Here is another weird one. Is this something you came across in your days as a toy trader ? Did you ever play it ?
The Flying Purple People Eater was originally a 1958 novelty song by Sheb Wooley. There was also a 1988 children's movie (in which Sheb Wooley appeared), a game by Waddingtons, and several toy versions.
The Waddingtons Purple People Eater is described as being something like the game Operation. The object was to remove tiny plastic people (who were not purple) from the mouth of a sleeping Monster, without waking him up.
The monster was a large, hideous, slimly, octopus-like creature, with two eyes, one of which glows red, and a menacing growl (batteries not included). The colour scheme is purple/red/green/yellow.
The box provides a fair amount of information:
The Electrically frightening 'feely' monster game of skill.
The Purple People Eater is asleep. Can you save the people from his horrible clutches ?
If you wake him up you will hear him growl as his eye lights up in anger. Caught in his clutches you will feel his tentacles quiver on your hand.
Will you be able to rescue the people through his gapping jaw ? Take care, because if you wake him he will get very angry !
The creature does not match the description in the song (a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple alien). The Waddingtons monster does not appear able to fly, he has two eyes, and no horn.
From 6 Years, 2 - 4 players. It dates from the early 1980s sometime, with different sources saying 1979, 1980, 1981, or 1982. I could not find any photographs showing a copyright date, to pin this down.
A bag of 16 small red plastic people was included, for the Monster to chomp on. But in reality, the Flying Purple People Eater only ate purple people, so the little red people should be perfectly safe.
The retail price was £7.99 according to this old TV ad.
This is another one of those toys or games where you can only wonder what was going through the minds of the creators. It does not look to have been a big hit, and there are very few sales listings for it today.
Two photographs from Worthpoint.
What do you think?
Paul Adams from New Zealand
I thought it was the monster who was purple, not its victims.
ReplyDeleteMy nephew had this as a boy, back in the early eighties. Its quite scary for a small child to be honest! Bill
ReplyDeleteIt certainly scares me.
ReplyDeleteYes, I thought it was the monster that was purple, but listen to the song and the Flying Purple People Eater clearly says that he eats purple people. But he could still be purple himself.
Sure Looks Strange To Me...!
ReplyDelete