Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Make and Play Toys

Mattel Make and Play toys were designed to offer children hours of constructive, creative fun. Each product from this line is a virtual mini toy factory in itself, offering kids the satisfaction of making his own toys! People my own age have fond memories of the Thingmaker Fright Factory, and Creepy Crawlers. In the next post, we'll take a closer look at the art of the very popular CREEPLE PEEPLE monster maker-- but first (for the uninitiated) let's check out this wonderfully designed booklet from 1967 showcasing all of the Make and Play titles.












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6 comments:

  1. Mr. CavinJune 13, 2012

    Man all this stuff was so great. Just look at the cover to this catalog! That sort of thing was total catnip to Little Cavin for sure. I had a lot of the late seventies versions of this same stuff, Green Slime in a trashcan, and the Mad Scientist stuff that came later on. I would love to have the blister card for that Skeletons expansion kit. I would love to have a band called Electric Thingmaker.

    Oddly, this sort of thing came up in conversation somewhere else earlier this week. YouTube has hours of awesome commercials for all our favorite childhood toys, of course. My very favorite so far--a perfect collection of sound and narration that I would love to have on my MP3 player--is this one for the Strange Change Machine. Though as a band name that one sounds a little too much like they'd play Dead covers.

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  2. Unca JeffyJune 13, 2012

    I've got deep memories of that shrunken head pic! Fun to play AND fun to learn...two for the price of one, maw!

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  3. Mr. CavinJune 13, 2012

    Ha ha. I had that lame wood working set, too. It came with lots of thin planks of balsa wood--weak as wet cardboard--that I was supposed to saw in half and glue together into something awesome! The glue was just rubber cement that was way stronger than the wood and totally made me woozy.

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  4. Mr. KarswellJune 13, 2012

    My favorite you make it toy kit was the Shrunken Head one with Vincent Price on the box... I actually still have one I made out of a rotten old apple.

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  5. DrazenJune 15, 2012

    Didn't you post that shrunken head apple pic once?
    What a great booklet.

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  6. Mr. KarswellJune 15, 2012

    Yes! It's can be found over at THOIA at the end of this sotry:

    http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/04/sinister-return-of-priestess-of-baal.html

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