- Do you like gross out toys?
Gross out toys have always been popular, and they still are. Even in Ancient Rome, farts were funny. Here’s the grossest toys of America.
Gross out toys mean big profits, with whoopee cushions for farting and other substances like poop, pee, puke, and slime.
In the middle ages, court jesters turned pig bladders into whoopee cushions and pranking people with them.
Used in JEM Rubber, a Canadian manufacturer best known for selling tire repair kits starts playing around with ideas about what to do with the extra
rubber.
The actual whoopee cushion comes out using volcanized rubber in the 1930s. However, whoopee cushions didn’t get their name until 1932 . There were lots of names but whoopee cushion was the one that stuck.
Leo Hendrik Baekeland combines formaldehyde with a waste product of coal- and plastic was born in 1907.
Before plastic toys, there were made with wood, paper, and cardboard. Plastics lead to toys like Legos and the Fischer price telephone. It became a jump start for gross out toys.
There was the Betsy Wetsy doll and it would urinate, so you could play with it as a real baby. The Betsy Wetsy doll was sold for over 30 years and rereleased to a new generation in the 80s.
Latex came to the scene in the mid 20th century. It fast became essential in health care and construction but could also be made into fake vomit.
Consumers agreed and fake vomit hasn’t left store shelves since it came out in 1959.
In the mid 20th century, scientists are making all kinds of synthetic polymers which lead to classic toys like silly putty. And then, a new gross out substance, slime.
Slime is not liquid, not solid and a great toy to get messy with. And it’s even a little creepy. What a great gross out toy!
In 1976, Mattel released slime. People love it and it’s a huge hit, especially with kids.
In the 1980s, slime went to entertainment with movies like Ghostbusters and Gremlins.
Because Mattel cannot patent the slime substance, other toy makers get in on slime. The slime had become even more popular when it was attached to popular franchises or playsets that were already around.
Mattel did own the trademark “Slime” so Kenner called it ectoplasm. It was the same stuff, just a different color. From green to pink-ish. Still essentially the same gross out toy.
Mattel adds slime to its own franchise to fire back He-man and the masters of
the universe. Next was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, thanks to their origin story. The slime was what turned them into turtles.
What do you think of all these gross out toys? Are they some of your favorites, too?