Long before technology gave us realistic games for kids that allowed for simulated predatory gun fighting electronically, America's children took to backyards and playgrounds with toy cap guns to battle it out in the neighborhood. Playing army or cowboys and indians in the dirt was how many American kids spent their playtime in decades past.
When did this behavior start? Perhaps at the very beginning of recorded history - the 1950s. Cowboys like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger ruled the daytime TV airwaves, attracting a legion of kids who wanted to play shoot-em-up at home.
When cowboys and pistol-waving detectives started to lose favor in the early-'60s, toy gun lines lost their key salespersons and innovative products had to be created from scratch.
Products with catchy names like the TommyBurst submachine gun, Remco's Monkey Division (for "jungle warfare" with two-way wrist radios), Secret Sam, and the Fan-O-matic (with Greenie Stick-M caps for ammo) burst onto the market.
Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army) by Topper was the ultimate killing machine and much sought after - with seven actions, including a grenade launcher, anti-tank weapon, anti-bunker missile, armor-piercing shell, and a detachable pistol with the rat-a-tat-tat sound.
(Images via THESE AMERICANS)
When did this behavior start? Perhaps at the very beginning of recorded history - the 1950s. Cowboys like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger ruled the daytime TV airwaves, attracting a legion of kids who wanted to play shoot-em-up at home.
When cowboys and pistol-waving detectives started to lose favor in the early-'60s, toy gun lines lost their key salespersons and innovative products had to be created from scratch.
Products with catchy names like the TommyBurst submachine gun, Remco's Monkey Division (for "jungle warfare" with two-way wrist radios), Secret Sam, and the Fan-O-matic (with Greenie Stick-M caps for ammo) burst onto the market.
Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army) by Topper was the ultimate killing machine and much sought after - with seven actions, including a grenade launcher, anti-tank weapon, anti-bunker missile, armor-piercing shell, and a detachable pistol with the rat-a-tat-tat sound.
(Images via THESE AMERICANS)
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