Too old to have had one as a kid, I did however find Stretch Armstrongs all the time at car boot sales. In the 1990's. Sometimes he was full dressed in his boxers ans vest, sometimes not. He was always stiff however and in need of a massage.
To unstiffen him I would place him along the top of a radiator wrapped in a towel. Being full of corn syrup, which hardens when it cools, the heat would loosen everything up again and give the figure the stretchiness he was famous for.
As a toy dealer years ago these loose figures always sold well but the postage was quite high. Old Stretch was weighty.
I never found a boxed version of the figure or his pet dog, Fetch Armstrong. Much harder to find again was the Stretch Monster. I wonder if there was a stretch limo too?
Did you have a Stretch Armstrong?
Never had one, friends' kids did 'though, so I stretched him a couple of times. There was also Superman and Batman ones I'm sure, and maybe a few other superhero versions.
ReplyDeleteWow, didn't know about the super hero stretchies Kid. They must be very collectable. I reckon these were the only corn syrup toys around. Can't think of any others.
DeleteThe Stretch Hulk and Stretch Serpent fetch insane prices. There was also a later line of Stretch toys (1990) that included Stretch and Fetch that were a much smaller scale. I recall those as I was working at Target and may have been the toy dept mgr at that time. They weren't boxed due to the smaller scale, they were blistered packed on a card to be hung on a peg.
ReplyDeleteI never owned a Stretch but a neighbor did back in the 70s. To me though, Stretch had no real appeal.
Never seen the Hulk and the Serpent Lance! They must be scarce. That's interesting about the 1990 run of Stretch toys too. I didn't know that. It may well have been this later range which I found at car boot sales in the Nineties. The blister packs must have got trashed on the hooks, Stretch was just so heavy!
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