The Hop Rod is one of the most dangerous toys ever marketed.
It was developed from Gordon Spitzmesser’s 1960 patent for a “Combustible Gas Powered Pogo Stick,” originally called the Pop Along. Chance Manufacturing of Wichita, Kansas acquired the patent, began developing its version around 1971, and released the Hop Rod after roughly a year of testing, so its commercial arrival was around 1972.
It was a genuinely absurd object: a pogo stick with a one-cylinder, two-cycle engine, powered by fuel and eight C batteries. It sold for about $70, ran for up to 30 minutes, or around 600 hops, on four ounces of gas.
It was stocked in toy shops nationally, had “brisk sales” around Christmas 1972 and 1973, then sales slumped after thousands of reported injuries and safety concerns. Chance discontinued it by 1975.
The danger came from the engine firing when the rider hit the ground. If the rider landed straight, it launched them upward. If they landed at an angle, it could launch them sideways into trees, walls, cars, or anything nearby.
These days they’re now collectors’ items - mainly because they’re rare, bizarre, mechanically interesting, and infamous. Examples in working order have sold on second hand marketplaces for tens of thousands of dollars.
