Direct to you from the pages of the 1966 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog comes the Plazer, the bleeping, blipping transistorized ray gun of the future. Even though the Plazer's "ray beams" were contained "safely inside the gun," it's doubtful you'd see the words "'Hit' a plane" advertising anything today. Click through for all the Plazer's specs. P.S. $8.88 in 1966 is equivalent to roughly $57.00 today.

1:20 PM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Lynn Peril
1,226 views
12 comments

Comments

BullfightsOnAcid at 01:28 PM on 04/17/08
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It's not a real laser - it's a plazer. Kind of like pleather.
SunZhiQian at 01:30 PM on 04/17/08
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Wow, kind of like a stinger missile for kids.
moff at 01:32 PM on 04/17/08
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...it's doubtful you'd see the words "'Hit' a plane" advertising anything today.

Except for plane-fucking porno. There's that.
SavannahJack at 01:34 PM on 04/17/08
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Check the eyes on that kid ... yeah, they knew their market.
steven522 at 01:34 PM on 04/17/08
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The kids playing with this in the day probably designed the patriot missile system.
Dunny0 at 01:55 PM on 04/17/08
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I just realized that thing has two triggers, and the poor kids arms are too short to reach the further "explode" one.

Poor midget kid.
Tenno at 02:17 PM on 04/17/08
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I would do horrible, demeaning things to get one of these.
92BuickLeSabre at 02:19 PM on 04/17/08
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Set your sights low? "Hit" a can!
Set your sights high? "Hit" a star!

I would like to see the statistical comparison on life outcomes based on what Plazer Playzers chose as their targets!
moff at 02:36 PM on 04/17/08
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@Tenno: Email me.
Smeagol92055 at 03:08 PM on 04/17/08
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I remember hearing Sadaam Hussein wanted to get his hand on a couple of these back in the day to route together and create a super-plazer...
phoenix at 04:20 PM on 04/17/08
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Ah, I remember the days when if you wanted to make a weapon sound futuristic, you just had to strike a verbal variation on the word "laser." Those were the good old days.

...or maybe the good old days were before "laser" entirely?
Ghede at 11:47 PM on 04/17/08
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@moff: "Debbie does Dornier Do 228" was a classic of the genre.