Remember ditto machines? Or mimeographs? If you’re too young to know, these machines were duplicating printing devices that were particularly popular in classrooms for homework assignments.
How could you forget the way they left purple ink blots all over your hands? oh, and that smell!
Unmerciful Playgrounds
Playgrounds are a little cushier these days with softer grounds for falls and rounded edges to prevent the odd accident here and there. Those days kids were no strangers to rusty nails and wobbly merry go rounds.
It definitely made them a little tougher, perhaps able to withstand military conditions.
Scars From Vaccines
That two-pronged needle to prevent that vicious smallpox could leave behind quite the mark. Throughout the 70s, kids may have been safer from diseases but they definitely had the scar to show for it.
Though they did wear it rather proudly as if it was a battle scar. It was done with a staple gun after all.
Preserving Newspaper Comics With Silly Putty
These days, with the non-transferable ink, this method would be impossible, but back then kids were overjoyed when they found that they could replicate their favorite newspaper comics
Simply rolling the putty over the comic section, kids could enjoy their endless collection of Garfield or Doonesbury comic strips.
Getting Scared By Watership Down
For an animated film, this was pretty gory, even by today's standards. It may have not been exactly Tarantino, but Watership Down traumatized its fair share of viewers. Kids in the late 70s watched in horror as sweet bunnies were brutally killed by all kinds of vicious and cruel elements.
Years later it was adapted into a far more mellow series. Kids today will never really know how terrible General Woundwort truly was.