80s Memory Unlocked: Crocodile Mile Injury

After being heavily marketed to in the late 80s during cartoons and kid shows we begged and finally got our parents to get us Crocodile Mile.  I'm sure it was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Crocodile Dundee.  It was a crocodile themed slip-n-slide with an inflatable part at the end that formed a bump to launch off and a pool of water you splash into. The "Splashdown Pool"  was way to shallow and the "Boomerang Bump" didn't really launch you into the air at all. The whole thing ended up being 80% less cool as they made it look in the commercials but it was still a slip-n-slide.  At the bump at the end that "launches" you into the pool had a curtain of thin plastic sheeting with the mouth of a crocodile printed on it that you launch through. The curtain was held up with a tube of rigid plastic bent in a hoop which was inserted into hard plastic cups that had stakes that also held it all in place which you pushed into the grass like a plastic tent stake.  

Here's the TV spot that had us so excited. This song is gonna be stuck in my head all day now. 

The hoop fell off every time you went through it so we just left it off. The fun was starting to wear off after using it for about an hour and for one last go at it my younger brother got a running start, slid down the slide but veered off course slightly missing the Boomerang Bump and slid his bare, wet chest across one of the cup stakes that protruded up at lease 3 inches from the ground. He ended up getting a 10" gash across his chest and was bleeding everywhere. I'm sure parents were summoned and friends went home but I don't have any recollection of the rest of that day. 

 I guess getting attacked and drawing blood was more realistic to being attacked by a crocodile than the part the kept falling off.  What's funny is that I found a commercial for something I didn't remember existing but it was "Super Crocodile Mile". What's so super about it you ask? It came with an inflatable surfboard mat thing you used to slide down on.  While marketed as a way to go faster, I wonder if kids were getting cut by the stakes and they had to put something between them and the dangerous plastic parts.