B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for July 25, 2019

Few deaths. Mainly missing teeth.

Ah. So YOU’RE the guy that invented the “Vomit Wheel.”

Nanny state.

Just put a couple of wooden horses on it and you can charge them to play on it.

Children?

Those used to be routine on playgrounds.

Now you need to invent the motorcycle, so you can put the rear wheel up against the outer edge of the carousel, and get it spinning up at a proper rate …

A summer nights best playground toy ever. Total fun till you got hurt, but would still get back on. Real challenge for drunk teens.

Deadly?! What a weird idea.

The spinning “merry-go-round” brings back childhood memories….FUN!

Most fun when four of us got it spinning as fast as we could and then three of us moved to the center.

The only thing missing is concrete underneath.

Somehow we seniors made it alive through childhood.

The usual old question of balance: reasonable people have fun on it and remember. Unreasonable people have or cause accidents – then sue.

Want to see how creating a risk-free childhood develops future adults? Look at the snowflakes of today.

Welcome to helicopter parenting!

I remember those being a lot of fun, but that was almost 60 years ago.

I have been slung of one of those things. It may not be a weapon, but the big kids pushing it can certainly weaponize it.

These were my favorites as a kid. Sadly, they are few and far between these days. I wish they’d bring back the “fun” playgrounds with the teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds and super high swings. ahh those were the days. My kids don’t know what they’re missing!

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any kids in this strip.

Too many attorneys.

deadly? That was a totally fine ride… check out the new all safe parks… few kids play on them for very long… most are a huge waste of money. They are so safe they are no fun! Bring back the merry go round!!!

How else are kids supposed to get a practical knowledge of centrifugal force at an early age?

It’s a Barf-o-tron!

Those things sticking up look like razors to me - where’s an ambulance-chaser when you need one?

Let’s not forget the all metal monkey bar/climbing towers. Or swing set’s with the rubber sling seat that you would get to swinging so that you were just about level with the top bar and then jumped out of. Some how we lived.

These were the biggest helper in the theory of eliminating incompetent ones from the gene pool.

Had one of these in grammar school. No one got hurt. Supervised by teachers.

Back in the day, one of the parks had a four-tiered version. Sort of a jungle gym you could spin. Lots of fun, but long gone.

“It’s for the children”. The characters in BC don’t have any children. Their childish enough to enjoy the merry-go-round themselves. Bonus if someone gets hurt they just limp off and reappear the next day as good as new.

When I was a kid our neighbors had a small two-seater merry-go-round that operated by pushing and pulling a handle. The harder you pumped the faster you went. I remember going home sometimes ‘green around the gills’ with a motion headache. That thing was a blast.

They put in this thing where your friends push you go around in circles for 5 minutes and then you throw up. No kid asks for that. Ask any kid he’ll never say “I want something you can go around in circles for 5 minutes and then puke!” And I never seen no grown ups riding on it, though some of them look like they’ve been riding it.

They are still around….and still fun and safe if not abused (adults, do NOT try to spin it as fast as humanly possible with kids on board): https://www.google.com/search?q=playground+carousel&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh9b6b89HjAhVEjVQKHaWtAdMQ_AUIESgB&biw=1536&bih=745

Not funny. Gun violence against our nation’s school kids is not funny.

It’s a trainer in centrifugal force, momentum, and how to fall. They were everywhere when I was a kid (60 years ago). Lots of bruises and skinned knees, but no injuries you wouldn’t get over in a few days.

Except… The country school I went to in the 4th grade had one with an open center. In that center, there were steel beams that supported the main bearing and didn’t spin, and steel beams from the top of the bearing that did spin. The gossip among the kids was that someone had got into that center and mangled his legs between the two sets of beams. But this was a poor country school, and it was before lawyers could win suits for failing to prevent obvious stupidity, so the thing was still there. And we played on it – with a little caution about moving too far into the center.