Aim. Squeeze. And watch it fly!
As part of its continued expansion of the Nerf product line, Parker Brothers released Nerf Wrist Flyers in 1982. Marketed to children ages 5-12, the set included three pre-assembled delta-wing gliders and a wrist-mounted launcher. Each glider was decorated in a patriotic motif and was made of the same polyurethane foam as other Nerf products.
After slipping the launcher onto your wrist, you’d place a glider on the launch tube and squeeze the rubber bulb for lift-off. The packaging included simple instructions on how to “tune” the flyers to make them travel farther. Spoiler alert: slightly bending them made them more aerodynamic.
Buoyed by the set’s initial sales success, Parker Brothers introduced Super Powers Wrist Flyers a year later. In this set, the three gliders were adorned with images of popular DC Comics superheroes: Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman. The box also contained an official entry form for a Supers Powers sweepstakes contest that would feature the winner in a future issue of a DC comic book.
