Harpoon Crossbow

This product has been cancelled from production by the manufacturer. The reason for the cancellation is: Tooling issues with the firing mechanism.

Harpoon Crossbow
Year Released:	1993
Available?:	Cancelled
Stock Capacity:	3 Hydro Torpedos
Family:	Hydro

The Harpoon Crossbow is a cancelled Nerf Hydro blaster that holds 3 Hydro Torpedos. It would have most likely been released at the same time as the Hydro Bazooka, due to it being the only other blaster in the line.

It fired its on exclusive type of ammunition, called the Hydro Torpedo, which was a blue 11" arrow with orange fins that had a sponge tip on the top and, when hit with, would leave a wet spot of water. Instead, it was cancelled and the Hydro Torpedoes were made available in refill packs.

Details

The Harpoon Crossbow would've been a large, long blaster unlike anything else before it. It would've had the first stock on a Nerf blaster, and would have been the first Nerf blaster to be solely powered by string power, something that wouldn't be explored again for 2 decades. It has large bowarms to make it look like a crossbow, and storage at the front for two of its Hydro torpedoes.

Whilst the official reason for its cancellation is unknown, a likely reason is its looks, which resemble its real life crossbow counterpart much more realistically than anything else before it. Hasbro/Kenner likely wanted to stay away from this aspect of toy guns for the time being.

A different but also plausible reason is that it was too hard to get the crossbow to work properly, as it would've needed a lot of string tension to be able to launch an 11" arrow at a reasonable distance. This would've also made it difficult to assemble and difficult for a kid to prime.

Trivia

• The Harpoon Crossbow would've been the only true string-powered Arrow blaster. It would've also been the only string powered blaster to not use a hammer until the 2010s.
• It is one of the few cases of a cancelled blaster having aspects of itself carried on to full-production blasters, and the only case of a component of a cancelled blaster directly surviving the blaster being cancelled due to the Hydro Torpedos being made available in a refill pack.