Creepy Crawlers

These molds have been repurposed to make gummy bugs.

I came across the remnants of two sets of these while cleaning the garage at my parents. These toys are a government safety bureaucrat's nightmare -an exposed heating element that will sear off the pads of your fingertips if touched.

Sadly the Plastigoop is no longer available. Some company acquired the name from Mattell and tried to revive it many years later but the formulation was not quite right. Also, at the time there was an edible food grade Plastigoop on the market but that was rather short lived, probably because it was incredibly messy and stained clothing.

I had that, and it rated just above lawn darts as far as safety went. The "edible" Plastigoop tasted exactly as one might expect something named Plastigoop to taste.

Mattel followed up on this with, if my failing memory serves, another burn hazard called "Incredible Edibles." The heading unit had a loud this time, and it and the mold were found. It came with various food grade goos you could bake to something close to Gummi Bear feel, in the cheapest artificial flavors imaginable (I preferred the root beer, of course). Of course I could use the IE goop in my Creepy Crawler mold, but it burned very easily.

Should be "lid," not "loud."

You can still buy the old metal molds with Plasti-Goop and GoopFX included on Amazon. You will have to use your own home oven though.

My son had one of these and it was a pain to use and a burn hazard as was mentioned above.

Had at least three toys with "dangerous" heating elements: Thingmaker, Vac-u-form, and a cotton-candy maker. Played with them for hours, unsupervised, never got burned. Don't need to add that you couldn't have any of those today.

Cotton-candy maker was cool. Came with colored sugars and paper cones to pick up the spun sugar. Then my older brother, "destroyer of things," decided to try using Jell-o instead of sugar. End of toy.

Dear Mindful Webworker,

Are you attempting to get us to believe that children, at some time in the distant past, were actually smart enough to avoid hot objects without PhD degree holders supervising? Preposterous! You've either been watching way too much S/F or you've found a stash of funny weed somewhere.

Sincerly,

Expat47

I had one of those, and lawn darts and a wood burning set. Furthermore I never wore a helmet while bicycling. And evidence suggests I survived.

We did manage to survive the 50s and 60s using dangerous toys. But we learned through the school of hard knocks and pain about what not to do. And had some, but not much, common sense in choosing our recreational activities. Being very free range kids injuries were accepted but the destruction of a good pair of pants was not.

But some things we did know not to mess with, unlike the F state idiot who got into kissing poisonous snakes recently.

Expat47: "You've either been watching way too much S/F or you've found a stash of funny weed somewhere."

It's true, I often do feel as if I'm a visitor from another dimension.

But it's merely time-travel.

@MF: Damn! I was hoping for funny weed and that you'd share.

I played with mercury as a kid and never suffered from dain bramage.