Nerf - The second greatest toy of all time.

Driving to class the other day, I noticed a young child playing with a HUGE toy gun in the backseat of his parent’s car.  “Damn, that’s a big gun,” I thought to myself.  He then looked over to me a shot the gun, which fired a dart with a suction cup on it.  Astonished I pulled over in disbelief, but also with a great feeling of nostalgia.  “Could it be true? Was that a Nerf gun being wielded by that small child?”  Nerf, a toy that brought my younger self hours and hours of gun-toting entertainment was still around, and in full force, by the looks of the cannon that was held by that toddler. 

Ah, Nerf.  How you pleased me so.  I can remember it like it was yesterday, with all my friends and I choosing from all our guns, getting ready for the most ultimate battle of our lives.  ZIP! WHOOOSH!!  Those darts and foot-long arrows zipping past our head, poking out our eyes, and causing mild testicular discomfort.  Oh how I loved Nerf.

Because of this joyous occasion of remembrance, I have decided to go over some of my favorite Nerf weapons, because I feel that they need to be glorified in the up most of glories.  Let’s begin:

The Nerf Crossbow!

Look at this bad boy.  I believe this was the first Nerf gun I owned, because I wanted to compete win one of my dumb-ass neighbors who owned the bow-and-arrow.  After I got the Crossbow, his shitty bow and arrow seemed completely obsolete.  I can see me now, holding it against his temple asking him to beg for mercy before I filled his skull with foamy goodness.  Those were good times.  The Crossbow not only shot arrows, but suction darts as well.  One thing about it though was that fact that the "crossbow" part of it really did nothing but hold more arrows.  I took it off one day because it kept getting in the way, and my Crossbow became a badass Nerf shotgun. 

The Nerf Ballzooka!

This was the one that I always wanted, but could never afford for some reason.  I really should have just saved up money to buy the damn thing, but I kept wasting my cash on GI Joes and other stuff of that nature.  The Ballzooka held fifteen Nerf balls, which were basically compressed foam.  The nerf balls were the one and only ammo that could cause serious facial damage if aimed correctly.  Thank you NERF CORPORATION!  Anyways, all you had to do was pull and push the trigger handle to fire off a barrage of balls at your innocent victims.  BWA HA! If I had actually owned one, it would have been my weapon of choice, because who doesn’t want to use something called a Ballzooka.  The name says it all. 

The Secret Shot!!

This was one of my favorites that I actually owned.  I liked it ‘cause it was kind of like a handgun, so it made me feel like it was more dangerous.  The secret shot was special to me, because it was one of the guns whose special features actually helped me escape a sticky situation once.  You see, the concept behind it is that it has another shot hidden in the handle of the gun. So theoretically, if you were ever cornered or captured, you could be like “Ok, I surrender,” and raise your hands in the air with the gun, and then shoot your attackers in the eye!! Perfection!

The Eagle Eye!

What kid would want a gun with a laser sight attached to it?  Although nothing more that a super red light bulb, this gun gave all us children delusions of spy gadgetry.  The gun itself was too heavy to use for every battle, and was often left on the ground after you were shot up.  The reason for this being the 17 D-size batteries needed to power the laser scope.  It was still a cool design though.

The Nerf Defender T3!

One of Nerf’s only guns that could turn into two guns.  TWO GUNS! It was handy when your fellow soldier runs out of ammo in their Ballzooka. You just give them the pull back dart section of the gun, while you keep the super-pimp pistol section for yourself.  The gun just looked cooler when you separated the two parts.  Also handy if you ever need to just throw a gun at someone, because you’ll still have at least one of the sections to shoot with.  And it could also be used as an optional slicer, dicer and mixer for your salads.

The Warthog!

Although it is named after an animal with the most horrible name imaginable, the Warthog was quite an effective gun to have tucked into the front of your shorts like a cool vigilante cop.  It could shoot two small darts, which was a cool thing for the most part, but it eventually led to all of us shoot it horizontally at people eyes, causing a double blast of instant blindness.  Being young was great wasn’t it?   Now onto the most badass of all the Nerf weapons that we owned…

The RAZORBEAST!!

This was, at the time, the epitome of all Nerf guns for us youngsters.  All the kids wanted it.  All the other guns wanted to be it.  And with good reason.  This was one of the first “chain gun” inspired guns that Nerf made.  It had this long clip of bullets that ensured the highest potential for winning any battle.  The gun was the same size as us, so sometimes it proved to be difficult to handle, but no one cared. If you were in control of the Razorbeast, you controlled the world.  To shoot it you need to turn the crank on its side, and you also need to rest the butt of the gun on your thigh, cause you couldn’t crank it any other way.  This led to its only downfall, which was running while shooting.  Although if anyone saw you running at them with it, they would hightail it in the other direction anyways.  The power is in your hands with this thing…

Well there you have it.  A full explanation of why I loved and still love Nerf guns.  There were other guns that I owned, but they sucked so I will never speak of them again.  I hope this has been a healthy experience for you all.  I know that I am feeling pretty good right now, so I’m going to go bask in my eternal glory.  ‘Til we meet again…

Check back soon for a quick review on some Nerf Ammo!!

- Kevin