Kooky Spookys

[poseablemonster]

There were a few toys that took this name or something very similar.  One was this set of rubber ghost finger puppets produced by Hasbro in 1968.  I think they are pretty scarce because I rarely come across them.  Here's a handfull I found at a toy show this past weekend:

For some reason, I really like these little guys.

[Toy Ranch]

Nice score, Andy!  Those are hard to come by, and usually pretty pricey when you do.  I had some when I was a kid and really like them too.  They glow in the dark, ya know! 

[poseablemonster]

Oh, yeah, they glow incredibly!  I think they must be radioactive or something...

[Toy Ranch]

This is the definitive website about them:

http://www.undermountain.org/KookySpooky.html

[raycastile]

That is a really great find.  I get e-mail all the time from people who see those pictured on my site, asking where they can find them, who owns that set, are they for sale, etc.  People love those little ghosts.

[Toy Ranch]

These are interesting...

I bought them off eBay several months ago.  The seller had a bunch of early Kooky Spooky stuff she was selling.



Here's the description that went with them....

This is a set of prints done by doll creator Patti Peticolas of the first series of Kooky Spookys at a point in their development when they were transitioning from individual characters into a family of ghosts. They are still a set of eight figures, but the names and designs have started to change, Vincent Van Ghost is now Rigor Mortimer, Shirley Shriek has changed to Mama Kaskit, Geisha Ghost is Grandmother MacReak, Betty Boo is Baby Boo, Gaston Ghost has become Daddy Cadava, and Ghostly Gomez is now Cousin Gilghouly. Only Teena Terror retains her original name. Other changes are the expression on Cousin Gilghouly, he now sports the frown that would stay the same when he became Daddy Booregard, same with Mama Kaskit and Grandmother MacReak, they will ultimately be members of the final family, and Teena Terror now has her heavy eyeliner.

The drawings show the accessories that were initially planned, when the dolls made it into production they each only got one item due to the need to keep the costs down. What is interesting is that some of the accesories shown in the drawings were the items that actually made it to production, but in a number of cases went with a different character, like the banjo with Uncle Booregard, the heart shaped LOVE sign with Mama Kaskit, and the alternate flower sign with Teena Terror. The most amusing of the group is Baby Boo, shown with a fierce expression and vampire fangs, toned way down in the final doll. The name Spook 'Em is added on, and the sign saying BOO! is a big lollypop.Incidently the eyes and moth, and the name Spook 'Em were hand drawn in felt tip marker on the print by Patti. She also has a skull and crossbones death rattle, a teddy bat, a bib with a bat on it, and a baby bottle with a skull and crossbones indicating it is filled with poison. A pretty monsterous little Baby Spook 'Em, Hasbro ultimately nixed most of that. The Cousin Ghilghouly character has the watch accessory drawn in as an afterthought, as does Teena Terror with the addition of a hair bow, these made it into final production.

I believe that these were also intended to become the Picture Playmate paperdolls. The idea was that they would be laminated with a high gloss platic coating, and the accessories would be vinyl colorforms style stick-ons. The prints were made with a Thermofax copier, which used a heat reactive paper. To get a good print on a Thermofax the original needed to be ink on transparent plastic, these were obviously from ink drawings on tracing paper, which worked but gave a grayed out appearance. An interesting side note about the Thermofax copier is that when fax machines came out, they used the Thermofax process as the means of printing out the document, later a xerographic and inkjet process was adopted, but the fax name stuck. Most people are unaware that a fax actually referred to a long obsolete copier technology. Since there were no corner Xerox machines in 1968, Patti utilized the Thermofax which she had aquired to make copies, since otherwise she would have to go to an offset printer, which was costly and only used for final presentation pieces.

The original drawings that these prints were made from are long lost, these copies are the only existing examples of this stage of the Kooky Spookys development. An enterprising person could use these as templates to make up a set of paperdolls, either by tracing them in ink, or scanning them into Photoshop and working on them on the computer. From the estate of the Kooky Spookys creator Patti Peticolas. I will be concentrating in the near future on listing prototypes from another doll series that Patti designed, the Mini Martians. I still have some more Kooky Spookys material, and will resume listing it at a later date.

[poseablemonster]

Those are really, really cool.  If they are what they appear to be and what the seller claims...that's an amazing find.

[Toy Ranch]

The seller had all kinds of other drawings and prototype material she was selling, and I'm confident they are authentic.  I believe someone else in the UMA acquired some material from her as well.  There were a number of Kooky Spooky lisitings.

[The Phantom Creep]

Love that Ghost with the guitar! I've always wanted a few of these.

[fmofmpls]

How nice. I had these as a kid. I remember being fascinated how they would sit on your finger and glow like radioactive waste. If I recall correctly, and as Andy has already noted, these things really glowed big time!

[fmofmpls]

That's a great Kooky Spooky web site by the way. I noticed the web master has a Kooky Spooky TV commercial from 1968 that he's selling for $10.00. I would love to see it, but I'm not going to pop for it. A search on YouTube unfortunately yielded no results. I'm surprised too, I thought YouTube would have had it on there.

BTW, we need to add Kooky Spooky pics to our Various gallery. Andy, I lifted your pic and put it into the Gallery. Hope you don't mind? Anyone have some carded pics we could add?

[fmofmpls]

[fmofmpls]

Here's a bagged Teena Terror I found off of eBay. Interesting to note that in this example the Kooky Spooky is called a "Goofie Goblin". Also interesting to note that the word goofy is misspelled as goofie! Now that's goofy!

[raycastile]

That's the first time I've seen a bagged one.  I wonder if those are legit or unauthorized repops.  I also wonder if most of the loose ones today came from those bags.

[Toy Ranch]

That's the first time I've seen a bagged one.  I wonder if those are legit or unauthorized repops.  I also wonder if most of the loose ones today came from those bags.

They were popular toys in the box when they were released.  First I've seen of the bags, too.  I think most came from the boxes.