Super Soaker

Pump it up, pull the trigger and get somebody soaking wet. Super Soaker took the backyard water fight to another level.

Fill it up, pump it up, pull the trigger and SOAK somebody.

The Super Soaker changed the neighborhood water fight. Instead of the tiny stream of water and five-foot range you got from an ordinary squirt pistol, the Super Soaker used stored air pressure to blast a much more substantial stream of water across the yard. And once somebody showed up with one, everybody else's water pistols suddenly seemed completely inadequate.

In the 1980s, engineer Lonnie Johnson was working on an environmentally friendly heat-pump system when a nozzle he had connected to his bathroom sink shot a powerful stream of water. Johnson realized that the same design might make a really good water gun. He eventually licensed the design to Larami, which introduced the Power Drencher in 1990.

The following year it got a much better, now familiar name - Super Soaker - along with a huge advertising push. Sales exploded. During the summer of 1991 more than two million Super Soakers were reportedly sold, making it one of the biggest toy hits of the era.

There have been all kinds of Super Soakers since then - with bigger tanks, different pumping systems, multiple nozzles and enough variations to seriously escalate any backyard water fight.

Just remember: if you bring the Super Soaker, don't expect everybody else to follow the old rule about not spraying you while you're refilling it.