• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

Have you ever thought back to the free-range way we used to play and some of the kids’ products our parents bought us to play with, and wonder how we survived?

The dangerous playthings of some of our youths (and the youths of the generations that preceded us) are the subject of Episode One of a new History Channel series that asks a basic question: What were we thinking?

The show, “Hazardous History with Henry Winkler” -- premiering next Sunday -- takes a look back at a slew of boxed chemistry kits, craft kits and one kit that, if I understood it correctly, allowed children to refine uranium to create some sort of atomic reaction.

Winkler, 79, is the narrator of the show and also an executive producer. Winkler and the show’s various interview subjects -- ranging from scientists to Brian “Q” Quinn, one of the stars of “Impractical Jokers” -- take a mildly lighthearted approach to the subject matter.

But at the same time, they’re telling stories about playthings that could cause serious injuries and result in a variety of serious illnesses from the ingestion of harsh chemicals.

The show doesn’t tell us how many youngsters grew up to eventually die of any of these diseases, but that’s not a criticism of the show.

What were they thinking? According to the show, the goal of all the hazardous playthings and amusement park rides showcased in the first episode of the show (titled “Perilous Play”) was money.

These people were enabled to get away with what they sold because of a combination of ignorance of the potential dangers of what they were selling and a complete absence of regulatory restraints.

This is how an entrepreneur of the 1880s could build a wooden rollercoaster in Coney Island with a 360-degree feature through which riders were propelled upside-down at G-forces far greater than even astronauts experience on takeoff -- all without seatbelts or safety harnesses of any kind.

The show reports that it was said at the time that no one who rode this coaster (called the Flip Flap and razed long ago) ever rode it again.

And yet, it earned the modern-day equivalent of $20,000 a week, and wasn’t closed down by the city until 1901.

But that was long ago. Closer to our own time, particularly the 1950s and ’60s, toy marketers came out with one hazardous scheme after another.

The show tells us about them all, and even shows us examples of them that still survive, presumably borrowed from private collections or museums.

One was the aforementioned uranium kit marketed to boys in the 1950s -- the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab kit with which boys played with uranium with their bare hands that was literally radioactive (these types of kits were always marketed to boys, not girls).

This toy lasted only about a year, but not because anyone thought it was dangerous. It was because of its price -- $49.95 -- and parents balked at such an expensive plaything.

Later came kits for children that were dangerous for other reasons. A home glass-blowing kit had kids blowing superheated glass through a long tube through which they would ingest hazardous vapors and puffs of extreme heat.

In around 1970, another such kit called “Super Elastic Bubble Plastic” allowed kids to blow large “bubbles” that would become rubberized balls the size of beach balls.

The product was made of a substance consisting almost completely of toxic, plastic chemicals. In addition, it was getting kids high.

Then there was the story of a water slide introduced at a New Jersey water park in 1978 that was so harrowing to see that the segment made me queasy.

The list goes on and on in this very illuminating and entertaining show. Subsequent episodes of “Hazardous History” will deal with dangerous household products, the American tradition of reckless daredevilry, and the hazardous evolution of transportation technology.

“Hazardous History with Henry Winkler” premieres on Sunday, June 15, at 10 p.m. Eastern on History Channel.