SCORE! Vintage Wacky Wall Walker!

Back on Free Comic Book day, the wife and I decided to continue our Saturday with a little browsing through the multitude of antique shops near the comic shop we had just visited (and will never visit again due to the horrible service, but that's another story). While she looked at old, dusty firniture once owned by people who are surely dead now and therefore probably comes with a complimentary ghost, I kept my eyes peeled for old toys.

I didn't find much, but but I did find this squishy little friend from 30 years ago...

 
I couldn't believe I had found one of these. In fact, not just one, but a whole pile of them, all still in the package and priced at a buck each. I only bought two, one to open and one to save, but I'm quite tempted to go back and get the rest for a give-away or something.

Dig the directions. Also, sorry 81-year-olds...

When I was a kid, I must have had 6 or 7 of these. You'd get one, it'd get all gross after a while, you'd wash it off, it would sort of still work, then eventually all of its stickiness would go away and you'd be begging Mom for a new one.

I have a couple of distinct memories of getting one during our classroom Secret Santa exchange in 5th grade, and then getting another one for free in a box of Froot Loops in 6th grade.

This one is exactly like I remember, because this is not a re-release, but an actual piece from 1982 (or maybe '83 or '84). I'll never forget that weird little face with the perpetual tubular mouth.

The first thing I noticed when I took this relic out of the packaging was how sticky he was. And I don't mean regular kind of Wacky Wall Walker sticky, I mean industrial-adhesive-gone-bad-in-the-past-30-years sticky. It was like touching tree sap and I eventually had to coat my hands in Goo Gone to get it all off.

But, that didn't stop me from throwing it against a wall and seeing if it still did what it did best...

It took a while, due to its extra-stickiness, but eventually our little friend's legs lost the battle with gravity and it began to tumble...

... and tumble...

And eventually come to stop down by the cable outlets in my office. It occurred to me that I had never seen a black Wacky Wall Walker before and after looking at it down by the floor of the Nerdatorium, I realized why these may not have sold to well, because that little bastard looks like a tarantula.

Anyway, I picked it up and put it away before my wife saw it and had a heart attack. Then I had to get the Goo Gone and clean my wall.

Such is the price for nostalgia.