I was the oldest teen in captivity

Age no barrier says Fonz star Winkler as he hosts quirky new history show

- BY SANJEETA BAINS and FRAN BOWDEN

He was playing a teenager but by the time he had finished starring as The Fonz in Happy Days, Henry Winkler was 37. Joking as if he were a zoo specimen, Henry, 80 today, says: "I was the oldest teenager in captivity!"

The Fonz-like swagger that made teenage hearts flutter in the US sitcom which ran from 1974 to 1984 is still present as he presents a quirky new Sky History show.

In Perilous Play, the first of eight episodes of Hazardous History starting on November 17, he examines shocking everyday activities and products that were once considered normal.

Winkler asks: "Did you know there was once a time when kids played with a science kit that was actually radioactive? Do you remember playgrounds before safety standards? Or when the hottest new toy came with a blow torch?

"These are the things we used to do for fun, for money, or maybe out of boredom, that we'll never see again. Were they dangerous? Certainly. Deadly? Occasionally.

"But boy, wasn't it exciting?"

Among now-banned pastimes was the 1985 Cannonball Loop, a 60-foot enclosed waterslide in New Jersey with a 360-degree loop that would spit out injured children.

Many children got stuck and had to be rescued and some suffered injuries such as broken teeth. The Loop closed after a month.

Meanwhile a 1950s Atomic Energy Kit containing uranium ore allowed children to make their own mini mushroom cloud.

Production ceased after a year, not just because of its danger to kids, but because it cost the equivalent of €510 today.

Going back to the 1880s, things were far worse for users of the America's first rollercoaster to go upside down.

The Flip Flap Railway opened on Coney Island in the 1880s.

It had to travel at 45mph to have even a chance of getting all the way round the loop.