Playtime has changed significantly over the years. Playground equipment was pretty adventurous and really dangerous for a long time, until the rates of serious injuries caused them to be removed from playgrounds, with some taking longer than others to be banned. The type of play has also varied over time, often shaped by popular movie or TV show characters and their exploits, taking the form of pretend play that didn't normally involve a playground. 

In the past 80 years, popular TV show characters such as Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger or Daniel Boone were very popular, and many young boys pretended they were any of them on a big adventure. Greater awareness of the need for physical education was the motivation for the design of all sorts of creative playground equipment designs, including some that didn't last long, because the hazardous manner in which they would be likely be improperly used was fairly apparent, with so many questioning these ever being allowed on playgrounds in the first place, "What were they thinking?" 

There's normally a competitive element for children when in a group on a playground, whether it used to be "king of the hill" on top of the jungle gym, with other kids trying to topple the child balancing on the apex of an inverted dome structure. How far can you fly off the end of a long swing with perhaps an 8', 10' or greater chain length, and land on the concrete or blacktop surface? How long could a child hold onto a quickly spinning merry-go-round before flying off sideways into a playmate or two? Remember those old metal slides that would get so incredibly hot in the summer, and sometimes rust and crack?