Who knew that a Wichita, Kansas company made such wacky toys? Chance Manufacturing out of Wichita came up with what has been called the world’s most dangerous toy, the Hop Rod, and they were reportedly made in 1960 and 1961. This gas-powered pogo stick can be found listed here on eBay in Bennett, Nebraska, and they’re asking a hefty $4,250, or you can make an offer. I’d be so in it’s not even funny for anything around $1,500, but not for four grand. I found this one and thought you folks might get a bang out of it… Let’s check it out.
This is ONE CASE and ONE CASE ONLY when a seller can provide vertical photos in a sales listing without being put on the Barn Finds wall of shame. If we had a wall of shame, that is. Cars and trucks? No, they’re horizontal. Pogo sticks? Yes, they’re vertical, although some pogo stick users often find themselves horizontal with injuries, according to early sources that called this one of the most, if not the most, dangerous toy of all time. I find that hard to believe when you see a YouTube video of someone hopping on a Hop Rod. It’s not like they’re being jetted up two or three feet, but maybe a foot? Clearly, it was a fad, and I don’t care; I still want one. Here’s a fantastic website with a ton of information on these unique rides.
Chance Manufacturing is still very much in business today, and they’re famous for fair and carnival rides, such as trains, the Zipper (I know!), merry-go-rounds, and things like that. I love that the Hop Rod existed, and that some still exist. If any of you are fans of American Restoration – the latter ones where they switched formats in favor of several shops around the country – (I like the Rick’s Restorations version myself), you’ll remember a company restoring a Hop Rod for a customer. It’s cool how it works, but I don’t understand how it was deemed as being so dangerous.
It’s powered by a two-stroke “engine”, which is a cylinder with a piston (that’s not the weird part), and it’s activated only when a rider jumps on the two footpads, which activates the gas that you pour into the “tank”, and there are also several C-cell batteries that you dump in another hole to provide spark. If you need a new “spark plug”, good luck: this is what it looks like. “Yeah, NAPA? I’ve got a ’61 Hop Rod and… ” “Click.” The carburetor and gas tank are a single unit down by the foot pegs/pads, the thing with the round bowl on the bottom in the photo above. I can’t imagine this is any scarier to use than a regular pogo stick, but man, would this bring over the onlookers at a Gas-Powered Pogo Sticks & Coffee event… Have any of you heard of the Hop Rod? What do you think is the most dangerous toy?
This thing is more dangerous than clackers or lawn darts. I love it!
Yes, original metal tipped lawn jarts. I’ll throw in a cox fan car on a guide wire.
Just how many jarts ended up in the roof of the Starcraft camp trailer like the one parked in the yard?
But not nearly as dangerous as deadly Chocolate Kinder Eggs.
Fun and entertaining write-up SG. I have never heard of the Hop Rod. The video is a hoot. The fact that these existed is a testament to the difference in the legal system between then and now.
Scotty….. “would this bring over the onlookers at a Gas-Powered Pogo Sticks & Coffee event…”… Sorry let me pick myself up off the floor from laughing at that one…. That was good. Anyways, I’m with Bob, I’ve never heard of these and I’m strongly inclined to believe Mom and Dad would NOT have bought one of these for their clumsy accident prone kid ( me) Yhanks Scotty, I needed a good laugh today!!!
The video did say Mom and Pop can Hop too!! Umm… Does this sound like a Dr. Seuss book? Love the video too Scotty. Thanks for the research too.
This is the rare “Kastrator” model!
Didn’t that same company also manufacture diving boards?
I’m waiting for the EV unit to be available
I just spit out my coffee, good one Thames.
That would actually make more sense. I’m sure there’s someone working on one right now.
You may be saying this in jest, but I’m sure it’s possible and with the right programming, practical and fun! It would be a simple solenoid with a control circuit to properly manage the saturation of the coil.
Definitely bringing on the nostalgia for when kids were fearless and we routinely did dangerous things for fun. The Hop Rod was no more dangerous than us idiots jumping off our garage using large trash bags as “parachutes”, or making poorly constructed wooden ramps for our bikes to “Knievel” over various obstacles. Man, being a kid was so much more fun back in the 60s and 70s.
There was a number of years when we saw people in our emergency department related to these. That eventually went away. Good riddens. People sure do some stupid things sometimes.
Methanol might give it higher hops, just saying.
Nitro?
No, ethanol, for hops AND yeast…😮
I’d need at least a pint of methanol before I’d hop on that thing.
I worked for NAPA, No Auto Parts Available. Yes it does not go very high.
📞 “click” lol.
They never pick up the phone, so don’t worry about them hanging up on you.
Where do you hook up the turbo
Foghorn Leghorn voice:
Now WHAT, I say, WHAT the ACTUAL F***?!?!?!?!?
ls swap
😂😂😂
Okay,,I can understand how some may frown on such submissions, to those unfortunate folks I say, that’s a shame,,,,this is why most of us are here, not to buy Lambobirds. Naturally, coming from someone who submits toilets( 134 comments), floor shifters( 36 comments) and Dr. Ed. simulators( 54comments) would like this stuff. Scott Q. Gilbertson is the master!
I think some people are born without common sense, push the limits too far, they do. Me, I’m the kind of person to stop 1/4 turn before breaking. To me, a pogo stick was the absolute dumbest thing, and a gas powered one,,,dumber yet. This only showed the kids that had these, the parents didn’t care or know what they did. If successful, you travel, what, 3 feet per jump, 2 or 3 jumps max before hitting the ground? Better off with a unicycle. You know, the things that we were subjected to, as toys, we found out later were not the best idea. Outlawed today, they’d surely be, why I heard if gasoline was invented today, it would never pass safety regulations. Same here. There were no advocacy groups, or testing, WE were the guinea pigs. Oh sure, we all KNEW someone that got hurt, but that couldn’t happen to us, and even if it did, chicks dug injuries, a badge of honor almost, you got hurt doing something cool.
More please,,,
?? How did those of us over 60 get here? I don’t remember these but we sure had some cool toys 😎 I still have 3 sets of clackers that I put goggles on and clack occasionally 😉
I think we got to 60+ because we didn’t have internet sucking all the common sense out of us.
Man, do you have it correct! Squirted milk out my nose with that one! Watching the promo with “grandpa” reminded my back about spinal compression. (First experienced driving a Pantera and later driving a pro-rally car that was still a softer ride than the Pantera!) By the way, the definition of someone having common sense. Is someone doing something that same way you do! (Think about that!)
There is a modern version of one of these out there. 6′ hops pretty easily. As for Clackers, (we called them something else that cant be written down here), I we used to TRY to break them! And did!
We were naive or ignorant back then,,.
The most dangerous toy? cardboard surfing, tree climbing or rope swings (not over water). Man there were a lot of abrasions, broken teeth and bones. I had several.
I believe Wiley Coyote owned several versions of these and you seen how things worked out for him!
Man. By ACME Motorsports Inc.
Yes, I still own a Hop Rod! Yes, very dangerous! Mine shattered a guy’s ankle, another broke a collar bone after launching him through the showroom window! Kept it as investment, your article confirms this.
#2 most dangerous toy for a 13-14 year old was the P-40 Warhawk control line gas powered model airplane. Dad, not Mom, bought me this for 1970, or 1971, Christmas.
After unrolling the twin 30 feet length control line, you stand inside an imaginary circle, then Dad fired up the motor on the P-40 and ran to safety as it immediately lifted off and you starting walking in circles inside this imaginary line trying to control a plane with open throttle and running at top speed. Fun? Heck Yeah. Dizzying? You bet. Dangerous? Outrageously. Fastest destroyed Christmas present ever? yes….🥲
Can’t stop laughing over that one!
Does it come, I say, does it come in 4WD? Thx, Alexander!
Does it come, I say, does it come in 4WD? Thx, Alexander!
No, I didn’t send before.
The most dangerous toys of all time? The chemistry sets we all had back in the 60’s. I never blew up the house, but not for lack of trying. And today? You can’t even open an aspirin bottle without a set of vice grips…🤷♂️
Chemistry set, I had one, but nothing bad happened. However, my wife has a good friend who, in tenth grade, was doing experiments in the barn behind his house with a couple of friends, trying to mix chemicals. He had nothing handy to stir so used a pair of scissors. The steel scissors completed a reaction and BOOM! The sound could be heard for some distance, she reports. He lost the skin from the tips of his fingers and all three lost hearing temporarily until their drums could heal. He had to have his hands attached to his chest, one at a time, for skin grafts. Today he is a famous mathematics professor, semi-retired, who travels worldwide to lecture. He maintains a sense of humor.
And look how far we have come now they want you to have a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads just to go outside and have fun. No wonder the kids would rather sit and play video games without all that protection.
#2 most dangerous toy for a 13-14 year old was the P-40 Warhawk control line gas powered model airplane. Dad, not Mom, bought me this for 1970, or 1971, Christmas.
After unrolling the twin 30 feet length control line, you stand inside an imaginary circle, then Dad fired up the motor on the P-40 and ran to safety as it immediately lifted off and you starting walking in circles inside this imaginary line trying to control a plane with open throttle and running at top speed. Fun? Heck Yeah. Dizzying? You bet. Dangerous? Outrageously. Fastest destroyed Christmas present ever? yes…
Thank you for the hilarious “edutainment” article, Scotty. Well written as always. I never knew these “Have you met your deductible?” things existed. It reminds me of the Consumer Probe SNL skit where Dan Aykroyd played Irwin Mainway of Mainway, Inc. and defended his adventurous line of kids play toys (including Bag O’Glass, the Pretty Peggy Ear Piercing Set, Mr. Skin Grafter, and the Johnny Switchblade Adventure Punk action figure).
I was thinking of the Aykroyd skit just a couple of days ago while watching a YouTube repair video for working on our F-100 truck windows. He gave excellent advice but talked with exactly the same accent, maybe North Jersey, not sure.
Don’t forget “Johnny flame on”, described by the interviewer as simply a bag of oily gas rags and some safety pins.
I remember as a kid riding on the package tray behind the rear seat of Dad’s 1960 Ford like a missile preparing for launch. Times are different now and parents are raising a bunch of wusses. Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?
It was banned along with common sense, personal responsibility & don’t do it again.
Circa 2020 under the nocando section of the whyshouldi act.
I actually had a Hop Rod in about 1971. I think I paid $200 for it–a lot of money at the time.
It did make an interesting “pop” when it fired, but it didn’t go particularly high. It definitely was not any more dangerous than a “regular” pogo stick.
This is pretty sketchy, but I’d vote for the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab from 1950 as the most dangerous toy. The set contained four different kinds of uranium samples, along with a Geiger counter!
I will see your Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab and raise you a Turbonique Twin T-16 Rocket Kart.
Well, at least the company’s name is humorous when it comes to this thing– there’s a damned good CHANCE that you
will bust your ass on this thing and wind up in your local ER with
some kind of serious injury. And oh yeah, we left out concussions
too. I look back on all those misadventures I had as a kid, it makes me wonder just how I survived it all. And I was a legally blind kid doing all the crap I saw
the other kids doing. I never thought of myself as being disabled– I was just one of the
neighborhood kids. I had bicycles, an AMF built scat cart,
a type of pedal powered go cart
thingy with foot rests on it so you
can rest your feet as you sail down a hill at breakneck speed.
If I can find a picture of it, I can
maybe send it so that all can see it. Maybe I’ll Google it later. And I
will agree with all of you that the
Boomer generation had more fun
than any other generation before
or since. We had the craziest things to play with as kids. From
hopity hop balls to things like this. We had a great time didn’t we?
Yea David , Didn’t it also have enough bottles of nitrate chemicals to make black powder and other goodies if splashed in eyes you could go blind . Now days the fertilizer for your yard ain’t got no pop.
One of the most worthy posts I’ve seen on this site. And it’s not even a car.
I’d inevitably overbore this, deck the block and run a straight pipe… get that sucker to clear a 6 foot fence! This thing is AWESOME!!!
The base weapon in Unreal Tournament.
Chance Manufacturing is still in business today. They make big amusement rides, up to full big time rollercoasters.
What is the record for number of comments? Does a comment about the number of comments also count as a comment?
135 comments on the toilet, see below, and yes, your comment counts as a comment,
I see your Hop Rod and raise you a Skat Skoota and a pair of Moon Shoes. Google ’em.
The first modern equivalent that came to my mind were jumping stilts aka Powerbocks.
I remember the Skat Skoota too!
My cousin had one. It was, I think
a really cool pedal toy that you stood on and pedaled to make it
move. But in so doing, you could
lose your balance and get thrown
for a loop. And weren’t the moon
shoes the ones with springs on
them? Just trying to walk on them landed you in the local ER
with something broken. I got it!
Maybe the American Medical Association secretly funded the
sale of dangerous toys just to keep the doctors and lawyers in.
business. And don’t forget the shoes 👟 with the roller skates
in the soles. An honest recipe for
bodily disaster. Is your child being hurt in falls, then you need
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And then let your kids play on any
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Right, you are! I inherited a Skat Skoota and a pair of Moon Shoes from my brother and sister. I’m twelve years younger than my sister. I found them in the attic in perfect condition in the mid-70s Excitement turned to disaster as I learned, first-hand, why they survived so long: nobody had the courage to use them more than one or two times!
Oh boy, you made my day! I guess I have the only one in Tyrol! Yes Austria!
It doesnt need 4 wheel drive, it climbs any mountain! I got mine in Beaulieu England at least 25 Years ago, when they were still cheap. Looking at the asked price this might be my only classic vehicle I might get a profit out, but I´m not selling! With almost 65 I feel to young and stupid to part with it, I might put it back in service this year, beats a segway by miles.
Carrying it back to my stall at Beaulieu, walking all those fields I met so many nice people asking and commenting on that hillarious thing I got my money out at the first day.
Thomas from Tyrol
Buy it & become a Darwin award nominee.
“Hold my beer & watch this”
I believe it’s pretty clear what’s happening to Barny Finds, word is getting out around the water coolers, “did you see what was posted on that kooky site,,,,a TOILET”!! I know, I’m milking that one, but as possibly one of the oldest members here, I see a lot of new members and new names. I’m not sure exactly what the comments do for the site, I can’t get a clear answer on that, but popularity seems to be gaining just by the numbers of comments, and the big draw is stuff like this.
The site serves as a history lesson, fueled by actual users of these contraptions. We never thought of them as dangerous, and for toy makers, the sky was the limit. It was how we had fun, and yes, if used inappropriately, one could get hurt, but if you used your head, you could have a lot of fun without getting hurt. I’m proud to say, we came from that era. Thanks all.
I don’t know. The wood burning kits and the potential of taking down the house and everyone in it wins my vote.
Gilbert, the maker of Erector Sets had a couple of doosies – the Auto Caster and the Atomic Energy kit in the early 1950s. The Auto Caster had molds for casting lead soldier figurines. Give a set to your kid and send him upstairs to melt lead in his bedroom! The Atomic Energy kit had trace amounts of uranium included for your experimenting pleasure! I don’t think either lasted long on the marketplace.
A good friend of mine has 2 of these, 1 of which is still in the original box. He is the absolute king of “Whoever dies with the most toys wins”. None of us have dared to fire one up and go for a “hop”- maybe that’s why we have lived into our late 60s!
There were so many cool 😎 (questionable?) Things available in our post-war world. This would be ideal for a tic toc influencer to record clicks.
Bore out the cylinder and use a 454 piston……….”TO THE MOON ALICE”
Boys just want to have fun!
Didn’t they later make the Happy Fun Ball? LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmqeZl8OI2M
I remember these. My neighbor friend got one for xmas. We spent a day trying to ride it!
Geez… No woder I.m so phucd up!
So I’m a collector and after I got married, my wife was down in the basement and had the classic line “Do you really need 3 of these?” What could I say…
Everybody knows, you need 2 for riding and one for parts of course.
Great fun but they can be finickey. They don’t always fire so you never know if you are going to get blasted up or just a mellow hop which adds to the excitement.
The other thing that you have to be very careful of is to make sure you arch your back forward. If you are straight up and it fires, you will definitely have a sore back for a week or so. Trust me on that one.
Great to see interest still. It’s something that every engine guy needs.
This pogo stick is like something from that Saturday Night Live Consumer Probe skit about a company making dangerous toys.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=veMiNQifZcM
What a great read with my breakfast! Breakfast and laughter is a great way to start a day! Thanks to all!
Hi Wayne! Good to hear from you
again. And what a piece we have
for you today and what a load of laughs it is too. I laughed so hard
I nearly wet myself when I saw this and even came up with a new
product for Ronco to sell too. The Bounce Cushion Body Suit by Ronco. Just fill it with air, and you’ll be safe from any bruising or
fractures that usually comes with
hard falls from such things as this. You can even sing about it
when you sing Vegematic.
🎵I got the Vegematic.
And a Bounce Cushion
Body Suit too.
Illuminated illustrated
History of Life,
Box Car Willie with a
Ginsu knife.
I got a Bamboo Steamer,
and a Road Rage Bumper
Kit too.
And an autographed picture
of Rin Tin Tin from Six Flags
Over Burbank. 🎵
…And yeah, I did send this to Angel 😇 but haven’t heard from her yet. Still a great change from
all the rides we see here. And in
today’s world, 🌎 you need a really good belly laugh 😂 every now and then. Howard, I think this will blow by the toilet post to
become the most talked about item we’ve seen here. Great site,
great bunch of people here too!
I hope to keep the great attitude you have as my old body gets older!
Have fun and enjoy yourself my friend!
It’s easy to do if you have stuff like this to look at. Articles like this one go a long way to brighten
up an otherwise depressing world
today. And it’s sites like this that
keep the good times coming. Hey Scotty, send us another one!
I saw this in an article in the old Science & Mechanics magazine, when I was twelve years old, and even back then I thought that I could kill myself on one of those things, LOL! I couldn’t even master a regular pogo stick, I thought anyone who would take on a gasoline powered version was certifiably insane!