C is for Cracker Crustaceans and Other Novelty Flats

I stated writing this last night, but realised I could barely keep my eyes open, and went to bed after the title (which isn't very good, but meah!), anyhoo's, here now and fit to go, more of a follow-up to the cracker posts, of a couple of days ago, and a fun thing for the Crimbo' season!

The rump of the late and still sorely missed Boysey-Boy studiously ignoring the goings-on, his equally missed mother would have been trying to stuff herself into that box, which is just too-small enough; perfect!

 

This is me sorting a bunch of 'cracker flats' into piles by colour, a few years ago, the duplicates to the left went to charity, god knows what they did with them! As you can see, there was a yellow for every animal, but shortages of green, white and red. Those on the right/lid stayed as a 'master sample'.

Aquatic critters

I don't know if it's by design or co-incidence, but the animals in the set break down neatly into four relatively distinct groups of four-each 'type', for a total pose-count of sixteen? You should recognise most, if not all of them, from your own childhood experiences with cheap cracker (the best, for this kind of thing), or from the many H is for How They Come in posts where one or two of these have featured!

The not-quite Insects

Who wants a tick in their Christmas cracker!

What struck me about both sets of full-sized crackers the other day, or indeed, the two mini-sets, and that whether the set with toys and puzzles or the other, there was no real duplication of boxes to tick, and for that to occur, I am imagining, there was a belt running through the packer's stations, where each packer has a bag of say, these insects, or rings, or curling prediction-fish, thimbles, wire-puzzles or whatever.

And with each operator (almost certainly women back in the day) practised to about the same speed of completing a cracker and putting it on the belt, you should with thirty-odd stations maybe, end up with a prefect mix of thirty different items travelling down the belt to the packers, within each 24-cracker group, arriving in line at the end?

Reptiles

I think the little-green is a gecko?

So, whether you have two, four or even six girls at the end of the line, and whether they can (with practice) pick 2, 3 or even four crackers per hand, as they pack the usually 10's or 12's, the chance of duplication is almost zero.

Where you do get duplication of contents, it's usually a 24 or more-crackers box, and then you find a different design/colour of insect, thimble, ring or whatever, there’s still an almost zero likelihood of a full duplication?

Proper insects

There WAS, often, duplication of hats and jokes, but that would be explained by the hats having a smaller variance, usually only five or six colours, sometime with different crown-cuts sometimes not. Bi-coloured crowns reduce full-duplication slightly?

 

While the jokes tend to be on sheets, and each packing-girl would need a bag, box, tote or stillage of cut jokes to grab one of, randomly, with each toy and crown, so A) she could, herself, put the same joke in two of her crackers, consecutively, and B) include the same joke, at the same time as one of her near neighbours, or anyone else on the line, which would be the same thing on a larger box of 18 or 24 crackers?

 

 Lobster and tick on evilBay

 

It's not that I lose sleep over this stuff (plenty of more important things to lose sleep over these days!), but I do like to know, or have an idea how it all works, because it's clever, isn't it?

Different sculpts

Probably newer, possibly a rubberised elastomer?

 

The ingenuity we show, and practice in ensuring there are no novelty/toy duplications in boxes of 8, 10, 12, 16, 18, 24 or 32 budget Christmas crackers, is clearly wasted on us if we can't sort out fair pay, fair taxation or the state of the State of Palestine/Israel?

 On the beach!

 

This is what's here, in the TBS (to be sorted) boxes, the black spider is clearly from another set, as is the smaller crab in a fetching mauve! The red spider seems to be an injector-head purge, or colour-changeover figure, rather than sunlight damage?

Upsidedown!

 

And while the two 'stags' are from the same source (as each other and the above set), the red spider is apparently a sub-piracy by another maker. Like Airfix 'army men', parachute toys or Britains farm/zoo animals, there was a lot of copying of copies, of copies going on in the former Crown Colony! Although not the same level of variance as you find with the cat, Scottie-dog or elephant charms.