Purple People Eater

So rarely has there been a toy that I could scrounge up barely any information on, but boy howdy have we found the number one example in Waddington's "Purple People Eater" (song of no relation). I'm not kidding, I scoured the internet for information regarding this toy - up to and including scrolling web forums from a British toy site whose posts were from the long ago year of 2007 - and even there I was given virtually nothing. This toy just seems to not...exist? It's like a cursed relic or something. But even cursed relics are awesome, in fact, one might be willing to say cursed relics are the most awesome kind of relics. So let's talk about the Purple People Eater.

In what looks like a metal base with a gelatinious rubber topper, the Purple People Eater actually works very akin to the game "Operation", from what little information I did manage to find. You are supposed to carefully pull the little red humans out of his mouth, without touching any of the jagged metal edges, and if you do touch them, his eyes lights up and he roars. A small blurb I found from Waddingtons themselves stated:

"Purple People Eater is asleep. Can you save the people from his horrible clutches?
If you wake him up you will hear him growl as his eye lights up in anger. Caught in his clutches you will feel his tentacles quiver on your hand.

Will you be able to rescue the people through his gaping jaw? Take care, because if you wake him he will get very angry!!

This is a game of dexterity and skill in which players attempt to rescue the people from the sleeping Monster. One slip will set off the mechanism making his eye light up as he growls and quivers in anger."

Sounds like a fun way to waste a few hours on a boring Sunday afternoon, really. I know I would've easily sat by myself and played with this thing for days on end, because I was, and continued to be, a loser. Can we just admit that the design of this thing (not to mention the box it came in) is absolutely amazing? I love it. It looks like a cheesy rubber monster out of 1950s B movie, and I for one couldn't be happier about that. And while the eyes lighting up and the screaming is cool and all, I think my personal favorite aspect of it is the nose. Why's he got such a schnoz? Is this monster doing cocaine in his off time? Perfection in design, honestly.

The colors on this thing are just out of this world (not trying to be cute, they really are just that awesome), and I love the idea of how this was designed as a rubber piece on top of a metal base. That's really unique. The triple color for the eyes and the nose are a really interesting touch, and I love the design of the tendrils; that blood tinted red on the purple is such a nice little color combination, and really gives him more personality than he'd otherwise have.

But since there's not a whole lot of information out there, let's instead discuss the company that produced him, Waddingtons.

Waddingtons has cropped up a number of times either on this site or my board game site Board To Death, and they were a British manufacturer of card and board games. The company was founded by John Waddington of Leeds, England and the manager, actor and playwright Wilson Barrett, under the name Waddingtons Limited. The name was changed in 1905 to John Waddington Limited, then Waddington's House of Games, then Waddington Games, and finally just Waddingtons. They were eventually acquired in 1994 and succeeded by Hasbro. Their most famous board games are Monopoly and Cluedo, which obviously everyone knows the names of. But their toys crop up now and then when I am trying to find pieces to focus on on this blog, and I think it's neat because they really produced some weird out there things, such as Purple People Eater.

And I just can't talk poorly about a company that produces such unique toys, because who else would've taken a gamble on such an oddity? Certainly back in the day it was easier to get a non-established toy without a backing IP behind it made, as that's virtually impossible now, which is why we see such little variety in the toy industry (and every other industry of entertainment, honestly), but even then this is a wild toy to create. But Waddingtons clearly knew kids love monsters, and I think that's a sentiment that still holds true even to this day. Kids love monsters. Monsters are just that cool, man.

I guess we can just be glad that, at least if nothing else, there was a period of time where they made really bizarre crap. I intend to start focusing on more obscure stuff like this as opposed to the big name toys everyone knows. That doesn't mean I'll no longer cover the big name toys either, it just means that some of these really unknown toys deserve their time in the spotlight, deserve recognition for their wicked cool designs and ideas, and I want to give equal time to everyone, really.

So that's Purple People Eater, and in an essence, Waddingtons. I know for a fact that if I had had this thing as a little girl, I would've named each one of the people it came with after someone in my life, and then fed them directly to the monster, because people suck and monsters rule.

Then Purple People Eater and I could rule the world with an iron fist.

Or, in his case, an iron set of teeth.