Crocodile Mile
The backyard water slide with a bump in the middle and an inflatable crocodile's open mouth at the end: run, slide, hit the bump, and dive into the splash pool. It was advertised on kids' TV from the late 1980s, sold alongside a Super Crocodile Mile, and is routinely mistaken for a Wham-O product. It was made by a toy company called Marchon, later part of Empire of Carolina.
Crocodile Mile belongs to the same species as Slip 'N Slide, a long plastic runway you wet down with the garden hose, but its maker was not Wham-O. It was a product of Marchon, Inc., a toy designer and marketer whose other big line was Grand Champions collectible horses, and the crocodile was its whole idea: a slide that ended in a bump and a splash pool guarded by an inflatable croc with its jaws open, so that the point of every run was to launch yourself through the mouth. Empire's own filings describe the product plainly: "long plastic mats over which water is run," aimed at five-year-olds through teens, protected by several patents on its features. The television commercials that collectors have preserved are labeled 1988, with spots for a Super Crocodile Mile from 1991. The ads did the work, which is why most people can picture the croc and not name the company.
The product's paper trail runs through a courtroom and a takeover. In August 1992 a patent holder named Dennis Merino sued Marchon and Toys "R" Us for patent infringement over its water slides. A jury awarded damages, the court enjoined two of Marchon's other slides, Surf City and Super Surf Slide, and Merino appealed in June 1994 on whether Crocodile Mile and Super Crocodile Mile infringed too. They were found not to, and in January 1996 a federal appeals court affirmed. By then Marchon had a new owner: in October 1994 Empire of Carolina, the plastics and toy company in Tarboro, North Carolina, bought Marchon, citing its "substantial experience at sourcing toy products in the Far East," and moved its operations to the main Tarboro plant early the next year. Crocodile Mile stayed in Empire's line, still being sold and Super Crocodile Mile still getting television spots as of its 1996 annual report.
The Wham-O confusion is understandable, and one document draws the line. In May 1993 the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Kransco, Wham-O's owner, warned that Wham-O's backyard slides were dangerous for adults and teenagers, after seven adults and a 13-year-old had suffered neck injuries or paralysis since 1973; the notice listed Slip 'N Slide, Super Slip 'N Slide, Slip 'N Splash, White Water Rapids, Fast Track Racers and Wet Banana, and Crocodile Mile was not among them. What Crocodile Mile shared with all of them was the physics: a thin sheet of plastic over a lawn that was never as smooth as it looked, a bump that sent you briefly airborne, and a landing that a lot of stomachs remember more clearly than the crocodile does.
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