Boglins

If you were, like me, a weirdo as a child who was invested in the strange and spooky kind of stuff, then you probably appreciated horror adjacent toys such as this. Don't get me wrong, Boglins are essentially a horror themed pet rock, but so much cooler. Sorry pet rock, nothing personal. And being the weird little girl I was, who had rubber bats hanging from her ceiling growing up, these sorts of things appeal to me immensely, and while I'm sad to say I've never actually owned a Boglin, that's never stopped me from admiring them from afar. Probably the same way one would admire an actual Goblin creature if one encountered such a thing in real life. Don't get close to those things, you don't know where they've been.

Much like Gre-gory Bat, Boglins ride that fine line between toy and just kind of cool decorative piece one keeps in their room next to their fog machine and their light up skull and their...their...photos of roadkill. I don't know. That's the kind of stuff I had growing up. Don't judge me. Boglins are actually fairly old, too. Not as old as Greg, mind you, but old nonetheless.

Boglins were a series of toy puppets distributed by Mattel. They were created by Jim Henson Company alumni Tim Clarke, Maureen Trotto, and Larry Mass, and licensed by Seven Towns. The original run of Boglins was released in 1987, coinciding with a "creatures" craze that included Ghoulies, Critters, and Gremlins. Boglins were goblin-themed hand puppets made of flexible rubber and could be manipulated to represent speech and facial expressions. Several series of large and small Boglins were released until 1994, with additional aquatic, Halloween, and baby themed Boglins released later into the line (because everything, and I mean everything, had to eventually have a baby version) Small solid 'Mini-Boglins' were also produced, akin to the Kinkeshi figures also from the 1980s. And let's be real, Boglins is fun to say, but it's just a mispelling of Goblin. They simply switched the G and the B and now these little dudes live in a swamp or something.

Though, I will give them mucho credit in naming the smaller Boglins Boglinus minimus, because that's just fucking hilarious, regardless of anything else. Giving a subset of a toyline a scientific species name? Genius. And it's not surprising, because the first release of large creatures were given the species name Boglinus Humungus.

However, perhaps one of the most surprising things about this franchise was that, unlike many toylines of the 1980s there was no accompanying cartoon series or comic book for Boglins. Back in the day, most toys were only created to coincide with the attached TV show or comic book, ala Transformers or GI Joe, so to have one that doesn't bow to that sort of marketing whim is actually pretty refreshing, especially when it comes from a period in time when capitalism was all the rage and "greed was good". In fact, Boglins backstory is only mentioned in the "Bogologist Field Notes" on the back of the packaging. The notes establish the science of "Bogology", detailing how the creatures originated from a "swampy bog that time forgot", possibly a "missing link" to human personalities. I don't know about you, but I now wish I could get a PHD in Bogology because that sounds awesome. I wanna be a professionally licensed and respect Bogologist.

 One of the coolest aspects to me, however, is simply the presentation.

I'm a sucker for stuff that goes all in in every aspect, and Boglins are one of those for sure. The toy design itself was cool enough, certainly, but to extend that same level of craftsmanship to every other part of it, and the boxes for Boglins are incredible to say the least. Much like the Pet Rock, again, they come with their own little "home". If you call being caged a home. I love how the bars are somewhat bent, indicating the Boglins intense desire for escape, and that the box itself is designed with a wood grain kind of finish, to give it that very old, very frail kind of feeling like this is something you were not supposed to unearth and has been trapped in here for ages.

Boglins are still around too! Albeit in a more niche, less commercial manner than they once were, and are now considered more a specialty toy than before, but they're around. They even have a dedicated website, for bog sakes. Who would've gussed? Mattel rejuvenated the Boglins line in 2000 through Lansay, Awesome Toys and Vivid Imagination with two new series of puppets: large, electronic ones that talked, and several smaller ones that stuck out their tongues or spat water when squeezed. In 2016 there was a Boglin art show in New York by Clutter Arts featuring a Boglin mold painted by multiple artists. Boglins would also make yet another return in 2017 under a licensing deal with Seven Towns and Clutter Magazine in limited run batches to the collector's market, and finally, in August 2022, there was a release of the Bat Boglins and King Sponk series, with a limited edition TheBoglins.com online exclusive Bat Boglin Orlock, which was autographed and numbered by creator Tim Clarke.

The level of dedication, and fandom that still exists, for such a seemingly obscure odd toyline is, quite honestly, refreshing. Usually things of this nature are lost to time, not held up as examples. I mean, I can't get Gre-gory Bat on Ebay for less than hundreds of dollars if not more. These darker, horror adjacent toylines usually didn't appeal to mass mainstream children because, well, they had no taste quite frankly, and generally they wind up, years down the road, costing hundreds of dollars for just one even out of the box. So it's actually nice to see the opposite occur here. Not only did they gain such an entrenched fanbase, but also the creators believed so hard in their work that they continually refused to let it die, and that's a level of committment I can appreciate.

So here's to you, Boglins, for being weird little dudes in a time when weird little dudes were appreciated, and still being around in a time when weird little dudes are appreciated. Honestly, if we ever reach an age in history when weird little dudes aren't appreciated, then I think we're in trouble.