Click here for Part 1 of the Imperial Toys Spooky Kooky oily jigglers article.
Spooky Kooky Boxes- A Sordid Story Told in Packaging
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" |
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) |
"Monster Scenes" book details the brouhaha over "torture toys" |
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) |
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 |
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) |
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. |
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
This is wonderful! Thanks for sharing. I remember playing with these toys as a kid and getting them from the Indian Village Souvenir shop in St Ignace Michigan. I recall we went multiple times, and they were always there. I went again in the last few years, and I looked for them. I had the hardest time finding these things online. I was chatting with AI, googling and searching YouTube using inputs like "prisoner jiggly skeleton toy" and couldn't find it. Now I've got "Skelly" on my eBay wish list. It's funny you named him that. We used to have an inflatable skeleton that sat at our dinner table around Halloween that we named Skelly.
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