I’m glad someone asked!! Actually a few people did!
I’ve talked about this before, but when rubber became even cheaper and more readily available in the 1950′s there was a massive surge of all-rubber toys, however the materials they used had a tendency to be oily and smelly, so companies actually ran with that and a great deal of rubber toys had a “grossout” or “horror” theme!
Here are some surviving MUMZEYS:
By now, if you find any of these toys they should be dry, odorless, a bit faded and a little stiffer. They hold up decently enough but few of us under 60 will ever know what they were really like brand new from a dime store.
Here are some other varieties:
These toys are collectively referred to as “oily jigglers” or just “jigglers” and have their own collector’s market. Some artists have also made beautiful brand new takes on them, which sell for a crapload of money.
This one was actually designed by Matt Furie (Pepe’s dad!) and is coming to this store, for instance.
This was one of my foster kittens almost 5 years ago. She just came in as a stray….
And with her brother, Persimmon so you can see why she was my Teensy Tansy.
she’s got a funny lookin nose! did she have surgery or an injury, or was she born with it?
When she was just a bitty baby she had a big ol’ abscess on the end of her nose. That’s why there’s no hair there and her nostrils are funny looking. You can juuuust see the remains of the healing abscess on her nose in the baby pictures
