The Super Soaker 50 was the first

Super Soaker Super Soaker is an American brand of recreational water gun that uses manually-pressurized air to shoot water with greater power, range, and accuracy than conventional squirt pistols. The Super Soaker was invented in 1989 by engineer Lonnie Joh ...

water gun A water gun (or water pistol, water blaster, or squirt gun) is a type of toy gun designed to shoot jets of water. Similar to water balloons, the primary purpose of the toy is to soak another person in a recreational game such as water fight. ...

, introduced in 1991. It was one of the first pressurized water guns ever made, outselling all of the motorized blasters that had previously dominated the market. Another air pressurized water gun, the Cosmic Liquidator, was made in the late 1970s but it never was popular.

History

In the early 1980s, a

rocket scientist Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...

named Lonnie Johnson was working on a

heat pump A heat pump is a device that can heat a building (or part of a building) by transferring thermal energy from the outside using a refrigeration cycle. Many heat pumps can also operate in the opposite direction, cooling the building by removing h ...

system, and was testing it in his bathroom. A powerful stream shot from his prototype, and he immediately realized that this could make a great

. Lonnie Johnson spent the next eight years trying to sell his idea. Eventually, Johnson sold the idea to

Larami Toys The Larami Corporation was a toy company established in by David W. Ring in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1959. Larami produced licensed toys based on several movies and television shows. The toys were manufactured in Hong Kong and Japan, were of ...

and the concept was designed by William Raucci. They released the Power Drencher. The Power Drencher wasn't very popular at first, but popularity grew significantly when they renamed it the Super Soaker 50. The name was changed due to copyright issues. Since then, there have been hundreds of other Super Soaker models. These include 10th and 20th anniversary Super Soaker 50s.

References

External links

Super Soaker 50
history at iSoaker Water guns {{toy-stub