Don't Touch

I remember when I was growing up; one of the four television channels had frequent “Blasting Cap” commercials. I think they bought ad time between “After School Specials” and “Wild Kingdom”. They always stopped before the “Red Skelton Show”. I guess blasting cap danger didn’t affect Red’s demographic audience.

I love the web but it’s not yet perfect. I was able to find the following description of the actual commercial, but no footage. “Blasting Caps-Explosives: Nice Color (Late 1960’s: Institute of Makers of Explosives Production: Company is located in New York)-–film shows what you should do if you find a blasting cap laying around-–film uses a little boy as an example: little boy finds blasting caps in a park and calls the policegood shots of various types of blasting caps-–film ends with the words, ‘DON’T TOUCH’”.

Now that I think back, I always wanted to find one of these great explosive devices. Bottle rockets and firecrackers were boring. Cherry Bombs where a bit more dangerous. I even had a friend who blew his thumb off with this “eighth of a stick of dynamite!” But Cherry Bombs didn’t have TV commercials.

No matter where I looked, I could never find one of these magical devices. Perhaps because Moose Lake Minnesota didn’t have anything to blast. Except for the occasional “dynamite fishing” mishap, nothing big enough to require a blasting cap and dynamite was being built. So why were the commercials being displayed? What a conundrum. I remember thinking of the exciting danger lurking close; perhaps even a blasting cap in my back yard!

To this day, I still haven’t seen one of the elusive blasting caps…