WEBVTT - Selects: How Toy Testing Works 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.080 Hey everyone, it's your friend Josh. And for this week's select, 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:08.000 I've chosen the November twenty seventeen episode on toy testing. 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.960 It's a kid's dream job, definitely supposing they can circumnavigate 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.159 the confusing world of child labor laws. But it's a 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.960 nightmare to that kid's parents, as I stress multiple times 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.800 in this episode. So I hope I really got that across. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:24.840 Enjoy it in good health. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:37.159 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.680 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.680 Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Rowling in there, and 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.280 this is stuff you should know for all the kiddies 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.559 out there. For the cats, the kiddies, there is a 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.640 d d Oh, gotcha, two d's and an ie. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:56.639 Not kitties. 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:58.520 No, not kitties. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:00:59.960 Not the Miamio. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:02.720 Nice callback man. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:04.520 Yeah, oh that was a good one. 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.120 Basalts probably should have mentioned that on the one for 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:14.959 the kiddies. Chuck, Yes, have you ever tested a toy? 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:16.959 No? 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:18.360 Did you ever want to? 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.520 Well? Yeah, I mean I've done some product testing before 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.959 because I have a friend or had a friend that 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.959 worked in market research and She would occasionally hit me 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.720 up for a burger taste or a beer drink nice, 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.240 or a tool test, but never toys. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.280 Wow, I'll bet the beer drink was fun. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.320 It's great, drink a little beer and you get paid 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:41.160 like a hundred bucks? 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:43.240 Was she like? No, No, you can't swallow. You have 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.360 to swish it around in your mouth and spit it out. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.640 Actually, most of the beer ones, the only one I did, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.080 I think there was only one that was a taste. 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:51.600 A lot of times it's just like, what do you 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:52.960 think of this logo type of thing? 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:53.720 Oh? 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:54.440 Really? Yeah? 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:56.440 So like the beer wasn't even in the room with you. 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.240 No Ah, what a tease? 0:01:58.360 --> 0:01:59.920 Yeah? They just throw things up and I just go 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:00.640 so boring? 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.920 Yeah, were you like you probably could have explained this 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.320 better when you asked me to test the beer. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.920 Well you get that little envelope on a hundred bucks though, 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:10.320 so who cares? Oh? Nice? 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.359 Is that how much that pays? 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:13.079 Sometimes more? 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:13.640 Wow? 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.080 Sometimes fifty. I did a frozen yogurt win for fifty 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.040 bucks one time, but it ranged between fifty and a 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:21.720 couple one hundred. 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:22.640 Very cool. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.040 Yeah, cash money, yeah, why not? 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:26.440 You know you can go buy a lot of beer 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.160 with that totally. Well. I remember hearing about the idea 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.440 of toy testing as a kid and just being like, 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.560 how how do I do this? And my parents were like, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.800 I don't know, we both work were busy. Go be 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:38.720 a latch key kid. 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:41.520 Yeah, especially after the movie Big. 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.440 Oh yeah, there was like a lot of toy testing 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:45.840 in that. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:47.280 Right, yeah, I mean that was his job. 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.160 I forgot about that. Totally forgot about that. I just 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.840 remember the piano scene and then the scene at the end. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.040 Well, they'll spoil it, Okay. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.840 I didn't. I said the scene at the end, Hopefully 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.919 it didn't spoil it for anybody that Big ends eventually. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.560 Yeah, don't spoil it. But it has something to do 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.720 with a dirty bomb, right, that's the next stepisode, the 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:08.640 big surprise ending. 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.720 So anyway, I remember wanting to be a toy tester 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:13.680 and it never panned out for me. And now that 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.239 I have grown up a little bit and I've read 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.440 this article, especially during a little research, toy testing still 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.800 sounds awesome if you're a kid, oh yeah, But if 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:23.840 you're a parent, it does not sound all that great. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.440 Uh what do you mean, like if your kid does that? 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.720 Yeah, it sounds like a lot of work, man, what. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.000 Like getting the toy and having your kid play with it. 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.760 Yeah, I mean it's not like that's the end of it. Like, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:37.880 there's a lot of a lot of extra stuff you 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:39.360 have to do. You have to pay attention to your 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.160 kid while they're playing with it. You have to You've 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.240 got to write reports and stuff. But there's like if 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.400 there's work to it if you're the parent, for sure, So. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:48.760 In other words, you have to take them out of 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.200 their their small, plain brick room and actually let them play. 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.640 Yeah, take off their Hannibal Lecter face mask and their 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:57.320 straight jacket. 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:58.440 I never thought about it that way. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.560 It don't get to work and then put them back 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.040 in after they're done with their toy. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:03.600 That's right. 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.080 No, this again, if you're the kid, great job. If 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.560 you're a parent, it seems tough. Plus also, one of 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.080 the things that's tough about it is that this is 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.159 not something that is easily come by. I think. Although 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.680 it's a lot easier today to get a job for 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.800 your kid as a toy tester than it was, say 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:25.880 like in nineteen ninety, yeah, I. 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.680 Think back then you had to literally depend on someone 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.240 getting in touch with you. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:31.919 Right or you had to like go show up at 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.000 headquarters and be like, hey, what do you think you kid? 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:34.680 Huh right? 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.239 You know, all right, well, let's let's go a little further, 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.120 a little further back, Chuck, because there's a lot of 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.279 different testing that goes on with toys. There's the kind 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.680 I was just talking about research market research, right, like 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.039 you and your beer logos. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.680 Yeah, Like, play with this toy, kid, what do you 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:52.520 think does it stink? 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.599 There's also the kind that has to do with like 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.200 actually making sure it's safe, which is another kind of 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.800 toy testing, and we're going to cover both. But the 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.559 idea of testing toys to make sure that they didn't 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.400 you know, disembowel the kid that was playing with them 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.400 with some weird sharp edge or a missile that was 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.040 actually you know, would stick in your gut and catch 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.839 fire or something like that, that's actually a relatively new concept, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:24.520 like surprisingly new. 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.200 Actually yeah, I mean toys have been around for thousands 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.360 of years. Like they found toys that are potentially four 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.240 thousand years old. I saw a rattle that was from 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.280 Turkey that maybe like four thousand years old. Yeah, And 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:44.080 by all accounts, this Italian find was a sort of 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.479 like an early easy bake oven kit. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.960 Yeah, it was like a toy kitchen basically kitchen said. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.320 Yeah, so, like little kids have always wanted to play 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.839 with stuff. It's just part of being a child, whether 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.800 it's tuk took junior or you know. Although up to 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.960 my times and in the eighteenth century, it became a 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.120 thing to where the Enlightenment philosopher said, you know what, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.920 learning through play is a really valuable thing. So like 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.440 legit toy started being developed for the first time. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.200 Yeah, I think this is about the time, maybe a 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.760 little before, but this is probably the seeds of where 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.240 childhood came from. And we need to do an episode 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.320 just on childhood. I think man like when it was allowed. Yeah, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.560 like this is not it's not like a natural It 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.080 may be natural, but observing it is not a long 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:35.680 standing thing among humans. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.400 Well, it was like, well, you're five years old. Time 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:40.960 for you to get to work exactly. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:42.760 Like here you get a little more cold dust on 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:44.000 your face. You look jobless. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:44.880 Yeah, you know. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.440 So the idea of kids playing, especially to kind of 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.320 learn and grow into adults, that that, yeah, that's like 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.760 finds its roots in the Enlightenment, and so you've got 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.159 that one branch or that one sapling coming up up 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.680 and it starts to integrate and merge with another one 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.440 that comes up later on in the nineteenth century industrialization. Yeah, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.240 so now you have the idea that kids should play 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.040 with toys because prior to industrialization, families may have made 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.160 them themselves. Like the kid may have been just playing 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.320 with a kitchen utensil, forced to use its imagination. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.200 Yeah, and I. 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.000 Just realized I keep referring to the kid, is it? 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:32.240 Yea his or her imagination, Like a broom becomes a 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:34.080 horse pretty easy? 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.040 Yeah, or you know, I mean, look at stickball. Sure 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.200 is there anything simpler than cutting a broom into a 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.440 broomstick and playing baseball? Right? 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:49.520 Or a nice ladle can become an electric guitar. Sure, 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.200 that's always my thing. I always played air guitar whenever 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.840 I could. I would give entire God Man, when I'm like, 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.800 now that I am older, how torture must just have been. 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.600 I would give entire concerts of like bon Jovi's Slippery 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.600 When Wet No Boy, but like it would be an 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.560 either air guitar or a drum set made of like 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.360 country crock lids for symbols, And then the tubs for 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.440 the drum themselves, or like a Quicker Roads box or 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:20.960 something like that. But I have like a whole like 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.320 Tommy Lee drum kit made up. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.160 All right, I got some questions here, Okay. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.320 I wasn't I wasn't done. I was on. Yeah, I 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.840 would give this whole concert and like everybody would come 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:33.520 into my room and sit there and listen to like 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.160 the first song and be like, okay, well more, and 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.080 I'd try to go through at least one whole side 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.319 of the tape. Okay, I don't think I ever made 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.160 it through a whole side, but my aim was to 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:42.360 do the whole album. 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.959 All right. Well, that that answered all my questions. Actually, Okay, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.320 I want to know how long were these performances? Who 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:50.440 you subjected them to? 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.280 My family? And they were long? They must have been 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:54.400 excruciatingly long. 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.280 Okay. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, right, So. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.640 I'm not even sure how I got on that. 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.920 What my point was, Well, because of your imagination of 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.480 turning household items into fantastical toys. 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.679 That's right, So thanks to industrialization and mass production, toys 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.240 could be made and sold and distributed, and all of 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.720 a sudden, now you have something like the beginning of 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.679 a consumer culture, especially in America. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.280 Yeah, and we're talking nineteen fifties. It became a real thing. 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.000 Except back then the toys were highly likely to injure 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.640 or kill your child, right, not highly like you, but 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:34.360 a lot of them were pretty dangerous. 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.160 There. I found this one stat from nineteen sixty eight, 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.839 and like I've seen it, like question, no one was 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.600 keeping track. Apparently, no one really started keeping track to 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.839 toy injuries and deaths until like the twenty first century. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.119 Until the great lawn dart incident of fourth of July. 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.000 Isn't that jaw dropping? Man first century is when they 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.360 started releasing reports with injury and death statistics from toys. 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.160 So I saw this one. It was a guestimate, but 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.800 I saw seven hundred thousand injuries from toys in nineteen 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.559 sixty eight. And that's not including jungle gyms and swing sets. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.040 Bikes, trampolines, probably scooters. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.280 Nothing like that. These are just straight up toys. By 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:25.600 twenty twelve, I saw that there were eleven children who 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:30.560 died in the US. Five of them were from tricycles, 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.120 two of them were from scooters, two or from balloons. 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.880 So really, technically only two children died from what you 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.520 would consider like just a straight up toy like a 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.000 dollar or stuff toy or something like a crane or plato. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.240 I think both of them were asphyxiation. So the idea 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.440 that there was this huge change from very very very 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:57.400 dangerous toys into actually a pretty safe industry that has 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.520 to do largely with toy testers. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.520 Yeah, And it was nineteen sixty nine that they finally 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.720 passed what's known as well the first federal safety Standards 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.160 for toys into law, and then the National Commission on 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.640 Product Safety that same year said all right, we've got 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.559 eight recommendations for banning toys. And I look these up 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.400 in picture because they're kind of fun to look at. Sure, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.320 the Empire Lady Empire Little Lady stove, which is basically 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:33.840 an easy bake oven mixed with a pottery kiln six 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.079 hundred degrees fahrenheit. This thing would get. 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.400 It's three hundred and sixteen degrees celsius. 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.680 Like your home oven doesn't get up to six hundred 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:41.760 degrees Probably. 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.640 It genuinely does not. I think mine goes to five 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.600 point fifty. Maybe in cleaning self cleaning mode it gets 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.880 up that high but this is not something a little 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.199 toddler needs to play with. 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.000 Right in self cleaning mode, it locks it self shuts 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.200 he can't open the door even right. What else the 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:04.280 Bird of Paradise slingshot, which looked innocuous enough, but it 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:06.520 the deal with that one was that had these sharp 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:11.120 missiles that could make you bleed. Yeah. 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.920 I think slingshot it just begins and ends at that 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:16.800 as far as the safety's concerned. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.240 I looked up slingshots today because I had remember the 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:21.680 wrist rockets, Yeah, I do. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.160 Those things were so dangerous. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:23.800 Did you have one? 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.040 No? I was never allowed to have one. 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.600 So I had a wrist rocket and I looked up 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.800 today after this article. I was like, I wonder what's 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.640 going on in the world of slingshots? And dude, you 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.120 should see some of the slingshots on the market today. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.800 Are they even more dangerous than the wrist rocket? Oh? 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.040 Yeah? Wow? And like there are YouTube videos with people 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:48.520 with these things that they look like little musket balls 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.920 that you can fire. Sure, And I mean this guy 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:56.520 was shooting these balls with a slingshot through like half 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:57.360 inch plywood. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.720 It's like a that is a dangerous toy. Wow. 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.160 Yeah, it's really just look up extreme sling shots at 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.200 some point and go get one. 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.280 Yeah, maybe if you're eighteen year older and don't have 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.319 like some you know, grudge against anybody. 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:23.760 This last one, the Zulu blowgun, was that period in 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.680 America where you could have some a kid's toy that 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.000 was highly racist and very dangerous, all in one one 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:31.160 convenient box. Yeah. 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.720 I can't imagine what the packaging looked like on that onine. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.080 It looks like what you think it looks like. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.200 So kids were choking on the darts, I'm sure, like 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.319 putting the dart in then taking a deep breath exactly. 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.520 They were like, I should have thought this through first. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.600 Pretty much, I regret nothing. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:53.440 And that was that, right. So that was nineteen sixty nine. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:53.880 Yep. 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.319 That was the first time they started taking toy safety seriously. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.720 And prior to that, the last time they had looked 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.600 out for little kids was I think in the fifties, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:09.640 because in the forties there was a lot of like 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:15.200 flash fire deaths among children wearing like pajamas because pajamas 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.560 were made of ray on, this new material at the time, 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:19.880 and I guess no one had ever tested it around 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.760 a flame, and it turns out that it could burn 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.080 up real quick, and not only could it burn the 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.240 kid badly, possibly to death, it could also kill them 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.640 from smoke inhalation from their pajamas. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.320 Right, Yeah, And even if. 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.120 They survived, they were again very badly burned. So Congress 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:42.840 passed the Flammable not flammable, Flammable Fabric Act. I think 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.440 is what it's called, not flamable? And can I go 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.320 off here for a second. Sure, can we all come 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.480 together and just agree to drop the word inflammable altogether? 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:56.920 Oh? That again, there's no reason for it. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.680 It's just a dangerous word. 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:00.880 Yeah, it's weird. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.400 Well I'm still I'm still beating the drama on that one. 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.160 Wasn't that a Simpsons thing too? Yeah? 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.320 Doctor Nick, He's like, right, flammable means flammable. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.800 Yeah, okay. 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.120 So the so Congress passed this act to basically say 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.560 all kids where needs to be flame retardant. Now, the 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.000 problem is is the chemicals they used to make the 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:28.040 closed flame retardant was were flammable. They were not. They 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.120 were the opposite of flammable in their credit, but they 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.920 supposedly were linked to kids an increase in hyperactivity and 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.840 a decrease in IQ Oh wow. And still today it's very, 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:45.280 very tough to get kids pajamas that aren't flame retardant 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.800 with those same chemicals in them. But apparently in the 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.600 mid nineties, Congress allowed a loophole to keep going where 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.440 if the pajamas were of a snug fit, they could 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.680 be not flame resistant. Right, they didn't have to have 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:06.560 the flame retardant chemicals because to burn, fire needs oxygen, 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.520 and if there's no oxygen really between the kid's skin 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.600 and the pajamas because they're snugly, snug fitting pajamas, then 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.720 the fire is probably not going to happen, so they 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.680 don't have to have flame retardant chemicals. That's the one loophole. 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:22.000 Isn't that fascinating? 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.440 Well, yeah, and now we can get back to the 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.520 long standing tradition of leaving a lit candle in your 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:28.800 baby's crib for the first month. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.200 Well, there was one other thing I saw, chuck too. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.960 There is a long standing rumor that it was actually 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.080 the tobacco industry that got the Flammable Fabrics Act pushed 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.000 through because they were trying to deflect the blame for 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.800 death by fire accidental fire from cigarettes to the actual 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.160 fabric manufacturers, gotcha. Even though a lot of people died 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.760 in their beds from their mattress going up because they 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.360 fell asleep with a cigarette in their mouth. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.080 Smoking a bed seems like such a such a thing 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.360 that nobody would do anymore. But I know people still 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.800 do it, Yes, but it's still shocking when you see 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.600 it in a in a movie or TV show, which 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:12.280 it used to us to see that all the time 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.240 in movies, But now when you see it, you think 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.320 people really smoke in bed. I don't know. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.000 Yeah, I don't know either. I don't I don't smoke. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.600 All right, Well, let's take a break and we will 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.600 come back and talk a little bit more about different 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:47.800 kinds of toy testing right after this. All right, So 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:55.119 there are mechanisms in place and regulatory bodies in place 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.679 now that are in charge of making sure toys are safe, 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.680 and these are constantly It's not like they wrote the 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.359 book on it and said, all right, we're good. As 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:10.399 toys expand and are developed, the safety standards need to 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.960 be changing all the time, and they do, which is great. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.320 So one thing I saw, ironically enough, is that somebody 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:19.920 actually did write the book on this. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.520 Well, yeah, but it's not a finalized version, right. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.040 Oh, oh, I see you too, mean like they updated 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.480 as new science comes in. Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed. But 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.800 even that, you know, just the idea of creating standards 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.960 again is pretty new, because I think until like the nineties, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:42.040 they didn't really update the toy safety requirements for a while, 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:43.600 and it started to finally pick up, I think in 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.080 the nineties, and then in the two thousands there is 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.639 a group, an organization called ASTM. Could not, for the 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.400 life of me find what that stands for, but they 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:59.359 created the Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety, which 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.400 apparently is the universal guidelines for toy. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:09.280 Safety American standards for toy manufacturers. Oh maybe that's not bad, chuck, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:10.760 all right, that was my first stab at it. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:12.440 That's pretty good. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.840 You also have companies like in our article here at 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.359 how Stuff Works called intertech, not in a tech. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:20.840 What's in a tech? 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.959 I think that was office space, wouldn't it? Oh? Was it? 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:29.719 I think so inner tech, which basically they they're professional 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.560 toy testers. They have laboratories where they have technicians that say, here, 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.760 let me, let me see if I can bite the 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.679 eyes off of this doll into my mouth and let 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.840 me see if it's so small that I can swallow 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:44.880 that eye. Let me rip it apart, let me light 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.359 it on fire. In England they have I think actually 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.960 not even just England and all of Britain. They they 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.560 have a rule that a toy burn rate can be 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.560 no more than one inch per second, with the idea 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.160 that if a toy does catch on fire, at least 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.680 your kid has enough time to throw it away, throw 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.720 it towards the gas can and run, right. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.240 And then the EU has their own set of standards too, 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.760 So with that burn thing, I should say at least, yeah, 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.840 if a toy burns faster than thirty millimeters a second, 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.400 which is a little over an inch, then it can't 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:23.560 be sold in the EU. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:24.520 Right. 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.280 And then if it burns between ten millimeters a second 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.199 and thirty millimeters a second, it still has to have 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.040 a warning that says warning, keep away from fire. 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.000 Yeah, can get Bernie right, right, And. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:40.880 Yeah, the whole idea is like, if that kid sees 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:42.680 the thing on fire, they're gonna throw it and run 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.400 and the house will catch on fire. But the kid's 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.840 not gonna burn up, right unless the kid goes and 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.000 tells a grown up. I think that should be in 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:50.360 the in the warning too. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.720