What kid wouldn’t want a Black Panther Slash Claw?

What kid wouldn’t want a Black Panther Slash Claw?
James Swartz, director of the Massachusetts-based consumer safety group World Against Toys Causing Harm, displays a Black Panther Slash Claw as he introduces his group's annual list of the worst toys during a news conference Nov. 13, 2018. (Steven Senne / AP)

Just call me Mr. Toy Expert, because my children were given stupid toys by relatives and now my plan is to return the favor.

With Toy Revenge.


But first, there’s something out in Toyland that aggravates the heck out of me: those idiotic lists with lurid titles such as “The 10 most stupid, perilous and evil toys for Christmas.”

They warn of a toy that millions of American children want.

What little kid wouldn’t like a matched pair of Black Panther Slash Claws?

A kid could put on the retractable claws and run around the house slashing at his or her little siblings or cousins. The little ones will scream in fear. What fun!

First the moms will get involved, then the dads. Somebody will say something. Long-simmering sibling issues will bubble up from the repressed past.

And, depending on the ratio between “helicopter parent DNA” and the “holiday cheer” in their cups, everyone can go to the emergency room. Or the police station.

Just the thing for Christmas!

A blurb for the toy says: “Kids can pretend to be the warrior hero, Black Panther! Includes claw.” Of course it includes claw. Without claw, what good are you?

Forget what those so-called child experts from the nanny state have to say. Check out the glowing Amazon reviews.

One verified customer gave it a rating of 4.0 out of 5.

“It is sort of what I expected,” the customer wrote in a review. “Only complaint is that there isn’t a mechanism that ejects the claws and holds them there. They often slide back on their own.”

Mr. Toy Expert: Your child really doesn’t need a “mechanism” to hold the extended claws in place. Once the claws hook into an eyeball, or get jabbed into the orbital lobe, they might just stay extended, screams or no screams.

Another verified customer gave Black Panther Slash Claw a whopping 5 out of 5.


“My 6-year-old grandson loves this toy,” wrote the customer. “He plays with them constantly (he had me go back and order another one, so he could have one for each hand). I had also ordered him another type that had lights and noise. He prefers this one. He likes that he can flick his hand out to get the ‘blades’ to come out.”

Mr. Toy Expert: If you really love your grandson, you will sharpen the blades to Wolverine deadliness and then kneel before him and let him attack “just to see if they work.”

Another problem with the lists of “10 most stupid, perilous and evil toys” is that parents don’t know quite how to read them.

The stupid toy lists aren’t a warning, but an opportunity. And I’m going to devour these lists until I find a toy just like the green Hulk gloves.

They should have been called “Hulk gloves with which you smash your brother in the face and he smashes you and everybody cries.”

Because that’s what my sons received from an unnamed relative years ago when they were little boys. The Hulk gloves were made of hard molded foam. The gloves even shouted “Hulk smash!” but they smashed them on each other so often that the sound chip was killed.

How many bloody noses and shrieks of “I’ll kill you!!” or “You hit my face! You hit my face!” did Hulk hands give us?

Mr. Toy Expert has forgotten. And don’t get me started on the heavy wooden swords.

But maybe I can return the favor by presenting my nephews with authentic ninja weapons, or maybe crossbows.

Yeah, a crossbow. What boy wouldn’t like a real crossbow?

“No! You can’t do that!” said a spokesperson for a Chicago mayoral candidate. I tried the crossbow idea on her because she’s a mom. “Noooooo! That’s so wrong. No crossbows!”

OK, OK, no crossbows. They’re dangerous. What was I thinking?

In the Toyland of long ago, just about everyone had dangerous toys. Mr. Potato Head had real pins in his nose, as did Mrs. Potato Head. And we used real potatoes.

There was Sixfinger, a plastic finger that you put next to your other fingers, so nobody would notice, and you could shoot your brothers with exploding bombs and bullets or “message missiles.”

Sixfinger should have been studied by teams of Freudians. There was also a slogan: “Sixfinger, Sixfinger, man alive, how did I ever get along with five?”

We also had Creepy Crawlers, a toy for making rubbery insects. Why this was considered fun, I don’t know.

You poured colored liquid rubber into molten hot metal forms. If you mistakenly touched the molten plastic or the forms you’d scream and kick it over and burn Mom’s olive-green shag carpet.

You might even throw a pillow on the burnt part, as if she wouldn’t notice.

She noticed.

And now with lawyers ruining all the fun, I might get sued for giving a toy that made the dangerous list. So ixnay on the ossbowscray.

Those toys of old were quite dangerous. And some of the new toys, too, can be dangerous. My brothers and I survived. My sons grew up without too much damage.

But now that I think of it, it’s probably a good thing that there are lists of dangerous toys, in the hopes of protecting kids.

One nephew is a teenager, so he’s not into little kid toys.

How about a Corvette?
