Clackers


Clackers were toys popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They consisted of two plastic spheres suspended on string which, when swung up and down, bang against each other, making a :wikt:clacking|clacking sound. Clackers are similar in appearance to bolas, the Argentine weapon.
They are formed out of two hard plastic balls, each about in diameter, attached to a tab with a sturdy string. The player holds the tab with the balls hanging below and through up-and-down hand motion makes the two balls swing apart and back together, making the clacking noise that gives the toy its name. With practice one can make the balls swing so that they knock together both above and below the hand.

Safety hazard

Clackers were taken off the market in the United States in the 1970s when reports came out of children becoming injured while playing with them. Fairly heavy and fast-moving, and made of hard acrylic plastic, the balls would occasionally shatter upon striking each other. In the United States, they were classed in 1976 as a "mechanical hazard" in United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls.

Renewal

The toy enjoyed a brief renewal of popularity in the 1990s with Clackers consisting of a handle and plastic triangles with the plastic balls at the end giving weight to the free moving toy. It was played the same way and sold in bright neon colours.
In 2017, the game was revived in Egypt and gained publicity among school children. It became famous under the name "Sisi's balls" referring to the testicles of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The police had arrested 41 clacker sellers and confiscated 1,403 pairs of the toy which they considered offensive to the government.