THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GERRY ANDERSON 1929 - 2012, CREATOR OF THUNDERBIRDS & CENTURY 21 TOYS.

Wednesday, 6 January 2010

STRANGE CHANGE: SADLY I NEVER DID!



I always wanted one of these cool American STRANGE CHANGE toys by Mattel back in the 60's. My nephew Andrew had one after one of his family visited the States back then. I remember it had the US 2 pin plug, which somehow they managed to get working here in 3 pin UK! You can see from the You Tube commercial that it basically heated up blocks of gloop and turned them into monsters and the like in a small oven! Wow! Like a lab in your own bedroom! I was so envious I can almost taste it even now. I remember clearly the T.Rex on the box - pictured below. I WANTED THAT T.REX SO BADLY! The closest I got to strange changing was a toy that allowed you to solidify plastic insects and monsters in clear and coloured plastics. The name of the toy escapes me but I'd rather have strange changed! Anyone out there had one or got one still?

3 comments:

nyrath said...

The toy that allows one to solidify plastic insects is probably the Mattel Creepy Crawler ThingMaker.

paul said...

Never had a Strange Change machine (or seen one for real) but looking at that clip I think I vastly prefer the Mattel Thingmaker. Which I did and do have, and which still gets an outing now and then so the kids can have a go. Using (what was) a NOS oven by Mattel Germany, new Goop I got off the internet (not quite the same but it does work) as well as some leftover original Goop from when I was young (which still works(!) and has that unmistakable and -so- nostalgic smell!).

Best
--
Paul

WOTAN said...

Plasticraft! I had one of those resin embedding sets, stunk the house out but at least we had lots of keyrings with bits of fern and dead flies in them!

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