Were off to a Tropical World today. Its a standalone jungle thing but similar to the hot houses that used to feature in Zoos when I was a kid. Places like Chester, Belle Vue and Blackpool.
Hot houses were always full of strange exotic smells like warm bananas and butterfly kak. there were probably bigger smells in there too like alligator and monkey.
After seeing the real thing the biggest treat always was to choose a couple of rubber toy animals in the zoo shop.
You know, big locusts, giant spiders and long floppy snakes. For some reason it seemed to be just insects, reptiles and amphibians that were rubberised.
There were boxes and boxes of them and slowly but surely I had my own rubber zoo at home.
My favourite was a large rubber frog. It was cold to the touch and so clammy I couldn't stop handling it!
Did you get rubber animals at the zoo readers?
I absolutely loved the zoo shops, for that reason. I always bought the nastiest looking insect or biggest spider i could find. Ill have to fetch my collection out, but meanwhile heres a earlier post with my Teachers Pets: http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2011/04/little-blog-of-horrors.html
ReplyDeleteI was imoressed with Tropical World's shop in Leeds Bill. Just like the old days, full of toy animals. they weren't as slimey and clammy as they were when we were kids though!
DeleteI have always lived within an hour's drive of the Philadelphia Zoo which is claimed to be the oldest zoo in U.S. history.The first visit I an remember was when I was about 1972.I can remember as we were leaving the park,we encountered a vendor with a rolling cart full of rubber beasties.My brother and I chose these huge rubber Pterodactyls attached by an elastic string to a wooden stick. When you shook the stick ,the Ptero's huge rubber wings flapped in a hypnotic fashion.We had those big,heavy toys for a long time.They don't make 'em like that any more!
ReplyDeleteWhen dinosaurs ruled the earth eh Bri! I imagine you had great fun with those Ptero's! The perfect monster to fight Major Matt or GI Joe!
DeleteHad loads of these, some served as outer space monsters!
ReplyDeleteThe perfect space creatures I agree Andy. All the best toy monsters were made of rubber.
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