I was trying tell someone about a series of Halloween costumes from my childhood. They didn't remember or get what I was trying explain so I decided to track it down on the Internet. The costume in question was something called Kooky Spooks which got a lot of people confused with a line of toys called Kooky Spookys. One was a terrible line of inflatable head Halloween costumes and the other a series of ghost figures. The later are almost cute and the former were for lame wads.
The Kooky Spooks were a series of costumes that included an inflatable plastic head and make up to paint your own face. It's sort of a goofy idea you have a plastic head on top of your own head. Its not even a mask just an extra head. This was back in the days when most costumes were a vinyl smock and a plastic mask that came out of box. The good ones looked basically like the character you were trying to be, the bad ones had that character printed on the front along with their name. So Chachi or something like that. I remember the TG&Y people getting made at me for opening up the little boxes to see if the smock was cool or not. So the inflated head thing isn't totally out of the scope of reason for the time.
The Kooky Spooks had five or six variations. One seemed to be a green pointy nosed woblin goblin, another a black cat and scarred cat. There was a pumpkin, a goofy looking witch, a weird alien called spacey casey, some sort of red devil that looked to be sitting on your head. And finally a skull with a candle on it that actually looked sort of cool. Well cool except for the smock thing that had all their pictures on it. Lame! I am going to put the year on these things around 1980.
The Kooky Spookys were a line of little ghost toys from Hasbro, that came out in 1968. They were cute if a little contrived as they were presented as hippys. The toys glowed in the dark which was fun they needed this as they were more figurines than toys. They had names like Teena Terror, Big Brother Mortimer and Daddy Booregard. You will see some in this little flyer, I think this is the first series there appears to have been more or there were many items for each figure to hold and be posed with.
Someone who blogs under the name have phaser will travel has actually done some of his own custom Kooky Spooks that you can see here. I think they are pretty nice and get the feel of the original toys right though they seem to have taken a bit of a turn away from the hippy flavor of Teena Terror and Momma Kaskit.
There was apparently a mail away haunted house for the figurines as well. It was not really anything other than a cardboard display with punch out windows for each of the six figures. I am calling the figures but someone has mentioned they were intended as finger puppets. Thanks go out to the enchanted world of rankin bass for this info.
In writing this post I wanted to thank Snagg's News and The Universal Monster Army Forum for pictures I have used.
The Kooky Spooks were a series of costumes that included an inflatable plastic head and make up to paint your own face. It's sort of a goofy idea you have a plastic head on top of your own head. Its not even a mask just an extra head. This was back in the days when most costumes were a vinyl smock and a plastic mask that came out of box. The good ones looked basically like the character you were trying to be, the bad ones had that character printed on the front along with their name. So Chachi or something like that. I remember the TG&Y people getting made at me for opening up the little boxes to see if the smock was cool or not. So the inflated head thing isn't totally out of the scope of reason for the time.
The Kooky Spookys were a line of little ghost toys from Hasbro, that came out in 1968. They were cute if a little contrived as they were presented as hippys. The toys glowed in the dark which was fun they needed this as they were more figurines than toys. They had names like Teena Terror, Big Brother Mortimer and Daddy Booregard. You will see some in this little flyer, I think this is the first series there appears to have been more or there were many items for each figure to hold and be posed with.
Someone who blogs under the name have phaser will travel has actually done some of his own custom Kooky Spooks that you can see here. I think they are pretty nice and get the feel of the original toys right though they seem to have taken a bit of a turn away from the hippy flavor of Teena Terror and Momma Kaskit.
In writing this post I wanted to thank Snagg's News and The Universal Monster Army Forum for pictures I have used.
2 comments:
Thanks for the link to the first two of my customized "Kooky Spookys", based on the original creator's earlier designs. I now have a slideshow explaining the history of Hasbro's "Kooky Spookys" and showcasing several more customs as well: photopeach.com/album/ln26vp.
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