In grade school, I'd eagerly await the arrival of every issue of Boys Life magazine, with its stories of loyal dogs rescuing lost kids, its wholesome cartoons ("Pedro!"), its how-to tips for constructing a tipi in your backyard, and, yes, its back page ads promising many exotic thrills...

At the top of my list of thrills were the many novelty or prank items that I could afford on my meager allowance. "X-ray glasses" that almost made you think you could see the bones in your hand, packs of gum that snapped the finger of anyone who withdrew a piece, and much more. I loved it all, but now it's vanished from our cultural scene, leaving us to ponder a very fundamental question:

"Why are kids no longer entertained by fake blisters that squirt water at unsuspecting friends?"

Read this Creative Pro article for a few theories and travel in time through novelty catalogs from a much simpler era. True, juvenile sadism was always lurking behind many of these pranks, but somehow it never seemed to produce the deep trauma or large-scale massacres of our modern age... gosh, am I starting to sound like a geezer, or what?!!