completely unrelated (especially since it happened in the 70s) but it is also true and hilarious and therefore must be shared.