LEGO Cannons - old style

[Mister Phes]

The good old LEGO cannon, first introduced in the Pirate theme, made an appearance in Western and Ninja as well...

Here is a picture of the standard firing cannon

Here is where the picture of a non firing cannon would go if I had one

Now, what I want to know is, why were the cannons from Northern American non-firing? I hear its pretty easy to obtain a fire arm from the good old USA (compared to other places at least), but as for a rather harmless LEGO cannon. No shabang! Why is this?

[xwingyoda]

Let me guess Phes, probably some stupid liability excuse at the time!!!!!!!

Stupid because they don't fire that hard compared to the new "catapult" ones (like in the Tie bomber or Wookie catamaran) *wacko*

[Mister Phes]

Are these cannons you speak of Master Yoda, also the same as the ones found in the 4+ Pirate sets and the upcoming Viking sets?

[xwingyoda]

They are indeed Phes, and they surely can poke a kid's eye fired at close range !!!!!!

[SuvieD]

Small toys or almost any toys in the US that are for young children have many laws regarding "safety". Everything that actually shoots is either made of foam or soft rubber. That is why the new rubber "canon balls" are okay. It is for legal butt covering though. Lego does not want to be sued or waste money/time in legal proceedings.

We can't even have Kinder Eggs :'(

[Mister Phes]

All these safety regulations on toys, but its a lot easier to purchase fire arms than a lot of places? Someone needs to get their priorities right!

[Apocalypse]

mister_phes, I don't mean to pick apart your post (or excellent question) but when you ask "why were the cannons from Northern American non-firing?" I don't know how to answer except to say that the cannons from North America were capable of firing.....

At least some were. When I was younger and collected all kinds of Lego my collection came exclusively from local Toysr'Us and similar stores here in the US. And I know for a fact that I had quite a few of the firing cannons (although I no longer have the originals so I cannot prove this). I also had a number of non-firing cannons. (It is possible that I got the firing cannons all earlier than the non-firing)

Anyway sorry for the long rambling post. I just wanted to say that Lego did have firing cannons here in North America at one point.

- Apocalypse

P.S. I seem to remember that my firing cannons had black firing mechanisms (the piece at the back) with the usual dark grey cannon itself....

[Jipay]

There were two waves of canon (at least in the USA). the first wave was firing, and the second non firing because of safety reasons with kids. over protective usa... you know...

[Mister Phes]

mister_phes, I don't mean to pick apart your post (or excellent question) but when you ask "why were the cannons from Northern American non-firing?" I don't know how to answer except to say that the cannons from North America were capable of firing.....

Nah, dude you pick apart my posts all ya like! I don't know all the facts so if someone else can provide additional information then its very helpful. You've done a good deed!

[Starwars4J]

I always THOUGHT that I used to have a fireing cannon a long time ago...but I never was able to find it.

[Akkhraziel]

Another thing to remember is that with the US, the child saftey regulations placed on toys periodically goes through changes: For example, some of the transformer re-releases had to be altered slightly to accomodate the changes in regualtions (i.e. the steam pipes on Optimus Prime's arms had to be shortened).

As for the why: A battlestar galactica toy, from the original line. Some kid fired the missle from the neat little fighter plane and it lodged in another child's throat, which he choked to death upon. This touched off the first thoughts of "Hrm...maybe we outta look at these more closely." One of the first toys affected by this: Boba Fett was changed so that the little missle on his backpack no longer fired.

As for the rubber/plastic bit, I think it has more to do with the size of the projectile that the material in question. Case in point, all of the recent wave of Star Wars toys with launching missles. Big missles, but still made of plastic.

As for the rest of it, well, the sale of firearms to small children as playthings still has not become de riguer as of yet. Of course, that given a chance most kids will play with stick and rocks is lalso a different matter, but there you go, random toy law trivia.

Akkh

[Mister Phes]

Another thing to remember is that with the US, the child saftey regulations placed on toys periodically goes through changes: For example, some of the transformer re-releases had to be altered slightly to accomodate the changes in regualtions (i.e. the steam pipes on Optimus Prime's arms had to be shortened).

As for the rest of it, well, the sale of firearms to small children as playthings still has not become de riguer as of yet. Of course, that given a chance most kids will play with stick and rocks is lalso a different matter, but there you go, random toy law trivia.

Akkh

And just as a side note... All subsquent versions of Megatron (The Deception [bad Transformers] Leader) have Transformed into tanks rather than a hand gun. However, the original version has been re-released by a couple of different distributors and the original model still remains. I don't get how they can do that, but not create newer Megatrons Transforming into guns. But I don't know how these laws work...

[Zenithfleet]

I recall a Transformers line (sometime between Gen1 and Beasties / Beast Wars) that featured firing guns as a selling point. Turbomasters (cars) versus Predacons (fighter jets, and a big tank with an 'uge rocket on the back), and they had tubby barrel-shaped guns that fired little yellow plastic torpedoes about two to three centimetres long. Don't know if there were ever any regulation issues with these. All you Transformer nuts out there can fill out the details for me, I'm sure ;)

As for Pirates, well, as a kid I never really saw the point of the firing cannons (standard in Australia) anyway. After all you couldn't knock a wall of bricks down with one unless you built them REALLY lightly. Although you could ping a parrot off the couch with a well-placed hit of the palm tree top. Unless your objective was to shoot them at your siblings (which thankfully my li'l bro and I tended not to do 'cos we were under deep behavioural brainwashing, er, I mean because we were extremely considerate 8-| ).

[legofreak]

As for the why: A battlestar galactica toy, from the original line. Some kid fired the missle from the neat little fighter plane and it lodged in another child's throat, which he choked to death upon. This touched off the first thoughts of "Hrm...maybe we outta look at these more closely."

I remember that same story, but I have never seen anything to prove it you know? I had several of those Battlestar Galactica toys, and then halfway through the line they switched to non firing missiles - and I always wondered about how a kid could choke on something the size of a tic-tac. (If memory serves me, thats about how big those things were- maybe like a tic-tac with a tail)

as for the cannon, I have four different types of cannons, all bought in the US.

1. firing cannons, both with the black lever and with the dark gray...

2. non firing cannon, but with the mechanism. Like with the spring removed. You can put a 1*1 round in and flick the back and it shoots.

3. non firing solid cannon - yup

4. non firing solid cannon, with a crossed cannon design on the top of the cannon barrel.

why these are changed like that I have no idea. could be evolution of toys, could be worried about lawsuits... I have no idea.

as to the idea that its easier to get a handgun than a firing lego cannon.. well thats a little silly. *satis*

To get a handgun you do have to jump through several hoops, unless, of course, you are a criminal. Then there are just different hoops to jump through.

If you want a firing lego cannon, well, just go to bricklink, or ebay. ;)

[Mister Phes]

I recall a Transformers line (sometime between Gen1 and Beasties / Beast Wars) that featured firing guns as a selling point. Turbomasters (cars) versus Predacons (fighter jets, and a big tank with an 'uge rocket on the back), and they had tubby barrel-shaped guns that fired little yellow plastic torpedoes about two to three centimetres long. Don't know if there were ever any regulation issues with these. All you Transformer nuts out there can fill out the details for me, I'm sure ;)

Seems like you've summed them up nicely! However you've made a slight error! The Predacons were a 1986 gestalt group of animal Transforming robots which formed Predaking, the ones you mean are called Predators.

However...

All throughout G1 various Transformers had firing weapons. Even in the first 1984 line Starscream and Ironhide had firing weapons just as a couple of examples. It was a reocurring novelty which seemed to pop up occassionally but in 1993 it seemed that Hasbro had decided to make firing weapons their marketing gimmic. Which was proceeded by a number of gimmics like Aquachargers for example that changed colour in water.

[Zenithfleet]

Really? Predators? Weird... I always remember them as Predacons, because when Beast Wars came out I remember being surprised that they'd re-used the name.

Although I do recall the other Predacons you mention (had that lion one...) Oh well, for me it was always about the Aerobots and the elusive Terrorcons *glasses*

As another off-topic aside, the fighter jets had some sort of flip-down transparent panes on their undersides that were supposed to fit into the big tank's missile (which you could look through) as a kind of targeting system, but I could never figure out how to make it work... baffled me for years 8-|

But back on-topic, which sets did the crossed-cannon cannons come in? *wonders if he can be bothered doing a search on Peeron*

[Mister Phes]

But back on-topic, which sets did the crossed-cannon cannons come in? *wonders if he can be bothered doing a search on Peeron*

I'm guessing its most of the northern American sets from about 1990 onwards...

I'm not sure Peeron.com is that thorough that it takes into account the difference between firing and non firing cannons for sets from different regions. But strangely enough I can't be bothered looking.

As for your Transformers questions, I've created The Transformers Thread so we can discuss them in more depth without taking this thread off topic.

[Zenithfleet]

Had a look on Peeron just now, I was over there looking up Town minifig torsos actually (found some retro-looking torsos I thought might be rare but it turns out they showed up in a Train set a few years ago, oh well).

Anyway, Peeron distinguishes between Firing, Non-Firing (the crossed-cannon logo ones) and Disabled, and notes the US differences, but not other countries' differences. Whether this matters to anyone is another issue |:|

Good grief... does this mean the Legend re-release of the BSB had the Redcoat logo on its cannons...?! *wacko* (I suppose they might have been nicked off some hapless outpost.)

[Mister Phes]

The Black Seas Barracuda re-release has normal cannons. As far as I can tell. Its be a while since I had a look.