#127 Slip & Slide

The col­ors of the new logo are cer­tain­ly appeal­ing, but I don’t think the type­style exudes the play­ful­ness of slid­ing & slip­ping on a run­way of water, and is quite dat­ed. Maybe Wham‑o wants to retain the decades-​old inno­cence of the won­der­ful, sim­ple toy; I’m all for that. How­ev­er, I feel the prod­uct name “Slip ‘n Slide” could be ren­dered with a more exhuber­ant  & con­tem­po­rary let­ter­ing style and still retain the iden­ti­ty factor. 

Check out the Slip ‘N Slide® Surf Rider® Double!

Good old-​fashioned summer toys, still fun today

Along with Slip & Slide, there were Fris­bees (also made by Wham‑o) and squirt guns (now mega water can­nons) as sum­mer­time toys in the 50s and 60s. For­tu­nate­ly all of these are still pop­u­lar, along with roller skates (no met­al key required) & boo­gie boards.

So dangerous this toy was banned — but we sure had fun

Some of these old toys could be dan­ger­ous, espe­cial­ly since us kids weren’t required to wear full-​on body armor like hel­mets and knee pads back then, but there was one in par­tic­u­lar that guar­an­teed blood: the beloved Flexy Rac­er, made by a sled man­u­fac­tur­er who added wheels. You rode this thing on your stom­ach, just a few inch­es from the ground. Your hands wrapped around the brake han­dles (which just rubbed against the skin­ny tires, and did­n’t ever stop the thing in time). The han­dles also were part of a steer­ing mech­a­nism, but all we ever did was tilt our body left or right to make a turn. The speeds got up there on the steep streets where I lived and this was more fun than a roller coast­er.  This short vid gives you an idea how dan­ger­ous and fun that Flexy was: