![]() ![]() You could fold him, flatten him, tie his arms and legs around his body and Stretch would always, inevitably, return to his original shape, content to await further abuse with his perpetual worried expression. The "fun" of Stretch was to pull on his arms and legs and expand him to twice his original 12" length (or more-we were always too scared to go further lest he'd snap). Molded out of thick, slick vinyl with very little detail, Stretch's skin was elastic.at least under certain circumstances.and filled with a fluid material that allowed you to squish and pull the figure, much like you can do with modern day "stress balls." His body was the real "magic" of the toy. His head was sculpted out of hard plastic and painted with fine details (like eye highlights). When you pulled him out he sat staring, fixated, at some far-off enemy or quest with a tense expression not unlike Six-Million-Dollar Man Steve Austin's. Dressed in either a regulation wrestling costume or his underpants depending on how you interpreted it (no one really explained his attire and I never asked), Stretch came in a big, fire-colored box, encased in two halves of hard Styrofoam. He was a stocky blonde man with a lantern jaw, stern face and dark tan. Stretch was, in short "Plasticman" from the DC comic book line. ![]() While rubber is used today in various levels of elasticity and liquidity for all manner of things, the standard texture of the latex of the popular toys of the 60s and 70s has given way to much stronger and more durable materials, resulting in a higher quality of safety and satisfaction, but far fewer memories! In some cases, the compound becomes "feral," that is, becomes a dangerous or destructive entity (see my companion article where I discuss the acidity of the rubber in the late 60s toys "The Outer Space Men"). The problem in most cases was that no one predicted the shelf life of a lot of these jelly-like materials and many of them have not held up over time. Post 1950s EVERYTHING was suddenly made of some form of polymer-based compound just waiting to contaminate a future landfill. These evolved into small multi-limbed, bug-eyed, slobbering late-60s latex monstrosities based on the work of popular underground artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth ("Rat Fink").įor a while it seemed rubber, latex and plastic were the waves of the future. They were usually shaped as something "blecchy" like a spider, bat or worm and were perfect for chasing your siblings around the house. ![]() These spawned popular 60s "gumball" toys and cheap drugstore novelty or impulse items. These were rubber-almost-unto-liquid gelatin toys shaped like creatures: benevolent animals, soft-edged monsters, cartoony humans. One can only imagine the evolution of the rubber-made toy.a bouncing ball.a chew toy for an animal or teething child.īy the late 50s and early 60s the first "jigglers" came on the scene. The substance we know today as rubber was first officially cultivated around the 1700s by the French but it appears to have been in use as far back as 1600 BC (well, that's what Wikipedia says anyway). One is left to assume that rubber toys have been in existence as long as rubber trees have existed (the originals were South American) and produced the raw materials for this product. My quest to seek out the history of rubber as a use for playthings didn't yield much relevant information. Amongst these was the weird and wonderful Plasticman-influenced "Stretch Armstrong," a pliable, stretchable wonder of modern petrol-technology that has achieved such legendary status his line has been revived and expanded over the years several times, his artifacts command top-dollar on eBay and there's even a Hollywood movie in the works!īut who, or what, really WAS Stretch Armstrong? Somewhere in the land in-between were science fiction and fantasy toys and "action figures," which were dolls with a "masculine" edge for boys OR girls. In general, the message seemed to be that dolls were for girls guns and sports were for boys. Stretch Armstrong was, to those of us who remember him in the mid-to-late 70s, a sort of icon up there with "Star Wars" tie-in toys and the legendary sci-fi based "Micronauts." Toys of the era were fairly black-and-white in gender.there were "girls" toys that were all pink and lace and pretty things and "boy" toys: rugged trucks, mock-firearms and action/adventure themed games.
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