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From Bugs Bunny #160 comes what must have been the biggest toy seller of 1974!  Think of the hours of fun kids could have smashing their cars together and then putting them back together only to smash them again.  I like the tag line that the bigger the crash the more pieces fly off!  How soon before the kid loses some of the pieces?  How soon before his little brother swallows some of the pieces?  How soon before dad gets hit in the head by some flying shrapnel and gets so enraged he stomps the cars flat?

 

Not long at all I’d say.  But still, a toy like this will provide young Billy with some valuable life lessons in regards to proper driving habits and raising children and inserting and pulling the power T-stick.  I know it helped me and I turned out okay.  Look at me now, writing meaningless drivel out of my parent’s basement because I’m too afraid to go outside for fear of flying shrapnel hitting my good eye… but I digress.

 

Guess in 1974 toy safety standards were different than today.  One other thing that’s interesting here, I had no idea that General Mills owned Kenner at the time of this advertisement.  Makes sense in that if you’re going to give away cheap toys in your cereals, you might as well own the company that makes the toys.  Still, it’s kind of weird to have the company that manufactured Star Wars toys for nearly a decade being owned by a cereal company.  Could you imagine the product placement?  How about some green Cheerios to celebrate Yoda’s intro in The Empire Strikes Back?  Or some hairy, brown O’s for Chewbacca?

 

Okay, that image nearly made me wretch.

 

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