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11/28/2004: Christmas Junk ‘04: Silly Putty!

I didn’t grow up in a Christmas stocking kind of household. At least, not at first. I was a spoiled brat, but my parents never got into stuffing stockings. We had them only for decorative purposes, and it drove me fucking crazy. Since my family opens gifts at midnight after an eighty course meal on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day itself was never too important to me. In some ways, it was actually quite depressing — we had nothing to do and more or less atrophied until New Year’s Eve. I’d usually spend Christmas morning at my best friend’s house across the street — his family opened their shit in the morning, and every year, I’d watch my buddy and his two brothers have multiple orgasms while sorting through their stocking loot. Stocking loot?! What was this?! Where was mine?!I hated having a reason to cry on Christmas morning.

Eventually, I persuaded my parents to make use of our red socks. Never really wanted anything big outta the arrangement — just some Crayola crayons, miniature Milton Bradley games, stickers, yadda yadda. There’s just something inherently cool about plucking mystery gifts out of a big furry sock. If Christmas is Christ’s big birthday bash, the stocking is the loot bag you get before the drive home. Sometimes, there’s Chapstick inside.

One of the more notable stuffers? Silly Putty, man. Now out in a holiday two-pack, containing putties of both the red and green varieties. Neat, but nothing beats the original flesh color, capable of lifting Jeffy right outta The Family Circus. Oh well — they’re still bouncy, with the same weird odor that makes Silly Putty in all of its many incarnations impossible to put down. Nobody thinks to ask for two Silly Putty eggs for one occasion, but lemma tell ya, it’s terrific. No matter how much you screw up one of the mounds — no matter how much carpet hair, Windex, spit or sand you manage to get on it, there’s still another waiting to be dismantled. This is what Christmas is all about.

Random Putty Facts: Silly Putty been around since the 50s, and its original retail price of a buck hasn’t appreciated much in over half of a century — most stores sell Silly Putty for less than two dollars “an egg” these days. It’s been available with glitter enhancements, in fluorescent shades and with metallic hues. The bouncy wonderful gunk existed without a purpose for quite some time before becoming a toy. Initially, researchers tried to develop a scientific use for it. Never happened, but many years after its debut as a plaything, astronauts found a new use for Silly Putty: as an adhesive to hold down their doodads in zero gravity environments. Perhaps I should’ve done this in bullet point form.

PS: No, I couldn’t resist mashing ‘em together to see what new mutant color would surface. I’m just like you.

Hooray for Christmas junk! Silly Putty is cool, but that smell always grossed me out.
We open one gift Xmas Eve, and the rest in the morning. One year, we nagged into being allowed to open all the presents on the 24th. Christmas was so anticlimactic that we went right back to tradition the next year.

Hey matt I was wondering where do you pick up the playmobil advent calender every year. I was at Target and the bithes there were sold out.

When Tom Hanks was doing the talk show circuit a few weeks back for Polar Express, I thought it was too bad no one brought up The Moxy Show. The characters Moxy and Flea were the first regular use of motion capture for animation that I was aware of at the time.

http://www.awn.com/asifa-sf/1999/0999.html
"In 1993 Brad de Graff joined their staff to head the new digital media division. Working with creative director Stuart Cudlitz and animation director George Evelyn they developed several motion capture/performance animation projects including Moxy for Turner, 1994. They wired comic Bob ‘Bobcat’ Goldthwait to electronic sensors and as he moved about and talked computers moved an animated talking dog named Moxy on the TV screen."

http://www.thepuppetstudio.com/Articles3.html
"The technology starts at $10,000 to rent and moves upwards to half a million to own so don’t expect it in your living room soon. The most visible motion capture puppet is currently Moxy, the Cartoon Network spokesdog voiced by Bobcat Goldthwait."

We’ve always done stockings, and I gotta tell you, two years ago not only did I get the best stocking stuffer, but the best present of the year. "A Clash Of Kings" by George RR Martin. Don’t know why, out of all the stuff I got that year, that a book was the best gift, but when you hit your 20s, Christmas loses meaning a little more every year. Sad.

i’ve got to give it to you.. that weird amalgam of green and red putty is pure abstract art at it’s finest.. - bravo..

We’ve always done stockings, and there’s always a bazillion little candies from Cost Plus World Market in there. Botan rice candy, weird frenchy chocolate, marzipan fruits, chocolate golf balls and basketballs, British christmas crackers with tissue crowns and cheap magic tricks inside, rose and violet pastilles, and Pocky or Fran.

I’ve never received actual Christmas gifts in my stocking the way they imply you will in the commercials, like how the animated Santa calls for travel board games for stocking stuffers, or how the stuffed Toy Story characters pop out of the stockings singing a very off-key "Silver Bells." Does anyone do that? I always chalked that up as one of those inferior Christmas traditions, like having the presents under the tree before Christmas, opening them all at once when the day arrives, and reading from the Bible.

Matt- I feel as though your childhood was incomplete. We’re a big stocking household, and the socks get better every year- last year mine included a CD along with the staples (bubble bath, Archie comics and the Lifesavers Xmas Story book). I’ve had the same sock since birth and man is it stretched out….so every year I get more stuff!

Matt-One more thing, I am anxiously awaiting Dec. 1st both as the start to Xmas on X-E and also as the day I set up my tree(hey- I’m a poet!) and I am wondering have you ever seen the "Muppet Family Xmas" special??? If a review of THAT gem appears on XE someday, this site will officially have beaten all my expectations of greatness. Wait- I guess it already has!

long time reader, first post..
you never mentioned the best thing about Silly Putty, rolling it up to make the high bounce balls…yay! I have an excuse to say BALLS

I’m 21 and I still get a stocking from my parents. Some things that I usually always find in there are trading cards, Hallmark ornaments (or generic Christmas ornaments), those Reese’s trees that they only have at Christmas time (so good…like crack…), and, from time to time, SILLY PUTTY!

I cannot wait for Christmas. I’ve already put up my tree (practically filled with Star Wars ornaments) and I’ve watched Pee-Wee’s Christmas Special, the true start of the season in my household. But after last year, the Playmobile Advent Calendar will now be a staple of the holidays for me, hopefully. No pressure, Matt!

ooooh, mixed silly putty is pretty. Yay for Christmas! Looking forward to the advent calendar. This will be my third X-E Christmas, and it’s one of the few traditions we’ve got going these days. I mean, with the death of the sitcom and rise of reality TV, we’ve lost one of the great holiday traditions: the "Special Christmas Episode." I don’t see The Apprentice having and episode where everyone’s trapped in an airport on Christmas Eve in a snowstorm and have to band together to find the true meaning of Christmas, and then at the end of the episode think they see some reindeer fly overhead and go "it couldn’t be….could it?" And Survivor’s not going to have an episode where some kids take in a homeless man dressed up like Santa Claus, which makes the parents angry and uncomfortable, but who eventually teaches everyone the true meaning of Christmas. So it’s up to you, Matt, to spread the holiday joy.

LordSorrow, I posted a link for some Playschool Advent calendrs in the last blog. Here’s the link: http://www.utoypia.com/search.php
I wish I could find them around here, though, in an actual store. Shipping makes everything so expensive. I found one on Ebay for $8, but the shipping was $7. ?? Jeez, that’s not a deal. And since when does one little box cost $7 to ship a few states away? Ree-deec-you-lus.

Does anyone else read the movie spoilers at http://www.moviespoilers.com? I just read 10 movie play-by-plays in the amount of time it would have taken me to watch one movie, live. Not as thrilling, but it certainly cuts down on those movies that you have a vague interest in, but don’t feel like taking the time to sit through (like "Girl in a Pearl Earring" - interesting in a "everyone has seen it and I really should watch it so I know what the fuss is all about" kind of way, but long and boring in a "not worth my movie-watching time" kind of way).

My family is not very consistent on their giving out of stockings. In fact I think that I went something like 4 or 5 years without getting one then I would get one randomly with pens and pencils.

It looks like a fucking Christmas-Fruit-Roll-Up-thing, or something like that. However, I can see some hues of purple and blue in there.

Julie-You are so right! The death of the Christmas Special has come upon us. But it is not entirely gone. For if we cherish in our hearts, such classics as..um..that Pac-Man one, that Grinch one, that Charlie Brown, and um that other one..damn, I’ve already forgotten the titles of these specials. This is truly a sad day. It’s because of this that I am about to slit the throat of one of my dormie’s (which I’ve been wanting to do anyway) and drag his body by the feet all around the dorm halls yelling "Merry Fucking Christmas!" so that all can see the festive red mess that I’ve made. I have no idea where I’m going with this or even what I’m talking about right now. But who can care about something like that at a time like this! For Chrissake! The Christmas Special is fucking dead you bastards!!!!!

One stocking stuffery item I want this year is one of those Hot Wheels Formula Fuelers toy cars, just because I am scientifically interested in proving that the mysterious powder you mix with a liquid and then put in the car to make it go is really ordinary sodium bicarbonate, a.k.a. "baking soda", and the liquids that work best have to be some kind of acid, like acetic acid (vinegar).

Mattel put a disclaimer on the box that states you should only use beverages as the liquid, I guess so no kids (or dumbass adults) try putting real gasoline in the tiny fake car because "duur, gas makes cars go vroom!"

My siblings and I didn’t get stockings until a few years ago, when our parents became cynical and decided to fill our stockings with an orange and a penny, Little House on the Prarie style.

What a relief that you mixed those together. I wanted to reach into the screen and do it for myself.

Muppet Baby - did you know that the Muppet Family Xmas DVD has tons of stuff cut out of it?

I usually enjoy my stocking stuffers a lil more than my actual presents because it is more of a suprise since it is stuff y ou didn’t ask for but my dad usually comes up with some good shit. and yes i’m 23 and still have a stocking, the stocking is as old as i am….

Once year, I got a wrestling figure with a yard sale sticker still on the head and $50 Geoffrey Dollars. Booya!

I feel sorry for the "gift card" generation of today… if you’ve never had the joy of holding ten dollar bills with Geoffrey’s head in the middle, knowing Toys R Us was the only place you could spend it and that no one else in your family wanted anything from there, you don’t know real happiness.

I’ve always gotten a stocking. It’s tradition in our family whoever spends the night Christmas Eve will wake up to a stocking. I’ve always enjoyed the stocking more than the presents cause I know where my parents hiding spot for the presents are and I know what I’m getting. It’s kind of an ordel to wait till Christmas morning after the parade and breakfast to open a present when I already know what’s inside. But my stocking is great, usually cd’s and movies I wanted, bubble baths and of course, candy.

i still remember a loong long time ago when i left silly putty in my jean pocket and after it came outta the dryer my pants were silly puttied shut. good times

Stocking stuffers were always a big deal in my family, maybe because we opened presents on Christmas morning. We used to open one present on Christmas Eve, but now that we’re all older, we just wait for the big day. It also helps that our stockings are hand-made by my mother, personalized with something we like about the holidays (I, for instance, have a snowman dancing in felt "snow"), not just some red felt sock. Though older, we still honor the stocking tradition. Mom buys us ornaments, and we all always need little things, like computer disks, Post-It notes, and paperback books.

I always got a paddleball, because I don’t know, I think Mrs. Claus was upset about the Diaper incident of ‘89. For some reason, they alway broke the day after, and the highist I could get was 665. (Rocko for those enlightened individuals)

Okay, I’m sorry, I was going to tell you what I normally get as a stocking-stuffer and what my favorite one was of all the different ones I had received. However, I suddenly happend to have a bout of lamentations over the loss of the proverbial "Christmas Special."

What I usually get is those X-Mas Reese’s things that DarthMonkey mentioned. Those are damn good, but they were never my favorite stocking stuffer. The best stocking-stuffer I ever received was a shitload of Upper Deck baseball cards. I collected BB cards at the time,and I loved it. But now I can’t stand sports collectibles, or even sports for that matter. The Christmas memory I cherish most is the time I got my NES. The NES is an obsession that has stayed with me to this day. I don’t even play modern games, let alone have them.

Gavok’s post reminded me of the time two Christmases ago when I was playing poker with my friends for the right to stick our fists into a mystery grab-bag of holiday treats. Guess what I came out with?? Yes, that’s right- A 5-LB. CAN OF STARKIST TUNA. Who the hell needs 5 pounds of tuna? My best friend got the best gift- a musical toilet seat that played "Jingle Bell Rock." Oh well, at least my cats went ape-shit over my prize.

If I was a kid of today, I’d want a Spider-man Wall Crawler… and a new Doc Ock Wall Crawler! He’s green! You can take Spider-man 2 off the silver screen, and into your stocking! AND DOWN YOUR WALL!

I never got a stocking until I was at University, and it was from a friend of mine. French-Canadians celebrate Christmas Eve, we go to Midnight Mass and then have enough food to feed an army of lumberjacks, THEN we open our presents. By then it’s 4am and Santa (played by uncle Roger) is more than half in the bag. Good times.

I started making big surprise bags for my niece and nephew a few years ago, now they wait for it more than the actual presents. They love it, there’s candy and scented soaps, dollar store games, stickers and spring-loaded dentures, whoopie cushions and all sorts of silly things.

I will have my first real stocking hanging at my in-laws this year. That’s my welcome sign from the new family. Now I’m all ferklempt…

I don’t believe I’ve ever used the same stocking more than one year in a row. I know the standard tradition is to save it year after year, and hang it up on the mantle or something, but I always managed to trash mine before the year was out, so I got a fresh new stocking every year.

Eh, our family had these large-ish plastic "stockings" (more like a a re-usable plastic bag in a vague sock shape) that was, and it’s hard to gauge approximate measurements from memory especially memories from when you were physically smaller, maybe 50 to 60 cm long by 30 cm wide that could store an impressive amount of below $15 Canadian or so, usually with a Christmas clementine (sweet mini-oranges).

It was red and had a picture of a cartoonish Santa and the "brim" was white, maybe 20 cm thick, and had "Noël", the French word for Christmas, written in green letters across it, even though we’re Anglophone Quebecers whom are originally from England except for two of my siblings who were born in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, in the late 1970s. Well, you get some decorations with "Noël" written on them even in the United States, and it’s a very pretty word anyway, so I didn’t mind.

My brother,sister,and I would have stockings of stuff to go through before opening presents on Christmas mornings. One year when I was younger I got Superman II trading cards. That’s usually the kind of thing we’d usually have in our stockings,besides toys and candy.

That holiday silly putty looks like taffy and when it mixed it looks like when you twril 2 different taffy flavors together. I used to get the orange too. Sometimes I got good thing like Slyvanian Famlies figures or trading cards. I use to hang my stocking up on the mantle when I lived in a house that had one now we just place them under the tree.

I’ll show you my stocking which is as old as i am and melt your heart. That is if anyone cares…it will melt the heart…

Well, at least it’s greenish-reddish-purplish instead of that icky brown color that you usually get when you mix things that were never meant to be mixed. As for green and red making purple, it’s some kind of weird conspiracy.

It’s true that the Muppet Family Christmas DVD & VHS are both cut to pieces and you can’t find a full version in retail. However, I have the complete version on tape from the first time the special was shown on tv. I believe it was ‘87 or somewhere around there. I guess my point is that you should all envy me and Matt should review it if he hasn’t already.

That mutant christmas putty looks great. You should offer it to somebody as candy.

I always got hair elastics and oxy pads in my christmas stocking. Well, always since I’ve had zits and long hair, I guess.

Jessica and Matt 2- I also (luckily) own the original version of "Muppet Family Xmas" on VHS that I taped off tv back in the day…I’ve never seen it on DVD in stores though- I would love to own it for the picture quality, but why on earth would they cut things out? Its all gold! "Careful of the icy patch!"

One thing that I’ve wondered for a long time… Why hasn’t Matt done a review of the Folger’s "Home for Christmas" commercial? It’s been running since the 1980s. I saw it this morning and the old Folger’s logo has been digitally edited

OH PETER! YOU’RE HOOOOME!

Ahh… It’s Ange Faitore and the curse of the double posting because there isn’t an edit button.
I’ve had a stocking since I was a little kid. My stocking is a Sesame Street one with an image of the main puppets of the series caroling. I’ve had it a long time.
Every year my mother fails to buy me a bigger stocking for her stocking stuffer impulse shopping.
Every year you don’t know what’s coming to you with this woman. Chocolate and candy from Barnes & Nobel or Linens N’ Things, QVC items, gift cards to every store imaginable, keychains, figurines, you name it, she has put it in there.
By the time I get to my stocking, I end up with an overflowing stocking and a Hannaford bag full of stocking runoff. Sometimes the stocking IS the Christmas present and it makes all the tree presents look pretty unexciting compared to it’s stockingy goodness.

It seems like there’s always a piece of candy at the bottom of my stocking that I forget about. So after 22 visits from Santa, the bottom of it is fused with candy cane crumbs and M&M shells.

You’d think that we’d get new stockings, but our family still has a few handed down from our grandparents.

I’m guessing < "a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=617&item=6343915103&rd=1">THIS is what you guys wanted to find on DVD?

Ah, stockings! Random fun for everyone. At least for me and Little Brother. We used to tack up socks and either find them filled with the prerequisite oranges and doodads, or find them replaced with the goofy-ass store-bought thing. Either way, trinkets were thrown, treats were consumed, and we would annoy our sisters with little plastic army men. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

It’s edited for the exact same reason you often hear characters singing birthday songs that aren’t "Happy Birthday to You" on movies and television programmes. A lot of the old secular Christmas standards have their copyrights renewed when they’re about to lapse. For example, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is copyrighted by St. Nicholas music, "The Christmas Song", as sung by Mel Tormé, is copyrighted by Chappel-Morris, Ltd., and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is copyrighted by Jewel Music Publishing, I don’t know if any one of those songs was used in the special, which I don’t remember since it’s not the one with John Devner, I’m just using examples of songs you have to pay to "cover" version of, with my copyright information coming from the Japanese album, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Merry Christmas (Columbia Japan COCC-13827), which is, believe it or not, the second Japanese Sailor Moon Christmas album.

Why has this beautiful special literally been chopped up with every video release? Well, apparently when Henson secured the music rights to all the songs performed when this special originally debuted on television on ABC in December 1987, only the full rights to the songs were secured for television. Meaning the special can air complete and unedited even to this day on TV if the station airing it so chooses. YTV in Canada and also the Hallmark Channel in the US have shown this special in recent years, both with very few edits in comparison to the butchered video releases. Because the US song rights are different for other countries, the PAL video release available in Europe is reportedly complete (with the exception of Fozzie and Ma talking by their stockings at the end of the special).

"The Christmas Song", as sung by Mel Tormé, is copyrighted by Chappel-Morris, Ltd.

And it’s "John Denver"… dagnabit, I even previewed it and I still made typos.

You forgot the color changing varieties of Silly Putty. When they change temperature, they change color (I think sort of like the old GI Joe figs). My daughter gets them, and puts them in the fridge to get them to their deepest shades.

Incidentally, on my lunch break I went to TRU across the street (news watches will recognize this particular TRU as the one that got pepper-sprayed over the weekend). On one of the cosmetic screens placed on the escalator incline, what was being shown? The original Silly Putty commercial.

Matt, do they have that talking Super Mario at Toys R Us yet?, I heard it was supposed to be there sometime soon

silly putty, i remember using it to copy comic book images as a small child. At some point, it became a horrible sin to compromise the ink density of comics by putting silly putty on the paper. I was quite the comic dork…

I was looking for some pictures of that moxy the dog show and learnt something about bobcat goldthwait, he is engaged to nikki cox from happily ever after? He must have brainwashed her or something, i remember thinking she was the hottest female ever…

thats the most beautiful silly putty i’ve ever seen.
they should sell the red and green already mixed like that.

First off, Playmobil advent calendars….you can get them directly from Playmobil.com (with their shippiing it was about same cost or 2.00 less than ebay…they also have one clearanced out for 7.50, it’s the 1999 one but hey it’s cheap)
target stores, if they have any left.

and I bought this years at this store in Frankenmuth, MI, This store is the AWESOMEST Christmas store EVER. They might do mail orders if you call, and they had past advent calendars and other playmobil christmas toys as well.

DOH! I wasn’t done…what I get for being a newbie first timer here. ANYWAY, The stocking tradition has been in my family all my life. My mom goes way out. I’m 31 years old and my mom still stuffs the shit out of my 30 year old hand made sequined stocking. She’s even bought me an "overflow" one and can usually fill that sucker up too. I usually get at least one Whitman’s Sampler with a snoopy ornament attached, various candies, candles, socks, hair shit, lottery tickets, you name it if it can be stuffed, it’s IN THERE.

Thanks for solving the mystery Steve Brandon. I’ve thankfully got it on tape from 87 as well.

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Uncle John’s Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader has the full story on Silly Putty. Production started during WWII, when Japanese invasions of rubber-producing companies in the Far East made rubber a precious commodity in the U.S. The U.S. War Production Board asked General Electric to create a cheap substitute for making boots and tires. GE hired an engineer names James Wright to head the project.

In 1943, James accidentally dropped some boric acid into silicone oil. The resulting mixture was a compound which stretched further and bounced higher than rubber, was impervious to mold, didn’t decay the way rubber did, and didn’t melt or turn brittle in extreme temperatures. However, neither scientists nor the military could find a practical use for it. In 1945, GE mailed sampled all over the world to see if anyone could think of something.

An advertising agent named Paul Hodgson was at a party were one of the samples was being passed around. Nobody could find a use for it, but they sure were having fun playing with it. For Hodgson, it was a no-brainer to market it at a toy.

In a lucky coincidence, Hodgson happened to be in the process of creating a catalog for a local toy store. He concinced the stores owner to feature what he called "Bouncing Putty." It was an instant success, outselling everything in the store, save for a 50-cent box of crayons. Still, the store owner wasn’t interested in manufacturing for marketing it, so Hodgson bought the rights and went into business himself, renaming the product Silly Putty.

In 1950, Hodgson bought 21 pounds of Silly Putty for $147 and hired a Yale student to cut it into one-ounce balls and put the balls in plastic eggs. Sales were slow for the first few months, until Silly Putty was mentioned in the New Yorker. Over the next four days, Hodgson received 250,000 orders. A few years later, Silly Putty was selling for a total of six million dollars annually.

Today, Silly Putty is owned by Binney & Smith, the makers of Crayola. They produce 500 pounds of it every day. Since its inception, over 300 million eggs of Silly Putty have been sold–enough to form a ball the size of the Goodyear Blimp. Silly Putty is available in 16 different colors, including glow-in-the-dark, glitter, hot fluorescent, metallic gold (introduced in 2000 for the toy’s 50th anniversary), and even color that changes depending on the temperature of your hands. In 2001, Silly Putty was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, taking its place alongside GI Joe, Lincoln Logs, and Monopoly.

-In 2000, Binney & Smith sponsored a "Silliest Uses For Silly Putty" contest. The winning entry: replace your stock broker by throwing a ball of Silly Putty at the stock page in the newspaper and investing in the stock it lifts from the newsprint. Second place went to a woman who suggested using it to form a fake swollen gland to get out of an unwanted date.

-One of the original Silly Putty eggs is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

-In 1950, Silly Putty cost a dollar. In 1976, when Paul Hodgson died, is still cost a dollar. In 2002: still under $2.

-In 1989, a grad student at Alfred University wanted to find out what would happed to a giant ball of Silly Putty dropped from a roof. He dropped a 100-pound ball from the roof of a three-story building. The ball bounced eight feet on the first bounce, but shattered into pieces on the second bounce.

My favorite silly putty of all time is the Golden Glitter putty which was released for it’s 50th anniversary…or should I say putty-versary.

I think I still have that Muppet special on tape somewhere. I love how about 500 people, Muppets, animals, and other random organisms slip on the ice at the threshold. XD

oh thank you, my obsessive compulsive disorder was COMMANDING you to mix the two with my mental powers

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