Imperial Toys Spooky Kooky oily jigglers, Part 2

Click here for Part 1 of the Imperial Toys Spooky Kooky oily jigglers article.

Spooky Kooky Boxes- A Sordid Story Told in Packaging

Updated: 04/24/16: Spooky Kookys sold as "Hanging Bandits" in vending machine

The Spooky boxes deserved a whole separate article all to themselves!

Note: The companies that were responsible for the manufacturing, distribution and sales of the Spooky Kooky jigglers are long gone, or not responding to my queries, so all we have to go by are the actual Kookys themselves, the boxes that occasionally come up for sale on ebay, books, catalogs and news articles of the period, memories of the fans of Spooky Kookys, and useful information from discussions at the Universal Monster Army by longtime monster collectors.

From all of these pieces, a coherent narrative can be assembled.

1970's PACKAGING: SAFE FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES

Inspiration: Aurora model kit- "The Forgotten Prisoner"
From the book "Classic Plastic Model Kits"

The designs of the Spooky Kooky jigglers were clearly inspired by the Aurora monster kit craze, particularly "The Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Mare". The Kookys were, from the very beginning, designed as dungeon prisoner/monsters, with shackles, pained expressions and intentionally-tattered molded-on clothing. They had Gigantor mold marks on them (drawing of a mountain, with the letters "T" and "S" intertwined, all inside a circle). Gigantor's logo had appeared on many, many different lines of rubber jigglers in the 70's, not just these.

Imperial Toys (Los Angeles, Ca.) distributed and sold them in the US starting in 1971. However, the box packaging and the cards completely de-emphasized the "dungeon prisoners" concept and sold them as "Your Good Luck Pal".  The graphics and lettering were colorful and psychedelic, akin to the mod, hip and groovy look of contemporary youth pop culture.

1971 Imperial Toys card. You'll be lucky when you Love him, Squeeze him.
Just don't torture him.

1971 Imperial Toys box. (photo from ebay)

I never really thought much about "why?", until I bought the book "Aurora Monster Scenes- The Most Controversial Toys of a Generation". Then an epiphany hit me: Aurora's Monster Scenes model kit line was derailed by bad press and protests against "torture toys" in 1971. That could possibly make Imperial Toys back off on selling their little forgotten prisoners in their original context. If that were the case, the Kookys would need a re-branding to make them palatable to parents and sidestep any similar controversy. Note: this is conjecture, based on the principle of cause/effect and the axiom of "All companies are out to make money".

"Monster Scenes" book details the brouhaha over "torture toys"

The ploy was quite successful, as Spooky Kookys were safely sold in toy stores for years without ruffling any feathers. They were also packaged in boxes labelled "Haunted Kooky Animals" (???) by Imperial Toys- still deftly avoiding any controversy. Parents were OK with it, and kids knew better... they knew exactly what the Kookys were: dungeon prisoners.

Imperial Toys "Haunted Kooky Animals" box.
Photo by Bobby Beeman/Facebook

1980's PACKAGING: A DARKER TURN

Finally, in 1981 with the switch to dungeon cardbacks, Imperial Toys sold Spooky Kookys in the way they were intended.

1981 Imperial Toys card packaging. (photo from ebay)

Based on all existing evidence, Imperial Toys let their trademark for the name "Spooky Kooky" lapse in 1980, although they still continued to sell them through 1981. Thanks to a discussion on the Universal Monster Army website, some new factoids had emerged about Spooky Kookys in the 80's.

After Imperial stopped carrying the line, Topstone Industries (Danbury, CT) (the rubber monster mask people) took over distributing the same dungeon prisoner jigglers, albeit with some mold modifications- the removal of the word "BRABO", but retaining the "HONG KONG" stamps.

The Topstone-era jigglers were sold out of a new countertop box... one that is stunningly politically incorrect. The Kookys (no longer being called "Spooky Kookys"... trademark... Imperial... you know the drill) were illustrated on the box artwork as dungeon prisoners, with "Is it CRUEL or a well deserved punishment?" and "Are you afraid of this kind of punishment?" in bold letters blatantly placed on the box. Thanks to Ray Castille at UMA, we've been able to date this box to 1985.

1985 Topstone box. Photo by Mac McDermott/Facebook

Only four (of the original six) types of the jigglers were depicted on the box art, and photos of the filled box on Facebook also show only the four characters: Kooky #1 [Chains], Kooky #2 [Bloody Nose], Kooky #3 [Skelly], Kooky #4 [Goatee] occupying the box. Missing from the lineup were: Kooky #5 [Boots], Kooky #6 [Leaves].

1990's PACKAGING: CRUEL! AND TORTURE!

The last time that Spooky Kookys were sold at retail was in the mid 1990's. They were packaged in two different boxes. The two boxes share identical, newly-drawn artwork of the prisoner jigglers, but have different backgrounds. One says only "CRUEL!" on the box top, and the other only says "TORTURE".

"CRUEL!" box, c. 1996 (Photo from ebay)

"TORTURE" box, c. 1996 (Photo courtesy of John Frick)

The designs show a lot of influence from the 1980's Topstone box art. And, just like 80's-era Topstone, the same four jigglers were present and the same two were absent.

Just wow... what a difference 25 years makes. Going from "Your Good Luck Pal" to gleefully encouraging kids to torture their toys!

As a tribute to the Topstone, "CRUEL!" and "TORTURE" boxes (and to have some fun!), I created a pastiche dungeon diorama scene that incorporates Spooky Kookys with modern Skeleton Warriors (by October Toys). The size of the Skeleton Warriors made them compatible with Spooky Kookys, so here they are!

Diorama of Spooky Kookys and Skeleton Warriors. Click to enlarge image

VENDING MACHINE MADNESS

I had just found out that a current ebay auction has Spooky Kookys for sale, along with a vending machine header card! The Kookys are definitely the mid-1990's reissues. The header card advertises them as "Hanging Bandits", which could sidestep the problem of the torture theme. If they're bandits, they sort-of deserve it, right? The "50" probably means 50 cents, which is in-line with the price of an individual jiggler at Halloween stores at the time.

"Hanging Bandits" vending machine header card. Courtesy of counts_crypt.

Special thanks to Ray Castille and Shannon "DarkMonkeyGod" at UMA for all of the new box information. Also thanks to nb$ and counts_crypt for additional info about the vending machine card.

Got additional information, or corrections, or photos to share? Write to me and I will gladly incorporate any new information in this blog!

RELATED PAGES:
Imperial Toys Spooky Kooky jigglers, Part 1 
Imperial Toys Spooky Kooky jigglers, Part 2
Spooky Kooky Dungeon Dioramas
Imperial Toys Loony Kooky jigglers
A Collection of Toy Skeletons