@bogleech My friends and I found these delightful…things…at Krogers today, and we were wondering if you had any idea where they come from!
They were in the 10-for-10 bin with other assorted “dinosaurs” and animals, but only these had tags for a guy’s company(?) “James Paul Creature” but there’s no mention of him on the net.
They’re adorable, and you’re the expert! Any clues?
I won the bottom right one from a carnival game in 2001! These have been made and remade by different companies for possibly decades, and have no official name. I’ve never seen them for sale brand new though, just at thrift stores and stuff!
Whoever originally sculpted their molds had to be the same person as the classic rubber finger puppet monsters:
Apparently these finger puppets can no longer be produced at all because for something like fifty or sixty years they were made in the same factory from the same set of molds until the molds wore out and broke. Archie Mcphee subsequently commissioned and still sells a new set.
Hearing that they no longer can make the originals kind of breaks my heart. These things were some of my favorite toys when I was really little.
Same, they were sold everywhere when I was a kid and I did notice them phase out in favor of smaller, cheaper versions that weren’t even jiggly
I mean these are precious too obviously but the big, detailed, wiggly originals are now really hard to find and I’ve seen them go for $40 on ebay.