Jarts were a brand of lawn dart toy first sold around 1950 per some sources, or 1940s per others. You would toss them, trying to land inside a circular target. They had a weighted metal tip so they would stick upright into a lawn.

This was not a very good idea.

The metal tip was heavy and could fall with enough energy to penetrate a skull. At least three children were killed, with many thousands of injuries from mild to severe. Over 6100 in the US alone were sent to emergency rooms.

Attempts to ban the toy started around 1969. The US took them off the market in 1987, and Canada in 1988.

Similar toys are sold today, minus the deadly weapon part, with nerf or blunt tips designed to avoid penetration injuries.

Here are some actual jarts.

Jarts

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[–] 27 points 6 days ago (6 children)

In the 70s, when I was a wee lad, my mom worked as a volunteer at the local hospital. One of the cool things we got to see on her tours around the place were x-rays of kids with lawn darts stuck in their skulls, hands, and legs.

It was real, eh, as in real scary product.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    My friend told me one day he was out in the garden throwing darts as high as he could, because why not? His little brother went out, got hit in the head with a dart, but didn't understand what the hell this sudden extreme pain came from so he just froze, started screaming, and ran inside. With the dart stuck on top of his head.

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  • [–] 20 points 6 days ago

    Had this exact set growing up! We’d take it camping, getting as far from a hospital as possible.

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  • [–] 20 points 6 days ago (3 children)

    I've got a set of original Jarts in my living room! In the box and everything. My dad has a scar on his forehead from getting hit with one when he was young, he got super lucky to not die lol

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  • [–] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    They should have just rebranded it the game with a chance of a late term abortion.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Very fun game until it gets boring. Then it's all about "throw it as high as you can and just make sure you don't get hit when it comes down"

    Good times!

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  • [–] 11 points 6 days ago

    Yep, we have this exact box in our shed. They're pretty fun, as long as everyone stays a hundred miles away from the target.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 days ago*

    The green package is clearly a later variant, and it's interesting the tagline has changed from "An outdoor game for the family" to "An outdoor skill game for adults"

    I can only assume at that point they were well aware of the danger and figured they could swerve some of the legal liability if they branded the game as adults-only (despite also knowing most of the time it was kids playing)

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    The best part is it got banned.

    It got banned in the times where kids breaking was the norm.

    Like this shit was so dangerous that even in a culture where broken limbs were the norm they balked at it.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    The two most dangerous things we as a kid were Jarts and a swing set that had two benches facing each other. Soany broken ankles from kids letting their feet dangle on the upswing and then snapping on the down swing after getting caught in the ground.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    my fam had the red vs yellow set pictured there.

    I had to look it up and while there were definitely hundreds of injuries, there were only 3 direct deaths (head trauma) from them before being "safety'd".

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  • [–] 8 points 6 days ago* (1 child)

    Even as kids we knew these were a Bad Idea.

    We still threw them in stupid, crazy ways and ran like hell hoping to not get hit.

    I can't believe my parents bought them. Come on, you've seen the dumb shit we do with much safer stuff.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago

    Jarts. They'll make your parents shart!

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago

    Also try our new Sharts

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago

    we had a set growing up.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago

    They should bring these back in those axe throwing places.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago
    [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    AKA Canadian darts

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