Excellent things from my childhood: Boglins

I was in my parents' basement recently and came across a heap of my old toys. There was my Dukes of Hazzard race track, my container of G.I. Joe figures, some Voltron castle, and, at the very top of the pile, my Boglin.

Remember Boglins? If you weren't a nine-year-old boy in 1987, I'd venture a guess that you don't. They were these rubber puppets that came out during the Critters and Ghoulies craze of the late eighties (which, incidentally, was a craze spawned from the popularity of Gremlins a few years earlier). What was cool about the Boglins, at least what I thought was cool about them when I was a kid, was the fact that, besides allowing you to move their mouths, the good folks at Mattel inserted switches to not only shift the creature's eyes back and forth, but also blink. Oh, and the eyes glowed in the dark, which was pretty darn awesome.

 

The toys were designed to make boys scare little girls, but, since I didn't really have any little girls regularly at my house, my Boglin scared my cat. Pumpkin was a worthy adversary. He'd often give it a run for its money.

 

My particular Boglin was named Vlobb. Ah, Vlobb, I remember you well. You were the one that was advertised as the "smartest" of the Boglins. How you were smart I was never able to figure out. You didn't come with a diploma from Harvard or anything, so I always assumed you were street smart. You could get the other Boglins out of a jam if they, let's say, crossed the wrong wizard, but you probably couldn't handle doing their taxes. And you now sit in the basement. I should bring you down to Connecticut. My cat Tuesday could use a new sparring partner.

Here's a Boglins commercial: