Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers

So if you haven’t been clued in to the world of jigglers yet, let me bring you up to speed. Jigglers are toys made out of a springy and flexible rubber that literally jiggles when you move it. If you were a kid between the 60’s- the 80’s, you probably had at least one. Though they came into popularity in the 1960’s, you can still find toys made like this today. In fact, you can still find some of the same jiggler designs of 40+ years ago in stores if you look hard enough, but I will address that later. Russ Berrie is famous for making larger gift ware jigglers that were sold in novelty shops and gift shops in the 60’s and 70’s. Most of their jigglers are animal characters with plastic inset eyes. They are made out of an oily rubber that will stain anything it touches if you leave it long enough, but they still have a following today regardless. Ben Cooper also made some cool jigglers including Marvel and DC super heroes and Universal Monsters. Yes, this is the Ben Cooper that made cheap Halloween costumes, but they also did dime store toys in the form of rubber jigglers. The rubber used by Ben cooper is more like the rubber on the toys I am talking about today (less oily). With the success of jigglers in the 1960’s, cheap-toy companies decided to jump on the band wagon and create small jigglers that could fit into a capsule in a gumball machine. You could fold the flexible rubber into a capsule and it would spring back good as new when the toy was removed.  Many of them are in the form of bizarre monsters, and those are the jigglers I am discussing today.

Flat Monster Jigglers just like the ones I had as a kid!

Now I should make it clear that these jigglers weren’t only sold in gumball machines. Some were also sold bagged and carded, and you could probably buy them individually in your local dime store. I remember the ones that my mom gave out at Halloween came in a big bag filled with a couple dozen of them. They were cheap to produce and kids loved them. The ones above are like the ones I had as a kid. They are what I would call flat jigglers, and they were still producing them up through at least the 1980’s when I had them.

Finger Puppet Jigglers.  That sad red fella on the far right is totally a new Jiggler.

One of the most incredible aspects of these small jigglers is that some of these designs, or bootlegs of these designs, are still being produced today. They are often sold as party favors for kids birthday parties. That means that some of these toys have had a consistent run of production for at least 40 years. In many ways that puts them in a league with Barbie, Hotwheels, and G.I. Joe when it comes to longevity, but because they are small and innocuous we never see them that way. The finger puppet jigglers are still made today. Though the designs have changed a bit over time, the concept remains the same.

It can sometimes be very difficult to tell an older jiggler from a new one, but there are a few tricks to help you decipher age. One of the easiest ways to tell age is to look at the markings. This trick I am about to mention will help you date a lot of toys besides jigglers. If the jiggler is marked “Hong Kong” it was made 1985 or prior. If it is marked “China” it is made after 1985. Another way to tell is the rubber. This is hard for me to describe in a blog post, but there is a different feel to the older rubber. When you have a China jiggler and a Hong Kong jiggler to compare you will see what I mean. They feel different. Finally, not every design has been produced over and over for years. In general, the octopus jigglers or spider jigglers aren’t being produced today and probably haven’t been for decades. The frog looking ones are the same. The main two still being produced are the finger puppets and the flat jigglers.

Octopus/ Spider Monster Jigglers.  These are some of my favorites.  Look at those crazy designs!

Frog Monster Jigglers.  Two eyes would just be too normal.  It’s either one or five with these guys.  The frogs are also some of my favorites.  I mean, just look at them.

One of my favorite aspects of jigglers is you can see their progression through time as different companies rip each others designs and make slight alterations. They shrink and grow, and they gain limbs and they lose limbs.   They come in different rubbers and plastics, and they change color as they go. As I find jigglers digging through bins at flea markets I watch them evolve over time, and I feel like a biologist finding a new species when I find a slight variation on a design. Flea markets are the Galapagos Islands of jigglers! It makes them particularly fun to collect. I never find the exact same jiggler twice.

The same jiggler can take on many forms.  Clearly these are the same design, but the one on the right has a horn.  Based on the rubber, the one on the right is also probably the older one.

These two have very similar faces, but different legs.  Another one of my favorite aspects of these toys is their evolution over the decades they were created.

These two may be the closest yet, but if you look carefully you will see that they are two totally different sculpts.  One is most likely a shameless rip off of the other.  They weren’t even trying to make it something different!

That tiny guy on the left was probably created in the 80’s and is clearly based on the guy on the right.  That being said, they made a lot of changes in the leg department.  What a crazy evolution!

I also want to take time to point out how weird and awesome some of these designs are. They are brilliant! As an artist, I love every one of them as these incredible and interesting sci-fi monsters. This is because many of these designs are based on work by well known artists such as Wally Wood and Basil Wolverton that were done for a line of Topps trading cards (the jigglers are clearly bootlegs). Others are based on other toy line such as The Outer Space Men by Colorforms, and some designs were done in house at the cheap toy companies based on these designs. Of course, as bootlegs of work by popular artists, these toys have garnered quite a following.

Does Barry look familiar to you? His doppelganger is in the top left corner of the photo of the spider/ octopus jigglers.

My fried Ed is in the top row second from the right.  You can probably thank Wally Wood for these nightmares.

Remember those multi-eyed frog jigglers?  You can call them Steve!

Finally Iris shares a striking resemblance to the rat bug jiggler in the next photo down.  This is the least obvious of the bootlegs, but the idea is still present.

These Jigglers are more figural.  Two monkeys, a bootleg of a larger jiggler line called De Horribles, and a rat bug.  I like the rat bug (but really, I just like them all).

Thanks to having a bag of flat jigglers as a kid from a Halloween party, I became hooked on monster jigglers. Their wacky and wonderfully disturbing designs intrigue me and keep me searching the depths of dirty boxes at flea markets to rescue them from obscurity. It is a worthwhile pursuit as far as I am concerned.

Some teeny tiny jigglers.  I put a big one in the back for comparison.  These guys are less than half the size of their counterparts, and therefore are even harder to find!  They are less than an inch long!

Finally, some really cool jigglers that probably weren’t in gumball machines.  These are probably from a dime store based on their size.  Still, these are really great and were well worth sharing!

The post The Amazing Variety of Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This tenth anniversary issue of Life magazine shows the first issue with the famous Margaret Bourke White cover.

I’m sure my love affair with Life began when I was about ten years old. Unlike just about every middle class family in America in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, my family never had a subscription to Life magazine. However, my aunts and uncles did, and they would pass along their outdated copies to us when we came to visit. Indeed, I really looked forward to riding home with several stacks of magazines piled up around me in the back of the car. Life, McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, and National Geographic were eagerly read by me even when I was still in elementary school. Sometimes I would cut the magazines up and put photos and articles in my scrap book. When I was about 13 or 14, I started making a gigantic collage of famous people’s faces, and most of the clippings came from Life.

Now you know what a weird kid I was and how my addiction to printed matter, especially magazines, began.

Early on, when Jim and I first started going to flea markets and into antique shops over forty years ago, I would be drawn to any old magazines that I saw, and if they were affordable (i.e. cheap), I would usually buy them. With thousands upon thousands of each copy sold during its heyday, old Life magazines were not hard to find. I could usually pick up nice examples from the 1940’s and 50’s, my favorite era because the magazines were bulging with fabulous advertisements and interesting articles, for fifty cents or a dollar. Once, about thirty years ago, I came upon a table at a flea market piled high with the old Life’s for a quarter each, and I bought a couple dozen.

However, that was nothing compared to what happened about ten years ago. Our county library holds a book sale a few times a year. When I first discovered this, I went crazy and was coming home with two or three boxes full of printed matter after each sale. This is not a good thing when we already have many, many boxes full of books and magazines in the basement. On this particular occasion, I was trying to behave by avoiding the sale, but Ben ended up checking it out. At lunchtime, he reported that they had “tons” of vintage Life magazines for ten cents apiece. Ten cents! Heck, that was the original cover price in the 1930’s and 40’s! The sale closed at 3 pm, so I hopped in the car and headed to the library. My willpower had crumbled.

Ben was right. Almost as soon as I walked in, I saw several piles of Life from the 1940’s and 50’s. Why they hadn’t all sold at that ridiculously low price was beyond my comprehension. Within minutes, my stack was an impressive size – and I’d only spent about $2.00. Then one of the volunteers at the book sale said the fateful words, “We have more magazines in the back if you’re interested.” Of course, I was. So I accompanied her to a large employee office/workroom, and there were about three or four eight-foot long tables just piled with Life magazines. I was stunned. It turned out that it was the entire archive that the library owned, and they had decided to get rid of it. There literally were hundreds of Life magazines from about 1937 to 1999. Obviously, it was not a complete collection. Certain issues had probably been lifted forty or fifty years ago. Others had probably been sold that morning at the book sale. Still and all, there were many, many issues from just about every year of publication.

Again, I dove in and started making a hand-selected pile, probably another $2.00’s worth. Then I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Would you be willing to sell all of them to me for one price?” I asked, knowing full well that if I bought them, Jim was surely going to kill me. In my mind, I thought that any price of $50 or less would be an absolute steal that I couldn’t turn down. Any figure above $50 would have caused me to hesitate and perhaps regain my sanity. Naturally, the woman said, “You can have them all for $50.”

And that’s how I came into possession of our county library’s Life magazine archive.

There was no way I could fit them all into the car on one trip. I took several boxes with me, and over the course of the next month or two, I would make a trip every week or so and pick up another five or ten boxes. Into the basement they went, and in the basement most of them still are.

Quite honestly, I have sold a few. I’ve certainly gotten my money back and then some. I’ve even given a few away as gifts. Life magazines are the perfect birthday or anniversary gift. It’s always fun to see what products were being advertised, what big stories were in the news, what the fashions looked like and what famous person might have been interviewed.

Whenever I go through the “archive” and try to choose a few magazines to get rid of, here’s what happens: First, I’ll see a great cover photo and be attracted to it.

Then I’ll see some ads that are colorful, nostalgic, or fun.

Then, invariably, there’s an interesting article to skim or scan or even read in depth. I swear to you that it’s a rare Life magazine that doesn’t have at least three or four different things going for it. And sometimes that’s what makes it difficult for me to part with some of them. They are like little weekly time capsules. Sometimes they capture an era with which I’m familiar – like the 1960’s or 70’s. More often, though, they bespeak a time that I either never lived through or was too young to remember.

It doesn’t matter. I love Life, and that’s that. I have promised that I will begin parting with them more seriously, and I will keep my promise. But will I always have some Life magazines in my possession? Yes, without a doubt.

The post My Love Affair With LIFE (Magazine) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Yes, even though Santa Claus was around before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were creating the Marvel Universe, it certainly seems as though Jolly Ol’ St. Nick is the product of the Marvel Universe.

I’d like to think that if Santa Claus was the star of his own monthly recurring comic series, he’d have to battle various villains whose sole purpose is to thwart Santa on the one day where he really matters, and it stands to reason that other Marvel Superheroes would have to come help Santa get his work done on the big day.

That’s the story I’m telling myself for why this set of dime store or rack toys (most certainly intended to be stocking stuffers) features Spiderman and the Hulk.

These toys are part of the “Santa’s World” line by Kurt S. Adler. The Adler name is synonymous with this festive time of year, as they claim to be “the leading importer of holiday decorations for 60 years.” In the 1970s, products like the Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments were still in their infancy, so the idea of a company churning out a specific line of various holiday decorations was still relatively new. What sort of shocks me is that with a little bit of digging, I’ve been having difficulty scrounging up any other licensed characters used in the “Santa’s World” line, at least while the same packaging was used.

The toys are fairly basic. Among the three that I own, I have pinball games featuring Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk delivering gifts. Spiderman could easily swing through chimneys, and he sort of specializes in stealth. But Hulk? Sure, he’s big and strong enough to wield a magical sack filled with millions of toys and gifts, but how is he going to get down the chimney? Also, he’s looking rather festive and happy. Isn’t he angry at something? Perhaps the Hulk was angry at Santa for not bringing him, like, a new pair of purple pants or something, so he incapacitated the jolly old elf and took his job from him. Merry Christmas.

On that delightful note, my favorite of the lot of toys that I own is this Hulk-as-Santa pull puppet. It’s a whimsical take on a gamma radiated-super being that will likely destroy us all if his alter ego gets the least bit upset. It’s old world meets modern (well, 1970s modern), in that it’s a popular character in the form of a toy that would have been much more popular decades prior when this didn’t have Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes toys to contend with.

What I particularly love about all of the imagery is that it’s so straightforward. You can tell the artists are having fun with the characters, but they’re not trying hard to be overly ironic or stylish. It’s Spiderman and the Hulk pretending to be Santa, plain and simple. These are fun in the same way all those wonderful Hostess Fruit Pies advertisements are fun.

A cursory search revealed that these are pretty hard to get. The Santa’s World line was also responsible for a series of comic books featuring a variety of Marvel characters.

While these aren’t exactly the most exciting superhero toys ever made – although that statement might be the biggest understatement on all of Collector Gene – if you are even mildly a fan of either Marvel Superheroes or Christmas, these are just about the perfect stocking stuffer that was ever made or will ever be made.

The post Santa’s World Marvel Stocking Stuffer Toys: Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk See You When You’re Sleeping! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Yes, that toy is constructed of a tiny baby doll shoved inside a larger doll leg. This little beauty was made by legitimate toy company Uneeda toys. Uneeda made dolls from 1917- 1991. They also made Wishniks, which were knock off Troll dolls, but were still very popular and are sought after today.

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the pitch meeting where someone pitched the idea for the Toe-Kin, which sounds like a clever name until you think about the fact that this doll is in a foot, or even more a lower leg, not a toe. Uneeda toys tried to disguise the fact that this toy is clearly made out of a left over baby doll leg by putting a pretty yellow ribbon around the mushroom plug at the top of it, but they aren’t fooling anyone. For those of you who might not be as familiar with toy construction techniques, mushroom plugs are often placed where two movable joints connect on a toy. If you have ever pulled the head off of one of your Barbie dolls or action figures, you will most likely find a mushroom plug where the neck connects to the body. It looks kind of like a mushroom most of the time, hence the name. In the case of this doll leg, it probably would have been sewn onto a soft doll torso and the indentation from the mushroom plug would be where they stitched it into place. Now, if you thought that the cute little doll sitting inside of the foot, which is about the size of a Kiddle doll, was removable you would be WRONG. That little lady is permanently fixed to that doll foot for better or worse.

There are so many questions I have about this ridiculous toy. Is the concept of this thing supposed to represent a little girl with a hideous deformity where instead of having a normal lower torso she just has one giant leg? Is she piloting a giant leg as her own mode of completely awesome transportation? Is she just chillin’ inside a giant leg just because she can? The poor execution and lack of a back story make it impossible for us to truly know. Do Toe-kins come in both right and left feet? Are there more Toe-kins in the series? Probably, but I haven’t found any more to prove whether or not that is true yet.

I know it might seem like I am hating on Toe-kins, but I can honestly tell you that I was truly excited when my brother found this for me at a toy show. Yes, Uneeda toys deserves to be scolded for trying to market such a lame concept to children. And I pity the poor kid whose grandma or weird aunt gave them one of these things for their birthday. At the same time, this toy is hilariously bad, and any object that can make me laugh or put a smile on my face is worth owning in my book. That is why I am sharing the Toe-kin with you, internet community. I hope it makes you laugh and puts a smile on your face, too. If so, the Toe-kin is doing its job.

The post One of the Worst Toys I Have Ever Seen: Toe-kins appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I purchased this skull a few years ago at a Pennsylvania flea market.  I walked into the market with $52 in my wallet, which doesn’t usually go a long way at an antique flea market.  So of course I found this piece in the first booth I went in, and it was priced at $50.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  I really liked the skull, but buying it would wipe me out before I was even finished my first row of dealers.  We were also going to check a few more flea markets and shops later that day, which made it even tougher to fathom spending all of my money immediately, especially on an object I knew nothing about.

At first I left it on the table and walked away figuring I would probably go back to buy it after I made sure that there was nothing I wanted more at the flea market.  However, a few minutes later and about half way down the second row of the market, I realized that I didn’t want to risk it.  I really liked the skull, and I knew I would be upset if someone else bought it while I was walking around.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.  I cut back to the dealer’s booth again and bought it, and I have had no regrets about blowing all of my money in the first booth I went in at the flea market that day.  There was nothing else I wanted more, and in my opinion this piece would have been hard to top.  A lot of people like to collect what they know, but I find that the objects I tend to like best in my collection are the objects I didn’t know I needed until I saw them.  Some of the fun of collecting, to me, is finding an object you love, and then finding out you love it even more as you learn more about it.  The Le Macabre skull did that for me.

The Le Macabre skull is made out of plaster, with the name of its place of origin, Le Macabre, Meard Street SOHO, stamped into its forehead.  It is just about life-sized, though it is stylized and kind of elongated if you look at the skull from its side.  The back of the skull is flat and hollow, and the eye sockets are hollow as well.  It has a little metal hook imbedded in the plaster so you can hang it on the wall.  The skull is probably from the 1950’s, which is part of what made it appeal to me, and for some reason I like skulls, so it had double appeal.  The damage to his chin was there when I bought him, and even though I could totally restore it myself, I haven’t done it yet.  I don’t know why. Maybe sometimes I like to think that he received his battle scar in some really epic way and it is a part of his history.  He is a very intriguing advertising piece, and the more I learn about him, the more I love him hanging on my wall.

One of the biggest mysteries with the Le Macabre skull is this: How did it end up in the United States?  Le Macabre was a coffee and espresso bar in SOHO London.  This I knew when I bought the skull because it is stamped on his forehead, and I got an original postcard from Le Macabre with it.

I love this postcard.  The imagery is great, and it adds a sense of humor to the skull plaque.   I have it framed and hanging under the plaque on my wall.  None of this, however, explains why these two pieces crossed the pond and ended up in New Jersey, and the more I research Le Macabre, the more I still don’t understand how these two ended up here.

When I first went to research this piece on the internet back when I bought it, the only information I could find out at the time was that Le Macabre existed from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, and that it offered a place for London jazz musicians and rock musicians to perform.  There was also some reference to Orson Wells hanging out at Le Macabre, which I thought was pretty cool.  Le Macabre had coffin shaped tables and skeleton murals on the wall, but there was never any mention of skulls like mine hanging in the bar anywhere.  I was happy to know that Le Macabre played an integral part in the early history of jazz and rock n roll in England, but there were no pictures to help me understand what part my skull played in the bar.  Were there more than one?  Was it for decoration or a souvenir?  For several years I just assumed that I would never fully understand the skull plaque, but that was okay because I liked it, and I liked that it represented pre-British invasion rock and jazz in London.

It wasn’t until late last year that I decided to research my skull again, and a lot more information has surfaced on Le Macabre thanks to two British news reels, one from 1958 and one from 1959, that have since been posted to the internet.

The first newsreel I found in the internet was the 1958 newsreel called “It’s the Age of the Teenager”, and I couldn’t believe what I saw when I watched it.  If you go to the 00.32 minute mark right in the beginning of the film and look behind the bartender’s head, you will see a skull just like mine hanging on the wall!  Mystery solved!  Well, sort of.  If you keep watching through the rest of the “Le Macabre” section of the film, you will see several other skulls hanging up throughout the joint.  Some are used over light fixtures, and others are just hanging on the wall as decoration.  I still can’t believe that these films exist, and that through them I could finally learn in some capacity why my skull plaque exists.  The rest of the film is an interesting look at British teenagers in the 1950’s.  It doesn’t spend too much time in coffee bars outside of Le Macabre, but it is definitely worth watching and kind of funny by today’s standards.  Follow this link to the website for Pathe to watch the filmstrip.

The 1959 strip is in color and called “Look at Life: Coffee Bar”, and it shows Le Macabre at about the 07.01 minute mark.  If you look towards the ceiling in one of the early scenes, you might catch skulls like mine hanging up near the ceiling.  They are covering light fixtures that will make the eyes glow when they are lit.  The whole news reel is a rather interesting look into the rise of the coffee bar in London and its clientele and significance.  It is fascinating and worth watching if you want to learn more about the “coffee craze”.    Apparently there were dozens of coffee and espresso bars in SOHO in the 1950’s, but there were so many that it became difficult for them to thrive with all of the competition.  The “coffee craze” in London was certainly not a point in history on my radar before buying the Le Macabre skull, but this is why I love buying pieces of history that I know very little about until I get them home to research them.  You never know what you will find out.   Look at Life: Coffee Bar

Of course, there are still a lot of things I do not know about this skull and about Le Macabre.  I still don’t know if they sold these skulls as souvenirs or if my skull was salvaged when Le Macabre shut down in the 1970’s.  Are there many other skull plaques still in existence out there?  I have never seen another one, but then again, I am nowhere near London.  If anyone out there has any more information about this skull or Le Macabre itself, please share it on the comments section of this site.  I would love to know any information that I can get.

It is very rare to buy an object with very little information and to find out as much as I did from the Le Macabre skull plaque.  Most of the time you aren’t that lucky, and you are left to speculate as to the purpose of an object.  I certainly never could have dreamed that somewhere along the line someone, and in this case more than one person, would post video evidence of my find in its original context.  When we first started this website almost a year ago, I was planning on writing about the Le Macabre skull. However, because I knew very little about it, I was just planning to post a picture and what little bit I knew in hopes that somewhere along the line a person who knew more about it would comment on the site and I would have an answer.  Then the internet surprisingly answered a few of my questions for me.  It has been a fun ride so far figuring out the origins of Le Macabre and the little piece of it I hang on my wall and look at every day, but I have a feeling there is still a lot to learn.

Article Update:

Hey everyone!  This is the first time I have had the opportunity to update an article after gaining some valuable information on its subject matter from another passionate collector.  Hopefully this will be a trend!  Since posting my article about Le Macabre and my skull I was contacted by Del Fuller, another fan of Le Macabre who was actually fortunate enough to visit Le Macabre before it closed in the 70’s.  He and his friend Keith Ryan have supplied me with the following images of other Le Macabre memorabilia and were generous enough to let me share it with the internet.  Please enjoy!

This is a different post card made to promote Le Macabre.  Skeletons and naked ladies were kind of Le Macabre’s thing.

This is an original menu from Le Macabre.  They used the same image from my postcard on the cover.  It is kind of fascinating to see how they made changes to the menu by just crossing things off and adding other things in.

This is a smaller skull than mine measuring about 3″ by 2 1/4″.  We aren’t quite sure of its practical purpose, but it was used on the tables at Le Macabre and has “Saturday 17^th Jan 1959″ written in ink on the bottom.
We still aren’t sure as to whether they sold Le Macabre skulls or if patrons just swiped them, making Del, Keith, and I lucky enough to own what we have.  Either way, it is a fascinating place, and I am so grateful to learn from other collectors and fans about the objects I am passionate about.

The post The Le Macabre Skull appeared first on The Collector Gene.

When my brother and I were little, my mother was a stay-at-home mom.  This meant that she had a little bit more time to spend making awesome homemade Halloween costumes for us, and more time to decorate the house.  My parents have a really nice antique Halloween collection that we decorate with, and my mom even went as far as to decorate both my brother’s and my bedrooms for the holiday (with more modern decorations that we couldn’t hurt, I might add. That antique stuff is fragile and too valuable for a kid to play with.).  We even hosted a Halloween party for our friends.  As great as all of that was, one of the things I looked forward to most in the month of October was bringing out our awesome “monster collection.”

Just like we do today, we frequented lots of flea markets and yard sales while I was growing up, and those flea markets and yard sales often had cheap toys for us to buy.  I don’t remember what started our monster collection, but at some point we decided to start amassing monster toys of all shapes and sizes to add to our growing army.  The guidelines to joining the monster collection weren’t very stringent.  If it was a toy that looked in anyway monstery, be it a space monster, a Universal monster, a fantasy monster, or other type of monster, it was eligible for monster collection membership.  The kicker with the monster collection was that it only came out for the month of October and went away on November 1. (These were more my brothers rules than I.  He had far more patience than I ever did.)  I can honestly say that I didn’t always have the patience to wait to play with the monster collection, and would sometimes search it out in the basement with the Halloween decorations during other months of the year.  Even so, it made those toys all the more special when they surfaced from the basement on October 1.

The monster collection contained everything from Masters of the Universe figures to Thundercats to Dungeons and Dragons monsters to downright weird and obscure stuff.

These are just a few of the figures from our collection.  The little guy on the left was one of my favorites.  His name is Mudblup, and he hails from the Teddy Ruxpin line of action figures.  The Frankenstein in the middle was made by Imperial Toys, and though he isn’t too rare, he plays an integral part in the story of how I came to own a Monster-Nik.  On the right is a Nightmare Warriors Geronimo figure.  Nightmare Warriors is one obscure toy line, and yet I can honestly say that I had one as a kid.  I could go on and on about the many toy lines represented in this massive collection, but I really do want to talk about Monster-Niks, so I will refrain from doing so.

I can’t tell you where I got most of the monsters in my monster collection, but I do remember getting the Imperial Frankenstein in the picture above.  I got him one summer at a 5 & 10 while visiting my dad at an antique car show.  (My dad has two antique Fords.)  I know that most people don’t associate the 90’s with 5 & 10 stores, but they did briefly exist into my childhood.  By the time I got this Frankenstein he was a few years old, but I didn’t care.  I was probably about four years old at the time and I thought he was neat.  I really liked that Frankenstein for some reason and my love for it would later prompt my mother into bestowing upon me my precious Monster-Nik.  One day the following October I remember my mother calling me into her room while she was setting up Halloween decorations and saying to me “I got you something to go with your Frankenstein.” And then she pulled out the Monster-Nik Frankenstein and said, “It’s Frankenstein’s son!”

From that day forward he was known as “Baby Frankenstein” by me, and he and his father went on many adventures with the monster collection.  My parents had actually bought Baby Frankenstein new when they were college students as a bit of a gag.  He had remained in a box for years until my mom rediscovered him and gave him to me.  At the time we had no idea that he was a Monster-Nik or that he had much value, but Monster-Niks are highly collectible and bring some serious cash when they show up on the market nowadays.

You might be wondering how I know that this guy is a Monster-Nik.  I can’t find a marking on him to save my life.  Well, carded examples exist that show the name, and through internet magic I learned about them.  They made three different monsters:  Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and King Kong.  All three Monster-Niks come in a variety of colors and outfits, and bootleg figures called “Monster Men” also exist that look like cheap, naked Monster-Niks.  You might also be wondering about the name “Monster-Nik”.  Well, Baby Frankenstein’s body is a troll doll body.  Even though Trolls were called Trolls when I was a kid, they were called Wishniks in the 60’s and 70’s.  So there you go.  Wishnik, Monster-Nik, it makes sense.  I was also lucky enough to receive a Monster-Nik King Kong for Christmas a few years ago in my stocking.

King Kong is probably missing his original outfit, but I don’t think my mom paid more than $1 for him, so I think she did just fine.  Without the baby outfit it is easier to see the troll body underneath.  What a weird and wonderful toy line.  It is a shame that they don’t make ‘em like this today.

These days I don’t put away my monsters at the end of October.  Baby Frankenstein and his father are on display all year round.  I am sad to say that I don’t have enough room to display the entire monster collection all year, but every now and then it finds its way up to the surface and my brother and I have a good time reminiscing about our favorite monsters.

Like father, like son.

The post I Know I Am a Child of the 80’s and 90’s… But I Totally Had a Monster-Nik Growing Up. appeared first on The Collector Gene.

If you are like me, your first thought at reading the company name “Randotti” is that it is an Italian company.  It seriously sounds like an Italian name to me.  The company was actually created, however, by the Smith’s.  That is, Randy and Dotti Smith to be exact (Get it? Randy and Dotti … Randotti.  It makes sense).  I could regurgitate the history of the Randotti Company, but the best way to learn about Randy Smith is to read his biography here on a website created by Randy’s son that is dedicated to the Smith family legacy.

The story of this small company is amazing to me.  They made a sustainable business out of creating souvenirs for Disneyland, and Disneyland only (later Disney World as well).  It just goes to show how successful Disneyland was.  Randotti skulls come in several different sizes, and some are even a little bit more specific to rides in the parks.  For example, there is a skull with an eye patch made for Pirates of the Caribbean.  The company also produced tikis, statuary, and tomb stones for The Haunted Mansion.  When I first learned about Randotti skulls, I thought that they didn’t start selling them in the parks until the creation of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion, but they began selling souvenirs in the parks in 1956, just one year into Disneyland’s existence.  The earliest Randotti products are marked only with an “rj”, but the late 60’s skulls forward are very clearly marked and dated.

I think these skulls are beautifully sculpted and cast, and I can understand why they were so popular as souvenirs, and why they are still highly sought after today. I have to admit, though, I can’t imagine carrying one of these around the park with me all day.  The skull I have is just shy of being life sized, and is cast in solid plaster.  I actually weighed it, and it’s about five pounds.   I know that isn’t that much, but still, it goes to show that people liked these things so much that they would slightly inconvenience themselves by carrying a five-pound weight around Disneyland all day in order to own one.

One of the coolest features about Randotti skulls is that they glow in the dark, and the glow feature works as well today as it did in 1974 when my skull was created.  I can only imagine how cool it must have looked to see an entire display of these guys in a souvenir stand at Disneyland at night.

Randotti products are highly sought after today by Disney theme park collectors, especially with collectors of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.  They may not be based on any specific characters or attractions at Disneyland, but for those who visited the parks between 1956 and, I believe, sometime in the ‘80’s, they were a very memorable staple of the souvenir stands in Adventureland, New Orleans Square, and in the Main Street Magic Shop.  Randotti souvenirs are a rare example of Disney theme park merchandise created by an outside source that are just as highly prized as many of the official Disney products of their day.

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This love affair most likely began in June 1961 when I was a mere child of eight.  My big brother, who was finishing up his junior year, brought home his yearbook.  (For whatever reason, I don’t believe he bought the yearbooks from his freshman and sophomore years, probably because they cost some outlandish amount of money like $7.)  However, I was riveted by that 1961 yearbook filled with photos of attractive teenagers and their many activities.  And it was even better the following year when I could see my own brother in many of the photos that chronicled his senior year.  I was probably fascinated all the more because, as the editor of his yearbook, my brother talked about its production throughout the school year.

Fast forward seven or eight years to my own high school days.  Again, due to cost, I didn’t purchase my freshman yearbook.  However, after that, I made sure that a copy was reserved for me come June.  It was great fun pouring over the pictures and collecting the signatures of friends, classmates, and teachers.  And, like my brother, I ended up as an editor-in-chief of the yearbook in my senior year, too.

The humor of a high school yearbook wasn’t lost on me.  Certainly, there were photos of teachers that produced snickers.  There were names of underclassmen that were funny.  Occasionally, there was a photo that was humorously awkward.  Sometimes inappropriate things managed to sneak in without the adult advisors catching them.  Take, for instance, this group shot of my homeroom class that appeared in the 1969 edition of my high school yearbook.  Note that there are definitely two, possibly three, obscene gestures.  Indeed, this particular yearbook is positively filled with obscene gestures that passed muster and weren’t censored.

I think I have now established the fact that high school yearbooks always have appealed to me, so you can imagine my delight when National Lampoon published the National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody in 1974. (That’s the copyright date on the old copy I’m looking at.  According to Wikipedia, it was published in 1973.) It was a yearbook that was very reminiscent of my brother’s yearbooks of the early 1960’s and really not all that different from the yearbooks of my own high school years in the late 1960’s.  Of course, the cover that would be displayed on the newsstand was ever so slightly different.

It foretold of the naughty, sometimes vulgar, but always hysterically funny delights that awaited inside the magazine.  Anyone who has ever perused an American high school yearbook instantly recognizes the format the minute they turn the magazine over and see the cover of the 1964 Kaleidoscope out of Dacron, Ohio’s C. Estes Kefauver High School

and then begin turning the pages to uncover the messages  from the principal and superintendent, the title page and contents page, the dedication, the in memorium, etc.  (Obviously, Dacron sounds a lot like Akron.  For us younger folks who don’t remember him, C. Estes Kefauver was Adlai Stevenson’s vice presidential running mate in 1956.)

The National Lampoon yearbook parody is pure genius.  I defy anyone who has ever been a high school student to read through it and not break out into peals of laughter when he recognizes some lame/inane aspect of his own high school experience.  Take, for instance, one of the pages from the senior section

or the “Best of the Class” page.

Everything is spot on, from the inscriptions written by students and teachers to the owner of the yearbook, one Larry Kroger, to the local ads at the back of the yearbook.

The freshman page is just one example of the depth and breadth of humor throughout the book.  Over fifteen hundred teeny tiny faces are crammed onto the page, not one of which would be remotely recognizable without a magnifying glass.  Below are the names of the students, names like G. Willikers, V. Neck, E. Leet, T. Bone, B. Ware, and O. Kay.  Somehow, you just picture the writers of this parody sitting around a table throwing out every crazy letter and word combination they can think of, each one trying to top the other.

While on the subject of the writers, I should note that the head writers and editors of this parody are Doug Kenney, a founder of National Lampoon Magazine and later a co-writer of National Lampoon’s Animal House and Caddyshack, and P. J. O’Rourke, who today is a well-respected author and political satirist.  Indeed, O’Rourke got into the spirit of things while working on the yearbook parody and appears as female gym teacher, Miss Marilyn Armbruster.  As seen on the activities page below, Miss Armbruster was also  advisor to the Hall Monitors.

And if that previously mentioned name, Larry Kroger, and the movie Animal House ring any bells, it’s because Doug Kenney used the yearbook parody as a jumping off point for the movie and some of its characters.

As if the yearbook isn’t enough, there’s more high school nostalgia at the back of the magazine.  Here, one finds parodies of the school’s basketball program, the school newspaper, the literary magazine, the U.S. history book, Larry Kroger’s permanent record and his English IV final exam.

The original price of the National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody was $2.50.  A few months after its publication, I purchased a copy for a mere $1.25 at a local discount magazine stand where they offered half-price publications with their titles cut off.  Considering the number of giggles and guffaws it has produced, it’s absolutely priceless.

A few years back, I managed to find an intact original copy in good condition for a few dollars and snapped it up.  And just a month ago, I was rooting through boxes of cookbooks at a yard sale when I spotted a rather skinny little paperback book squashed between two larger books.  As soon as I read the title on the spine, I scooped it up for fifty cents.  Recently, on eBay, copies of the magazine have sold from a low of $3 on up to $60.  The average price is around $20-$25.  Clearly, I’m not the only one who appreciates the humor in this book.

Yes, I like yearbooks, any and all.  When I find a real vintage yearbook at a yard sale or flea market that’s $5 or less, I’ll usually buy it.  I may keep it or sell it, but I always flip through it and read it.  Yearbooks are genuine time capsules of that unique period in life called high school.  I’ve never met one I didn’t like, but the one I like the most isn’t a real yearbook at all.  It’s an insanely creative compilation of every high school yearbook ever published, and it’s as funny today as it was nearly forty years ago.

Thank you, National Lampoon. Whenever I need a good belly laugh, I know exactly where to turn.

Addendum by Ben:

My parents introduced me to the National Lampoon’s hilarious 1964 yearbook parody when I was a junior in high school, at a time when I was already pointing out some of the absurdity in my own yearbooks (although unlike my mom, I did not serve on my school’s yearbook staff). Since then, I have revisited the book dozens of times over the years, only to find new jokes that I somehow managed to miss even after countless readings.

I don’t know if the National Lampoon staff thought that nearly 40 years after its publication that people who weren’t even alive to read it the first time would find it funny, but I think it speaks to the concept of yearbooks in general. They are a high school tradition that might change a little bit, but by and large, they are a part of high school that will remain the same and never go away.

In my senior yearbook, I used the opportunity to make a few references to this particular yearbook. I said I was frequently seen with Madison Avenue Jones, a transfer student from a pre-Civil Rights era who is almost always obscured in photographs throughout the yearbook. I also said I was a member of our school’s Slide Rule Club, even though I’ve never used a slide rule in my life.

Perhaps growing up surrounded by antiques makes me a prime candidate for enjoying something like this that was hearkening back to a bygone era even when it was published, but I get the feeling that anyone who has handled a yearbook (i.e. every high school graduate) can find something like this hilarious. If I had crazy amounts of money to spend on whatever pet project I could conceive, I would build the Estes Kefauver High School and make it into a shrine to this one issue of National Lampoon. That’s how much I absolutely love this yearbook.

I have a few friends who have discovered and enjoyed every page and every detail. This is probably one of the funniest things you will ever experience, so if you can’t find one at a flea market or yard sale like we seem to do with a certain regularity, I think it’s well worth the $20 or $25 investment.

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The 1970’s was a strange decade for Disney.  Walt himself had passed away in 1966, and the company struggled to regain its footing after he was gone.  Not everything Disney did in the ‘70’s was bad, but the quality just wasn’t quite what it had been in previous decades.  Because of these struggles, I think Walt Disney Productions failed to market its 1970’s features half as well as it had marketed movies in the past.  A prime example of this was 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  It was a major motion picture with a decent cast of colorful characters, and yet only one toy was ever made for the film.  That toy was the Bedknobs and Broomsticks Action Bed.

This toy was made by Horsman in 1972, and was based on the magic bed in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  I don’t know if Horsman ever planned to make dolls of any of the other characters from the movie, but by not making anything else they really limited the play value of this toy.  The bed is battery powered.  When you switch it on, it rolls across the floor, and when it bumps into things, it switches direction and keeps going.  A bed alone would have been super lame, so they did produce a single doll that came with it, a doll of Angela Lansbury’s character in the movie, Mrs. Price.

I know what you are thinking. That doll looks exactly like Angela Lansbury!  No?  Well, it was the ‘70’s, and toy companies really didn’t care if they made their toys look exactly like the person they were representing.  I guess kids had more imagination back them and didn’t need their doll to look exactly like Angela Lansbury.  Personally, I think the fact that it really looks nothing like Angela Lansbury adds to the charm and wackiness of the toy.  At least they got the outfit sort of right so you have some idea who this doll is supposed to be.

My example, which my brother gave me for Christmas a few years ago, came with a messed up box.  I still have some panels from the box, but my example is basically a loose, but unplayed-with example.  Still, it is a very rare toy, so I’ll take what I can get.  Honestly, I wanted a loose example anyway, so it all worked out.  The box is all plastic except for a cardboard base for the bed to sit on, so it is very fragile.  Boxed examples do come up every now and again though because I believe this toy was a slow seller, and a lot of the existing examples are old store stock or simply never got played with.  You know, it’s the type of toy a grandparent or weird aunt who doesn’t know what you are really into gives you, and you politely thank them and then shove the toy in a closet and forget about it.

Let’s face it, not every kid in 1972 was jonesing for an Angela Lansbury action figure, and with no other characters from the movie to choose from, I think this toy was pretty much a flop.  However, it is a fascinating little piece of history from the time when the Disney Company was going through its awkward post-Walt Disney phase.  Honestly, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is not a bad movie.  It is better than a lot of the live action movies Disney had produced in decades prior to the 1970’s.  Unfortunately, it exists in the time period between The Jungle Book and The Little Mermaid though, so it doesn’t really get the attention it deserves.

Today this toy appeals to Disney fans as well as collectors of TV and movie dolls and battery-op toys, so it is fairly desirable.  It also appeals to people with cheeky senses of humor who giggle at the thought of Angel Lansbury on her “action bed”.  Even though I enjoy Disneyana, I would be lying if I said that my sense of humor didn’t factor in to why I wanted this toy.

The Bedknobs and Broomsticks Action Bed is a prime example of “What were they thinking?” marketing.  Only making a toy of one character from a movie with a large ensemble cast – what were they thinking?  Choosing Angela Lansbury instead of the relatable-to-children kid characters from the movie –  what were they thinking?  Making a toy of a mature woman on a vibrating action bed – seriously, what were they thinking?!?  The Bedknobs and Broomsticks Action Bed certainly is a special unicorn galloping through the vast field of Disney collectibles.

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“Who loves ya, baby?”

Okay, now that I have the obligatory introduction to any mention of the character Kojak, I can talk about this action figure that I picked up earlier this year. That’s right!  There’s a Kojak action figure!

I’m always sort of relieved I grew up in the 1980s, because the action figures of the 1970s left a little something to be desired, at least in the United States. Beyond Mego’s superheroes and Micronauts and Kenner’s Star Wars, action figures of the 1970s were a little more grounded in reality than the robots, demons, barbarians, sorcerers, and other strange denizens that made up my toy collection in the following decades. As such, many action figure lines drew their inspiration from the heroes that kids were familiar with on television.

Mego certainly capitalized on the vast majority of available TV licenses. They produced everything from Planet of the Apes to Star Trek to Starsky and Hutch to even One Million B.C., and they were all produced in the same 8-inch scale, meaning that they could all interact with one another.

Excel Toy Corporation must have been desperate to steal a little bit of success away from Mego. In the early 1970s, the company was responsible for two different toy lines based on historical characters that were in a slightly larger 9-1/2-inch scale. In their Legends of the West line, they made figures of Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Jesse James, among others. In their Military Legends line, they covered everyone from George Washington all the way to General Dwight Eisenhower and even Admiral William Halsey, Jr. Hey, it was all public domain, so I guess they took whoever their toy sculptors could churn out.

However, producing a Kojak action figure was a bit of a departure. It was in an 8-inch scale, just like the Mego figures, so Telly Savalas could fight General Ursus or the Gorn or any number of other Mego figures and not look out of place…well, in terms of scale at least. Kojak was on television before I was born, but growing up in a household of retro sensibilities, I know enough about the show to know he was tough but loveable cop. Cops are the good guys, cops carry guns…good enough for an action figure, I suppose!

Collectible toys have come a long way in terms of sculpting, but even in the 1970s, especially with Mego, you could tell what actor the sculptor was going for in most cases. Other than being bald, I think it’s safe to say Kojak looks absolutely nothing like Telly Savalas. Then again, I don’t think there were many bald action figures in 1976. In that regard, I guess you could say Excel Toy Corporation was a pioneer!

Speaking of 1976, by that point, Kojak had been on the air for about three seasons. I think that’s a smart move. Many times these days, when action figures are designed to promote a particular television show or movie, the rights are often snapped up before their popularity has been proven. This is why toys from last year’s “Green Lantern” movie are still warming pegs even after deep, deep discounts. By 1976, Kojak’s popularity had been proven, so even if the toy looked nothing like the actor, at least name recognition carried a lot of weight by that point.

Normally, I don’t gravitate toward items that were made before I was born, since I don’t have that childhood attachment to them like I do with stuff made post-1983, but I thought this figure was too cool to pass up when I saw it for sale at a toy show in Maryland in January. It was marked $50, which I didn’t think was a bad price considering it was still on the card, but the bargain hunter in me needed to be sated that day, and so I got the price knocked down to $40 without too much trouble.

The card is a little rough, and I’m certainly not a fan of that weird blue spot on his face, but otherwise, I’d say it’s in decent shape. Here’s the thing: I cannot possibly imagine trying to find a loose complete example.

Finding one in nice shape with the outfit intact with his hat and gun? That’s probably not too difficult a task. Finding one with the lollipops and the glasses, which were so small and clear that I spent several minutes figuring out if they were still in the package? Yeah, that’s going to prove a challenge. However, I have to give Excel credit for including these small but key accessories. In lieu of not being able to smoke on television after 1971, Kojak sucking on lollipops became one of the most memorable images of 1970s television.

What I love about this piece is that it’s sort of a one-and-done line. If I wanted to go crazy, I’d try and track down Kojak in his blue outfit instead of this pinstripe number here, along with his trench coat and accessory set, and if I was really insane, I’d look for the mail-away police headquarters set complete with “bad guy” action figure (I’m not kidding, that’s what they called the only other figure they made for this line), but I won’t. I don’t need an entire collection to let people who see my collection know that indeed they made a Kojak action figure. It’s ridiculous and fun in its own way, which makes it stand out, and if it achieves those things, I’m going to want to own it at some point.

BONUS: USELESS TRIVIA! When you collect the kinds of things that I do, you end up learning way too much about pop culture. So here are two utterly useless facts that you’ll never get asked at pub trivia:

1.)    DID YOU KNOW that Telly Savalas has a connection to the 1980s toy line Go-Bots? He provided the voice of the villain Magmar in the 1986 Go-Bots movie “Go-Bots: War of the Rock Lords.” By that logic, there are technically two Telly Savalas action figures. I’d say the Kojak figure looks slightly more like Savalas than the Rock Lords Magmar figure, but only VERY slightly.

2.)    DID YOU KNOW that in 2005, the USA network rebooted Kojak and cast Ving Rhames as the title character? Not surprisingly, it lasted one season. I know Hollywood is completely out of original ideas, but I don’t know what it’s going to take to get them to stop rebooting TV shows from the 1960s or 1970s. Or if you’re going to do it, do something crazy like reboot “Man From Atlantis.”

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