Who else found one of these Guaranteed-3rd-Degree-Burn-Makers under the tree when you were a kid? Bonus points if you had parents who let you use it unattended! (Those open hot plates had to heat the molds to 390 °F (199 °C) in order for the Plastigoop to solidify.)
Creepy Crawlers was for…Christmas…1964, I think. It wasn't wrapped, and I actually received it before Christmas because I remember my folks had to call a dozen stores to find one in stock and we went to pick it up immediately. My ThingMaker craze was continued with Mini Dragons a couple years later as an Easter gift. My buddy Greg had Fright Factory (which I adored but could never convince my folks to get for me) and his sister had Fun Flowers.
Seems you never had enough goop—or the colors you needed—to create the fantastic creatures featured on the box lids.
50 years later, I have none of the thousands of bugs or the creatures from Fright Factory that my friend and I made, but I do still have one Dragon:
And I've got to hand it to Mattel. The plastic is still as supple and flexible as it was the day I made that critter in 1967.
I got a Vacuform instead.
I had one of those too, but it was after Creepy Crawlers. And I never took to it the way I did with the ThingMakers.