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Halloween Boglins!

I've been praying for a reason to write about Boglins again for five years now, and it's finally come my way. In 1988, Mattel sought to boost their always-cool but ever-fledging line of rubber monster puppets with the introduction of two very special Halloween Boglins.. "Blobkin" and "Bog-O-Bones" were their names, and you'll see both of 'em in this feature, along with a trick-or-treat sack with their pictures on it.

Posted by Matt on 10/10/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 101 comments

Great timing, Allison. Now seeing that ad, it really IS the most disturbing thing I’ve ever watched, it made the Burger King stuff seem normal!!

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 10/12/2005 2:39 PM

Gargamel has really upped the ol’ smurf attack, huh? I can’t help but think that they could have used the boglins in those "horror" movies in the 80′s.

Chestnuts roasted by bloodybrilliantme @ 10/12/2005 2:53 PM

Jurassic Park toys sucked . . . mainly because they had nothing to do with the movies and even featured dinos not in the films!

Chestnuts roasted by veritech @ 10/12/2005 2:56 PM

What’s next, using the G’nap as a biological weapon?

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 10/12/2005 2:59 PM

I’ve been waiting for actual moving footage of the Smurf ad to show up…gawd bless the internet. I can see Smurfs being firebombed, Boglins grooving to shitkickin’ tuneage or f’n sweet footage of Mt. Dew being poured whenever I want…what a country!

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 10/12/2005 3:00 PM

Wow. Can you imagine being a little kid and that being your first Smurf sighting. How will the Smurfs ever have a successful re-issue if that commercial is a whole generations introduction to the cartoon?

For the record…. I would’ve liked it more if Gargamel piloted the plane that dropped the bombs. With that Cat of his dressed up in Red Barron attire and co-piloting.

Chestnuts roasted by Carri @ 10/12/2005 4:50 PM

Those Smurfs are dirty commies and they had it coming to them. Take that, Karl Marx!

USA! USA! USA!

Aw, forget it….

Chestnuts roasted by The Wukong Effect @ 10/12/2005 5:42 PM

I’m pretty sure the commercial won’t actually be airing in the USA during real ad breaks…I’d guess it’ll just show up on the news. In Belgium the Smurfs never really disappeared so it’s probably not going to be seen by kids unfamiliar with them…besides it’s only supposed to air later at night so I don’t worry that it’l be traumatizing toddlers.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 10/12/2005 7:00 PM

Ah ha! I never saw your original write up on Boglins until you just mentioned the Halloween one. But I must thank you from the bottom of my blackened spookfilled heart that you have answered my question of just what the hell kind of puppet I once had in the bottom of my toy chest. I had one of these things and I played with it all of the time. I remember being creeped out by just how life like they looked and felt. Truly remarkable little things, Boglins.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Madman @ 10/12/2005 7:43 PM

Carri, to answer your question, they’re actually planning to make a Smurfs movie set for release in 2007. For a planned Trilogy. Go, please kill me. Anyway, MAtt, you mentioned in the article tnat most peopledon’t want articles on obscure toys anymore. SO, is that why your article on Super-Naturals apparent never got put on the site. Or are you just lazy? I think I am in the minority when I say this, but I really want you to do more of those articles on obscure toys.
And, speaking of Boglins, God I wish I lived in the 80s just so I could play with one of those.

Chestnuts roasted by TOM @ 10/12/2005 9:40 PM

The Smurfs movies are tied to Nick somehow, so with any luck I’ll get to meet my destiny and make a fucking Smurfs commercial.

TOM, I will be covering (or should say, covering again) several of the lines as time goes on.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 10/12/2005 9:41 PM

Wow, matt that video was hawtt.
I might need to donate a lil’ something.

Chestnuts roasted by Guy man person dude boy @ 10/12/2005 9:56 PM

They scare me :(

Chestnuts roasted by Yelinna @ 10/13/2005 1:21 AM

I heard about the Smurfs movie. Matt, I’ll anxiously await the day you get to do some commercial for the smurfs.

That cat, by the way, is Azrael. I always can find something irrelevant to inject here.

I’m glad everyone enjoyed that rather interesting commercial. And I’m also glad I wasnt the only one who knew that they were created in 1958.

Chestnuts roasted by Allison @ 10/13/2005 3:42 PM

that was the best movie ever.

why am I writing this at 4am?

Chestnuts roasted by FangsFirst @ 10/14/2005 3:58 AM

kingklash must DIE!

Chestnuts roasted by ? @ 10/14/2005 10:47 AM

Hey Fangs, why ARE you writing this at 4am???????

Chestnuts roasted by Allison @ 10/14/2005 2:29 PM

I’ve had a Boglin for years that I got for free at a yard sale (The woman REALLY wanted to get rid of it) and I wanted to know what it was since then. This article helped me figure it out. Thanks :)

Chestnuts roasted by Radio @ 10/15/2005 10:02 AM

Come on now…admit it… you devoted X-E FREAKS wanted to see Matt get naked and screw a 3. litre bottle of pepsi.
That is hardcore just to mention Matt, a 3. litre pepsi would have a huge cap and the angle of the bottle neck would be like…… omG enough is enough..

Nice puppetry dude! Someday we should smoke a few bowls and play Boglins, afterall, i live near you

rock on, crescent fresh

Chestnuts roasted by Skynet1984 @ 10/15/2005 10:47 AM

AWESOME! I just found one of my boglins…one of the non-deluxe types, the little purple dude…out of the box, yet in pristine shape. I showed it to my 2yr old son, who promptly ran away screaming…hehehe…..I LOVE having grown up through the 80s ;) We had the COOLEST stuff.

Chestnuts roasted by FallenGuardian @ 10/18/2005 6:44 AM

I loved these things, I worked at the Pictorium at Great America in Santa Clara, CA, and had to make a spiel about the show and safety, and whatever, but the whole thing was done in a spotlight. There was a balcony you had to stand in front of, and it only took a day before someone was hiding in the shadows making the speech and we took turns holding up the Boglin over the balcony to make the speech. Never got busted, my Boglin buddy got ripped from my car! Criminals love them too!

Chestnuts roasted by stevicus @ 10/18/2005 7:20 AM

omigod…you have a lot of time on your hands. on the other hand, i not only read your boglins piece–entertaining, AND i’d forgotten all about these till now–i also took the time to post a comment. so…um…good job

Chestnuts roasted by april @ 10/19/2005 1:02 AM

I’ve actually got somethin’ kinda exciting in Boglin related news. A few years back I was a Colour Co-Ordinator (read as poorly paid painter) for Bluebird toys and one of the lines we worked on before Mattel bought out the company was Boglins. Now obviously Boglins are made of latex or possbly some cheap rubber, but the ones I spent time on were made of resin. I have photographs of the finished colour schemes somewhere I’m sure so I was thinking that next time I was in my hometown I would root through my old stuff at my folks house and see if the photographs still exist.

Because they were resin, I had to tape toilet paper to my hand to stop the flash on the inside of them tearing my hands to ribbons. Plus, the weighed a ton. They were slightly different looking to the originals but one of them was a sort of fish / boglin hybrid, rather than the Boglin cousins.

Chestnuts roasted by Mikee Teevee @ 10/19/2005 11:08 AM

I always loved Halloween Boglins. Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the video clip also.

Chestnuts roasted by Maurice @ 10/26/2005 10:05 AM

the soggy boglins were the only ones i ever had and you’ve left out slogg, the frog one, still got ‘em but there’s bits missing.

Chestnuts roasted by el-bastardo @ 10/27/2005 1:44 PM

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2005 at 9:07 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.