Reply #8: The pre-1999 PEZ dispenser gets my vote.

[mcscajun]

Only because in the early 60s, being the intelligent, curious child I was with a bit of bent toward engineering, I liked to take things apart to see how they worked.

The PEZ dispenser's metal spring flew out with quite a bit of force and promptly embedded itself in my thumb, necessitating a trip to the ER. The spring was a lot, lot longer fully expanded, I can tell you that; it made it quite difficult to put on a winter coat without a good deal of screaming.

I'm surprised it took them so long to switch to plastic springs (and I don't really know if that made the toy any safer, as I'm not going to disassemble one now to find out.)