W Wham-O Super Slip`N Slide The Original Backyard Water Slide - 2 Boogie Boards Included

Product Information

In 1993, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall notice in conjunction with Kransco to alert consumers to the dangers of the slide. Though it had been discontinued, 9 million had been sold between 1961 and 1992 and an unknown number were still available in stores. (A total of 30 million slides were sold through 2011.) The CPSC warned the slide was for children and that adults and teenagers might suffer permanent spinal cord injury. Unlike some product recalls, however, the CPSC did not take action to take it off the market entirely. The reason, according to a spokesperson, was that it was a product for children, and children were not getting hurt on it—only adults were.

Others saw beauty in Carrier’s design, too. Namely, the successful toy manufacturer Wham-O, founded by two University of Southern California graduates in 1948. According to Walsh, Carrier showed his invention to coworkers, and found out that his boss “knew someone at a toy company up in San Gabriel.” Trading out Naugahyde for a less-expensive vinyl plastic and shortening the length to 25 feet, Wham-O released the “new amazing invention, the Wham-O Slip ‘N Slide Magic Waterslide” at the Toy Fair trade show in New York City in February 1961. By September of that year, more than 300,000 slides had been sold. The toy is a long sheet of thin plastic, constructed with a heat-sealed tube running along one side. The tube can be connected to any garden hose and water goes in the tube and out through small holes, spraying onto the sliding surface where it becomes very slippery, allowing users to slide the length of the sheet and also has lubricant molded into the plastic that acts as a propellant. 30 million slides were sold in 2011. [4]

Iconic Slip'N Slide® Makes a Big Splash on its 50th Birthday" (Press release). Woodland Hills, California: Wham-O, Inc. 26 April 2011. Archived from the original on 18 January 2014 . Retrieved 2020-05-17. The game takes place in the Forest Temple, where the two protagonists, Fireboy and Watergirl, embark on a quest to collect diamonds. You'll need to activate buttons, move platforms, and jump over lava and water obstacles to reach the exit. It was at this point that Robert Carrier decided that if his son was going to insist on sliding, he might as well try to make it as safe as possible. It was off the market for while… [Wham-O] kept shortening the length of it, so if you're a full grown-adult and you can sprint way faster than a kid and you weigh 100 pounds more than a kid and the thing is short, and you stop short, bad things are going to happen,” says Walsh.

The game features 32 levels in which players must solve puzzles and overcome obstacles to progress. Fireboy and Watergirl must work together to collect gems and reach the end of each level. According to Carrier’s 1961 patent , the “ aquatic play equipment ” was a portable surface for the “sport” of body planing. From his original strip of Naugahyde, Carrier took a ream of the plastic material and sewed a tube into the side, forming an “irrigating duct” to which a hose could attach. The duct had punctures along the length of it, from which water could be released via pressure from the hose. Seams stitched across the length of the fabric at regular intervals also carried water laterally, wetting the repellant surface but not making it soggy. a b c d e "A Hazardous History of the Slip 'N Slide". www.mentalfloss.com. 2019-08-09 . Retrieved 2021-04-05. Sexton, Courtney (2 July 2020). "The Accidental Invention of the Slip 'N Slide". Smithsonian . Retrieved 13 July 2020. Slip ’N Slide is a children's toy invented by Robert Carrier and manufactured by Wham-O. It was first sold in 1961. The main form is a plastic sheet and a method of wetting it; when the surface is wet it becomes very slippery, thus allowing the user to slide along it. Some versions also include an inflatable swimming pool for the user to slide into at the end of slide, and spray tubes.Carrier was an upholsterer who happened to work for a company that produced boat seats and had access to a variety of materials. So he brought home a 50-foot roll of Naugahyde, a fabric coated in vinyl, which he unspooled on his property. Carrier curled the material over on one side and stitched it in intervals. When the hose was fed through the curl, water seeped through the holes and kept the surface wet. While the history of the Slip 'N Slide appears sensational, it's not unique in the realm of playthings that can prompt injury. Between 2002 and 2011, roughly 1 million people—most of them kids under the age of 16—wound up in the emergency room as a result of bouncing on a trampoline. A third of them suffered long bone fractures. So basically our kids get a fabulous version of the long piece of tarp we had as kids…but honestly…if they use it for longer and burn more energy and are happy and tired and go to bed earlier…do we care? Nope. Slide on, kids. Laugh. Make Memories. Go to bed. Slide on… Since that time, Wham-O has been sold twice more—first to Cornerstone Overseas Investments in 2005 and then to InterSport and Stallion Sport in 2015. The Slip ‘N Slide remains on sale with the standard cautions that it should only be used by kids, though that hasn’t prevented adults from trying it out. This time, they tend to post the results on YouTube. The invention of the Slip ‘N Slide is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the result of some childhood shenanigans. It was the summer of 1960, and Robert Carrier had returned home from work to find his 10-year-old son, Mike, and his friends careening down their driveway in Lakewood, California. To escape the heat, the boys had turned the hose on the painted concrete, creating a cool, slippery surface to play on.