They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

"Inspired" by my dream(?) earlier in the week, I took a bit of time to poke around and look up some of the old toys I used to have. It seemed like a good way to work out of my stupor. I came across several of them on the fine site found here, which lists way more toys than I used to have. Some of these I don't even recognize.

Under the "Mattel" listing, you can find both the Thing Maker and the Vac-U-Form. I remember the Vac-U-Form being a slight precursor to the Thing Maker, but that may be due to the sequence in which they entered our home. Regardless, to me it was a more versatile machine. This was partly because it was mine and not my brother's, and partly because it would accept the same molds as the Thing Maker used... assuming, that is, that I could steal them and the goop from my brother.

The Vac-U-Form consisted three main parts. On one side was an interchangeable hard plastic mold that sat over a hand operated vacuum pump. On the other side was a hot plate that heated up to somewhere around 900 degrees. In the middle was a hinged frame in which you clamped a colorful piece of plastic. The idea was to let the plastic soften up over the hotplate and, at precisely the right moment, flip the frame holding the now soft plastic over the mold on the other side and suck it down with the hand pump. When it cooled, you would take the plastic off the mold, neatly trim it and glue it with model cement to the other half that you would make the same way. The clear implication was that this was some kind of toy factory.

Somehow, my stuff never came out looking like the toys on the box. When I did manage to get something glued together, it would be covered with gluey, dirty finger prints. My trimming skillls left a lot to be desired too, so the joints never went together very well. Every boat that I managed to get to the sink never completed it's maiden voyage. They would immediately list to the side and start taking on water. Many toys never even got that far. Too often I would get distracted by other things, leaving the heating plastic to droop lower and lower over the hotplate, until it gave out and dropped down, resulting in a smoking, stinking mess. Nothing burst into flames, but it was still fun to watch.

Without a doubt, the best thing about this toy wasn't something they advertised. I found that if you scoffed the metal lid from a large jar and placed it upside down on the hot plate,  you could cook on this thing. Sliced up hotdogs, mini hamburgers, you name it. It put my sister's Easy Bake Oven to shame. Other than the bathroom, it was getting to the point where I didn't need to leave my room at all.

Unfortunately, the Vac-U-Form is long gone. There seems to be a Thing Maker still being sold, but it looks like a shadow of it's former self. As near as I can tell, this is some lobotomized version that is run off of a light bulb rather than a hotplate. This seems pretty unadventurous to me. It's like selling a chemistry set that only contains vinegar and baking soda. How can you get creative with something like that?