F is for Frog . . . Man!

This weirdness joined the stash a few weeks ago, and on one level I wish it hadn't, it's a kilo or more of cold clammy stretch-rubber I just don't need, but on another level it's actually a quite interesting find, despite being a pretty hideous thing!

 

This is how I saw him, and thought, "Oh, a rubber jiggler man-frog thing, better have that?", even though it was a pit pricy at a fiver. However, when I picked the parcel up from the Old House, the box was so heavy I thought Peter or Chris had sent me something without telling me (they both have, sent lovely things, in the last ten days!), but took it home and unwrapped it.

It WAS a rubber jiggler, and it WAS that stretchy, silicon-rubber, clammy stuff which gets covered in pet hairs, dust and some sticky substrate/exudate, so this shot is 'after cleaning', but the bugger was huge, and I should have guessed-so from the knicker-elastic used in place of the thin black elastic thread, the giant spiders and King Kong's of my youth used to get!

See! Mahoosive lump of rubber! But, marked AAA and dated 1968, the year AAA are believed to have been set up. Previously known for their animals, a lot subcontracted to other brands, I think this is the first/earliest [part-] human figure I've seen by them, and from the colours of both polymer and paint, we can probably assume, with some safety, that they are responsible for a lot of the similar rubber-jigglers found in gum-ball capsule machines, including some of the Lik Be (LB) copies, such as those we saw here.

 

Indeed, that A-mark (link post) may be a Tripple-A variant, they are known to have used single A's as well as triples, but it doesn't explain the 'S' and other letter (?) on my LB robot/aliens? So, on one level it is what it is, a piece of ephemeral shite from the 1960's, but on another, a useful connector of other parts in the whole-story, either though the clues, or the more empirical bits!

The elastic is perished and will need replacing, which will entail stretching the new stuff to maximum, to match the non-elastic remain's measurements, then cutting, and glueing to the end of the old one, so it can be pulled through a hidden bar of rubber or tunnel set into the rubber jiggler.