After wrapping prezzies and sweeping leaves we've settled down to watch Nightmare Before Christmas, one of my must-see DVD's during the festive break.
Tim Burton really hit the nail on the head with Nightmare and its a well-deserved classic already, as much a part of Christmas TV as Raymond Brigg's The Snowman. The songs are simply wonderful and the characters to die for. I'm surprised its not been on tour as a musical ... or should that be gruesical! ha ha
The three Trick or Treaters in their bathtub always remind me of one of the first toys I found as a collector at a car boot sale on the early 1990's, a small Snoopy lead in his bathtub full of soap suds and scrubbing his back with a back brush!
It was basically white plastic with red and black parts and friction drive. It was marked underneath with some odd Company name but I can't recall which. I adored that Snoopy!
Shortly after meeting Snoopy I came across a plastic cat sat next to an upturned water tub. He was dining on a large fish. It reminded me of Top Cat eating al fresco in an alley way and I fell in love with it.
It was only years later that I realised that the kite monogram underneath meant that it was a Jack Rosenthal toy, but by this stage I'd sold it! Should you ever wish to search for an image of this then be warned! - 'feasting pussy' is a porn search! Always include the words vintage, toy and plastic as well!
Any thread about large toy tubs can't not include that great cauldron of the Sixties featured on the Witch model by Aurora.
The Witch was the last of the monster models that survived mine and my Brothers' childhood from the Sixties and Seventies. It came with me as a built-up to my first flat when I was 17 in 1978.
My big Bro moved in with his motorbikes, where he lived happily with the Witch on my wardrobe till 1983, when I returned from three years away in Europe to find it gone, missing, vamooshed! My big Bro had no idea where she'd gone and it marked the high tide mark of our monster model childhood.
My final dip in the water is a find I made in Germany a couple of years ago. Alas I found this but had no way of transporting it home so it remained on the market seller's table!
The toy was a dolls' tin and plastic bathroom by the German toy maker Martin
Fuchs of Zindorf. Somewhere on it will be the small red fox face logo.
[puppenhausmusuem.de]
It really is a thing of beauty and I regret not dipping deeper onto my wallet but it was rather a few too many Euro's.
Fuchs also made tin and plastic kitchens and other household items for dolls and the attention to detail is stunning.
So, as we unwrap our soap on a rope sports car this Christmas give a thought to the old toys inspired by water butts and bathtime and let me know if you have any like Diver Dan, The Mouse Trap tub, a Squirting toilet, any custom tubs you made for GI Joe or Major Matt and not forgetting Billy Blastoff!
