Sea-Monkeys are one of the most harmless and useless toys ever made, and even though most kids I knew who got the kit never managed to get those little suckers to hatch, kids kept wanting them and parents kept buying them.
So how did a useless toy like the Sea-Monkeys become such a big hit? Creator Harold Von Braunhut used ads in comic books to sell them to the babies of the boom, and since there was nothing like it on the market, kids flipped out over this trippy new "toy".
This Great Big Story video shows us the shady history of Sea-Monkeys, Harold's connection to the Aryan Nation and how that little packet of disappointment would influence the way toy makers marketed to kids for generations to come.