Doll-A-Day 2023 #261: Oily Jiggler Dog

Well today I tried to photograph a doll from the recent doll shows, and my camera wouldn't come on! I had put a just charged battery in it, so it should have worked, but it didn't. So, I have to resort to some pictures I had on the computer. This is a childhood toy of mine, that I came across at the house recently. He's lucky he survived really, because the box he was in was on the landing, where so many things melted during the fire. He's what is known as an 'oily jiggler'.

  And why is he called that? He's made of a very floppy rubber, and has sort of a sheen to him.

I can't quite make out the letters on his butt, but he does say 1967, which sounds about right. A lot of the oily jigglers were made by Russ Berrie.

  I have him because when I was about 5, (which would be 1967), my sister brought home a green one just like him, only slightly larger. (My guy is about 6 inches long.) He belonged to a friend of hers. The friend had decided that he had died, and my sister was to sew him a black velvet funeral suit to be buried in. This bothered me to no end. I found it very distressing. I begged my sister not to let the friend bury him.  For one thing, I had fallen in love. I wanted that dog so much! Also, the thought of the poor guy going under ground forever really upset me. I had to rescue him! Also, my sister told me to shut up, and made the funeral suit. I still have a tiny stuffed cat she made out of the leftover velvet. 

  How she got a velvet suit on a sticky rubber dog with floppy limbs, I don't remember. I'm sure it wasn't easy. And so she took him back to school, and, I assume, to his sad fate. I loved him so much that I searched for one of my own. I couldn't find a green one, as I recall, and bought this orange one instead. 

  He's a bit worse for wear these days. As you might have noticed, I had to staple his ear back together. That's his fault, for being so pleasurable to bite. I think his tail suffered the same fate, except I lost the loose piece.

  The cigar box he's laying on has a story. It was my Monkees box, in which I kept all my Monkees articles and pictures, bubble gum cards, and the fake autographed picture my sister and I sent away for from a magazine. My sister decorated it for me with coloured construction paper, and put a huge thumbtack in the lid so it could be more easily opened. Sadly, at some point after I was grown, and it was stored in Mom's attic, she threw away the contents! This was especially disappointing for Emma when she was a kid, and became a big Monkees fan. 

  Also in the box with the Monkees box and the oily jiggler dog was a little jewelry box with these guys in it.

  The rats are Rat Finks. They were quite a thing in those days. These came from a bubble gum machine, and snapped onto a plastic ring, for wearing. The babies are very tiny, especially the orange one. He had a cradle the same colour as him, but it got lost. The red thing on the left is the magnetic bee, (missing the magnet out of the bottom), from a Tickle Bee game. You used a stylus with a magnet in it to drag the bee around a track. Ours had a chicken coop and other things you lulled him through, but I think there were different ones. The red thing between the two top Rat Finks is the jewel from a Haunted House game by Ideal. I don't remember ever playing it as a game, but instead of a board, the game had a three dimensional  haunted house. I just liked to play with the house. The jewel is all I have left. Mom threw the house away. Funny the bits I have from the Tickle Bee game and the Haunted House game are the tiniest pieces.

  Anyway, that's the 'doll' for today. Wedding details coming soon! See you tomorrow.

The Toys of the Past, Christmas and Otherwise: Lori and Family's Toys from the 40's, 50's, and 60's

  Remember back in December of 2018, when I showed you some very old Christmas photos belonging to my friend Lori? (You can find those posts by clicking Toys of Christmas Past in the sidebar. She got the best stuff! Well, I'm back, with a few more of Lori's old photos from Christmas, birthdays, and Easter. These pictures all have dolls and toys. Some of them need identifying, so if you recognize them, please leave a comment.

  The first picture is obviously Christmas, but Lori is cuddling a toy rabbit, and whatever that other toy is.

  

  Note the tiger slippers. I had several pairs of slippers as a kid in the 60's that had rubber animal heads on them. I had a few pairs with duck heads, and one with cat heads. Apart from the animals, I had a pair with clown heads. Everything wasn't licensed characters then.  

    As per most of the rest of Lori's gifts, the one she's sitting in front of here is pretty valuable these days. It's the Ding a Ling Bridge set by Topper Toys.

The Ding A Lings were a series of robot toys. You can watch a commercial for the Ding A Lings HERE. The huge structure they are running around on in the commercial makes me think of The Doozers from Fraggle Rock, and King Ding and his huge machine make me think of the Power Rangers Megazord.  The bridge set came with some Ding A Lings, but there were others that were available separately. Down in the bottom right corner, you'll see Lori's stuffed Lassie toy. My sister had one too, which I think she actually still has. Even more surprising, since Norma, Lori's mom, threw out or sold all of Lori's toys, Lori still has her Lassie toy too. Of course, Lori's Lassie is bigger than my sister's. because Lori had the best stuff.

  Here's another Christmas picture. In this one there's a Toss Across game on the right. Do they still make Toss Across? It was produced for decades, but I bet they don't make it any more. It was basically a bean bag version of Tic Tac Toe. These days it has pretty much been replaced by video games and 'corn hole'. There's a play pen with a doll. The doll looks like possibly an Ideal Snoozie Thumbelina or Snuggle Softee, or a Horsman doll. I can't find any doll online wearing that outfit though. It looks a lot like a Horsman Sofskin doll, but this doll looks like it has a soft, stuffed body. The Sofskin has a solid body. If anybody can recognize the doll or the boxes in the background and to the left of the play pen, let me know in a comment. **UPDATE** I don't know where my mind was, but Teresa F., a reader pointed out that the box in the background says 'knit'. I did some more looking, and it seems like it's probably a Kenner Knit-O-Matic automatic knitting machine.  

This picture from the same Christmas shows Lori with that doll, and her niece and nephew with something in a box, a helicopter, and an airplane. (Lori's sister is much older than she is, and her niece and nephew are closer to her age than her sister is.) The airplane looks like it might be remote controlled. The little rocking chair next to Lori's chair was really common back then too.

Speaking of Lori's older sister, here she is on her second Christmas in 1948. It looks like she was pretty spoiled too! Look at that haul! There's a doll with a stroller, a drum, an ironing board, a top, a wagon of blocks, a ball, another doll, a little red wagon, what looks like maybe Tinkertoys or Lincoln Logs, in the cannister right behind the smaller doll and the red wagon, a stuffed Panda bear, and a rocking horse. There are some other things I can't see well enough to recognize under the ironing board.   

Sister's second Christmas, 1948.

Here's her sister and a friend on Christmas 1955, There's a doll, a doll crib, and possibly some doll house furniture on the table in front of the doll. 

Christmas 1955.

This picture from January of 1956 shows her with what is probably that doll she got for Christmas.

January 1956.

There aren't any more Christmas pictures, but there are still plenty more pictures with toys. 

  This picture of Lori and her nephew features the same cowgirl outfit and toy German Shepherd I showed you in an earlier post.

That German Shephard looks pretty awesome.

  The doll in this birthday party picture looks like an Ideal doll, maybe a Belly Button Baby. (You can see my Belly Button Baby HERE and HERE.)

  Th next picture looks like Easter. The toy five year old Lori is holding looks like Mother Goose

  This picture is from another Easter. This time Lori has a cute pink poodle

Another Easter and a  bunny and...what is that cute thing? An elephant? (Those ears are pretty big.) 

  Here are Lori and her nephew on yet another Easter, with their bunnies.

Another Easter and another dog. (Or is that a lion? Hard to say really.) That's no surprise. These days Lori has EIGHT dogs! 

Her niece has some sort of plaid animal.

  Okay. The plaid animal is a bunny.

  It must be Lori's nephew's birthday. Charlie Brown is sitting behind them. Looks like the birthday presenst included a five piece truck set. Anybody recognize the toy right below the cake?

  That's it for today. Next time on The Toys of the Past we'll see some toys from my childhood pictures. There weren't many from Christmas, but there are pictures of my toys.

The Toys of Christmas Past: Lori's Photos Part One: Dolls,Horses,and Games

  Not my past this time. I've shown you most of the old photos, containing toys, from my childhood in various posts. These toys are from my friend Lori's past. In going through her old photos recently I found that there were tons of photos from Christmases,birthdays, and Easters,and that, going by the photos, she got just about every cool toy going at the time. Lori was born in 1961,(making her a few months older than I am, which I always like to point out!),so that should give you some idea of the dolls and toys you're going to see. I know for a fact that she had a lot of toys that don't show up in the photos,like Mrs. Beasley and Little Miss No Name,and Flatsy. Lori seemed to have gotten most of the popular dolls of the day. That continued until her mom figured out that Lori was more into animals than dolls. And before you ask, no,she no longer has ANY of these toys. Lori's mom Norma didn't let dust gather on anything. She kept everything moving with yearly yard sales.
  Lori developed her love of horses early on.That may be why she got Marx's Thunderbolt horse. (Or maybe Thunderbolt started her obsession with horses. Who knows? Which came first,the horse,or the...horse?) You can see her Thunderbolt horse in the photo below. You can watch a commercial for the Johnny West toys,including Jane and Thunderbolt HERE. One question after watching it: Why would Geronimo,an Apache,name his horse Comanche? The Comanches were a rival tribe who attacked the Apaches for years. Just another case of the 'any old Indian name will do' kind of thing that used to be done. Just saying.

Christmas,1968. Lori had all the coolest games too! The Green Ghost game was made by Transogram, and is HIGHLY collectible today,selling for MUCH more than Norma could have gotten at her yard sale. It GLOWED IN THE DARK! Does it get any better than that? It was reisssued in the 1990's by Marx. The Strange Change toy was made by Mattel. A heat chamber 'transformed' rubber cubes into dinosaurs,spiders,etc. and back again. You can see a video about the toy HERE. Looks like a Hockey game there too. On the right is a brown horse truck and trailer. We were talking about this post yesterday and one thing Lori fondly recalled was that!

 Thunderbolt was made by Marx as part of the Johnny West line. You can see some dolls from the line in my posts HERE and HERE.

Right behind Thunderbolt's butt there looks to be a Jane West doll. There's that horse truck and trailer. Now days Lori has the full sized version. I've managed to figure out that this one is by Tonka,and is called a 'horse van',but I can not find any pictures of this exact one online.

The doll is Little Lost Baby,made by Ideal in 1968. She had three changeable faces inside her somewhat solid hood. I managed to find a close up of the box lid online.
 

'See her sleep!' Isn't that kind of like 'watch paint dry!'?

She used batteries, and cried or laughed at the flip of a switch.

The catalog ad says to 'secretly' flip the switch. Like you can keep it a secret from yourself that it was you who made her laugh or cry. Kids with cloudy minds only,please.

 This doll even had a tag on it explaining that it was a little lost baby. You know,like somebody left it on your doorstep. This doll is waaaaay more me than Lori! I would have loved this. Lori would have left the annoying crying kid on the doorstep. You can see a video of the doll HERE.  
  The Little Red Schoolhouse was made by Remco. It fit their Heidi and friends dolls,although it proudly stated on the box that it was
                                                    'FOR EVERY TINY DOLL MADE'
Well! Ok then. I wonder what 'tiny doll' Lori had. From the looks of things,probably ALL of them.
  Moving on,(Or, rather, back I guess) to Christmas 1967.

Lori, Christmas morning, 1967.

Little Lori, Christmas 1967.

  Hasbro's Don't Spill the Beans was a game that was made for years. Maybe it's even still being made. 
 

Lori,enjoying her Don't Spill the Beans game.

Cadaco made the Bas-Ket game,described as 'real basketball in miniature'.

The Kenner Big Burger Grill,made in 1967, used a 150 Watt light bulb to actually cook. Provided in the set were powder packets that could be mixed with water to make buns and pancakes. (Sounds pretty gross.) You could actually cook real hamburgers,eggs,etc. You can watch a video of a Big Burger Grill in use HERE. The thing I'd like to point out here is, Lori still doesn't cook. No matter how much Norma tried,Lori,to paraphrase Doctor Zaius, could not be domesticated.
  That thing out front with the big eyes is an Incredible Edibles set. Like the Thingmaker oven it was another of the overheated toys that could take your skin off. The tubes contained candy liquid called 'gobble degoop' which you used in the molds to make candy centipedes, etc. I'm guessing this went over a little better with Lori than the Big Burger Grill. Incredible Edibles was similar to the Thingmaker,the difference being that the Thingmaker used liquid goop, that was probably very toxic, in it's molds and heated in the Thingmaker to make rubber toys. My kids had a similar thing called the Dollymaker Oven. I had to open all the windows when they used it because of the headache inducing smell,so they got pretty mad they weren't allowed to use it in the winter!
   I can't tell which doll that is. Anybody? From the colour of the box,maybe a Horsman doll? The other possibility is Deluxe Reading/Topper's Baby Party doll. That doll would be the right year and came wearing a pale pink outfit with short legs.Plus it would go along with all the other cool toys Lori got. Baby Party ran on batteries, and blew a party horn,blew up balloons,blew bubbles with a bubble pipe, and 'plays with party favours'. (In other words, blew party favours? Just say so!)
   In the lower right corner you'll see the Mattel Bugs Bunny talking hand puppet.

 Of course. Everybody knows that Lori is Bugs Bunny and I'm Daffy Duck. Right Lori? They didn't make a Daffy puppet, but I did always kind of want the Porky Pig one.

  Holy rarities Batman! Lori really did have everything! Including the rare Remco Elly and Andy Baby Mouse Twins 3 Story Treehouse! That's it on the left.

There's the Incredible Edibles again,lower right.

  Awwwww! I like baby mice! I think if I had known Lori when we were this little,(we met in middle school.),I would have wanted to go to her house and covet all her toys...and she wouldn't have let me come.
  That's the Schaper Voodoo Doll Game 'for boys and girls'. Um,well. That explains a lot,doesn't it Lori? Today Lori loves horror movies,and going on ghost hunts. I'm starting to see where that stuff comes from.
 

 My mom would NEVER have bought me this game...although I might have liked it actually.
   Tricky Tommy Turtle was a battery operated toy that rolled along,or stopped, if you blew a whistle. You can see a commercial for him HERE.
  That's the Ideal Motorific Action Highway 77.  It's a slot car set. Slot cars are toy cars with pins on the bottom that run on a track with a slot in the road where the pin fits. Slot car racing is still popular amongst some toy enthusiasts.You can see the Motorific Action Highway in use  HERE.

  One thing I notice here, and have to applaud Lori's parents, Bruce and Norma, for: Like my parents, they bought not only 'girly' toys for their girl,but also stuff that would have been considered 'boy toys' in those days. The horse van, the Action Highway 77 toy,the Hockey and Bas-Ket game,and more stuff we'll see in upcoming posts,would have been stuff mainly bought for boys when we were kids. That's very unfair. Even now I've been in the toy aisle and heard parents say to their kids, "That's the boy/girl stuff. Your aisle is over here!" Whatever! Let the kid play with whatever they like.

Lori with her mom,Norma. If only Norma had known what those toys were going to be worth...Nah. She still would have sold them. Norma wasn't one to have stuff hanging around if it wasn't in use. Even Bruce had to keep moving! (Just kidding.)

  Of course, maybe it's just that Bruce and Norma bought toys they would have liked...

Lori and her dad,Bruce. Lori's parents were like second parents to me. I miss them both.

  We'll see more of Lori's Christmas photos and her toys and dolls  in our next post.