Sat 20 Dec 2008
Glow Globs
Posted by anaglyph under Nostalgia
[14] Comments
Nurse Myra sent me a link the other day to a site that had some of the semi-ghoulish toys that I used to love as a kid.* I was surprised to see there a set of ‘Kooky Spookies’ a toy that I had all but forgotten. When I was younger† I was completely fascinated by glow-in-the-dark things, and had numerous toys that had this property, along with several kinds of luminous paints, one of which had an extremely peculiar smell that I can evoke to this day.
I was immediately prompted to see if I could locate another of my favourites, ‘Glow Globs’ – a kind of luminous plasticene that came in three ‘ghostly’ colours – and as is often the way with teh internets, I got my nostalgia fix within seconds. I herewith present to you Glow Globs, courtesy of ToyRanch’s Flickr set.
So now yez al know what you can get me for Christmas.
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*I’m sure that comes as no surprise to a single one of you.
†And heck, even to this day!
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I want a spirograph
Man our toys sucked didn’t they?
I was always a bit slack at Maths, but in 3rd grade our teacher announced that at the end of the year the top Maths student would get a new Fuzzy Felt set.
BOY was it mine!!
Anonymous? How did that happen? I won the Fuzzy Felt!
The Monster Factory make fantastic Fuzzy Felt cards (of one of which, anaglyph is the proud possessor). An elderly woman came into the bookshop to buy another one, but said “Oh you have to have glue on hand when you take them out of the packet because they are not stuck down very well”. Ahem. I pity the poor child getting a card from Great-Aunt Mary.
Nurse Myra: I used to have a Spirograph too – another of my favourite toys. Can you see any influence on my adult life?
Malach: You appear to have missed the point of my post. It doesn’t entirely surprise me.
Anonymous/Pil: I hear that’s how Stephen Hawking started out too.
Cissy Strutt: She was probably disappointed, on buying that spiffy-looking Lego ‘house’ for her grandson, to find the box contained nothing but a whole heap o’ blocks.
They kinda look like this stuff living under my kitchen table. Feed them a few times a month, they don’t make much of a fuss.
MI: If they glow in the dark you might be onto a new money-making venture!
pretty, look here glow sticks
glow necklaces
Wow! For years I’ve wondered if I only imagined these, but I know I had that box. It’s burned into my brain.
Where did you get the picture?
Hello James M. The pic is from ToyRanch’s Flickr set (like I said…)
I used to have these as a kid. I was (and still am) facinated by glowing things. I’m still trying to find anyone who still may have some they would like to sell. The blue ones glowed the best, IMO. Modern blue glowies don’t glow the same.
When I read “glob”, I had Flubber in mind, followed by those gross slimy stuff that come with plastic body parts (eyes, nose, ears, etc.) some kids from my time used to bring to school. They were interesting, though, but I could never get myself to touch or smell them.
I used to be heavily fascinated with glow-in-the-dark stuff as well when I was a kid. My brothers and I, back then, plagued our parents all the time to buy us Nido (powdered milk) — even though we still had plenty of it — because they came with glow-in-the-dark wall stickers of heavenly bodies. We would then arrange these stickers in our room, mimicking some constellations. Cool times, really cool times.
The texture of Glow Globs was more like modelling clay or plasticene than that soft ‘flubber’ like stuff. It was great to model, but as I recall you had to be careful with it, because it got dirty rather easily.