Tommy Burst toy commercial ("From Mattel, it's SWELL!")

There is no way that a TV commercial like this would ever be made, much less allowed to broadcast, in 2009. But once upon a time when boys were allowed to play "cops 'n robbers" there were fewer toy weapons as kewl as Mattel's Tommy Burst arsenal. For three bucks you could get the revolver and for seven you got the Detective Set complete with handgun and holster, toy bullets, badge and one neat-o machine gun!

Behold the commercial from about 45 years ago...

And if that adult looks familiar, it should: that's Hal Smith as the thief and the commercial's pitchman. Smith will forever be known as that lovable town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show.

I remember about two decades ago when every Toys R Us had an aisle devoted to toy guns. Seems like we had a lot less real-life crime then than we do now. Maybe we should let children be children instead of expecting them to be miniature adults, and allow them to live out the "good guy/bad guy" fantasy. That's the kind of thing that has gone on since time immemorial and it's only been in the past number of years that the "child experts" (who never seem to have children of their own, hardly) have done their damndest to change that.

Well, anyway: it's a "swell" commercial, I think. Especially that machine gun!!