Nerf guns are now the most popular and famous toy guns for kids all over the world! You may think that you know everything about them, but I am sure that there are a lot of cool things that you don’t know. Believe it or not, Nerf products have been around since the Late 60s, but the first Nerf guns that fired darts were introduced in 1992! This is just one of the cool facts that you will find in this article! Let’s see some more!
1.Like I said above, the first Nerf products were introduced during the late 60s and they were not Nerf guns, they were balls! That’s right, the first Nerf products were balls made by the special Nerf foam.
What made them unique, was the fact that kids could play with them indoors, without their parents worrying about them breaking any stuff. The Nerf ball was soon followed by a Nerf Football and an indoors basketball set, containing a Nerf ball and a basketball hoop, called NerFoop, a portmanteau of Nerf and hoop.
2.The Name Nerf has nothing to do with toys! It comes from the world of drag racing! In the late 60s cars were being pushed to the starting grid of drag races by specially designed trucks. Those trucks had some specially designed bars on their front with which they pushed the cars. In order to keep the cars from being damaged by those bars, the bars were covered with a rubbery foam known as NERF.
4.The First dart blaster was called the Sharpshooter and was released on 1992 along with the famous Nerf slingshot. That year was the biggest and most profitable in the company’s long history.
5.Nerf guns have appeared in a large variety of movies and TV series, including Chuck, The Office, 30 Rock and Modern Family. The futuristic guns used in the series Terra Incognita produced by Steven Spielberg, were actually painted Nerf blasters. Many sci-fi series and movies use slightly modified and heavily repainted Nerf guns as props.
Nerf guns and products have always been popular with celebrities! The Monkees appeared in a Nerf commercial back in the 60s. Comedian Seth Green has appeared in numerous Nerf commercials in the early 90s. George Clooney is perhaps the biggest and most famous Nerf fun out there. When working on “Up in The Air” he would prank hs co-workers, especially actress Anna Kendrick, by throwing Nerf balls at them while they were rehearsing or when a take was not going well. Furthermore, Ryan Gosling reported that while directing “The Ides Of March”, Clooney would often carry a loaded Nerf gun and he would shoot the actors who screwed up during their takes.
6.Hasbro has employees that test Nerf gun prototypes in a special warehouse that has been specially designed to simulate several indoor environments such as offices, living rooms and bedrooms. Sounds like the perfect job, right?
Wow, we have come a long way since indoor balls, basketball sets and slingshots right? Take one of the latest and more advanced Nerf guns for example, the legendary Nerf Stampede! This amazing Nerf gun is a fully automatic blaster than can fire dozens of darts per minute, simply by squeezing the trigger!
