Indie Squid Kid

Here is the contents of yesterday’s mystery package—a specimen of the seldom seen terrestrial cephalopod commonly known as the Tufted Cuddlestache. Natalie Metzger is the world’s leading expert on Cuddlestache biology and natural history, and the following account is from her website, The Fuzzy Slug (where you can also see one of the only known photographs of a Tufted Cuddlestache in the wild):

Extremely rare and elusive, the Tufted Cuddlestache is native to the dense temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.  It was believed that they were hunted to extinction for their luxurious mustaches, which were used in the making of novelty stick-on mustaches and eyebrow replacements. However, while searching for Sasquatch in the remote backwoods of Washington state, field scientist, Dr. Crumpen Von Ludwig,  stumbled upon a small surviving population of the Tufted Cuddlestaches. Little was known about them as the last known living specimen died in 1910. He discovered that they were quite friendly and unafraid of man. Whether that was from isolation, or natural behavioral traits, studies so far have been inconclusive.  Since this great discovery, a  breeding program has been established by Washington State University in order to help restore wild population numbers and to gain valuable knowledge about the behavior and biology of these wonderful creatures. Currently, wild numbers are still very low (estimates are somewhere around 20 breeding pairs) and the Tufted Cuddlestache is listed as critical on the endangered species list.

In addition to being a reknowed cuddlestache-ologist, Natalie is also an artist, cartoonist, and photographer. She designed the Indie Squid Kid logo, and the famous “Bourbon Drinking Squid.”

Smart Animals™ is a toy line from Discovery Channel’s Discovery Kids™ imprint that puts a new spin on the classic concept of plastic animal figures. Each figure has a small chip that, when scanned with the Scanopedia™ device (sold separately, of course), plays sound effects and quizzes you on trivia about the animal. The line includes a large assortment wildlife, including dinosaurs, African and North American animals, and marine life.

The squid figure is really cool, but it looks more like a Humboldt than an Architeuthis—its fins are too large and its tentacles are too short. (Incidentally, the squid figured on the back of the package appears to be a slightly different sculpt, one which actually matches the silhouette sticker on the front of the package.) The Great White’s gaping mouth seems almost comically large, but, hey, sharks have big mouths! It’s kind of their thing. Both figures are approximately 4 inches long, and each has it’s own display stand. I don’t have the Scanopedia “electronic talking animal encyclopedia”, but I am really curious to know what sounds they think a Giant Squid makes!

I picked this up the other day at my local Target, but it doesn’t look like it’s made it onto Target.com, Amazon, or even the Discovery Channel online store yet.

Via Pink Tentacle

The Ningyo-do Bunko Database is a huge online collection of watercolor paintings by Kawasaki Kyosen (1877-1942). The collection consists of over 5,000 still-life images of antique toys and folk crafts from across Japan, including a few lovely octopus-themed items.

Paper octopus balloon (1930)

Roly-poly toy and bell/whistle, Aichi prefecture (1932)

See more at Pink Tentacle!

Mattel’s Matchbox Monsters was a 2006 toy line that paired diecast vehicles with plastic cryptids (well, sorta). There was a snow plow with a yeti, a pickup truck with a giant bear, a van with a reptoid/swamp monster, a Jeep with a “T-rex bone monster,” and the best of all, a hovercraft with a Kraken. (You can see photos of the entire set here.)

Now it has been well established that hovercraft are awesome. This one claims to be a “Nautical Research Vessel”, yet it has a massive harpoon cannon on the foredeck. That’s pretty awesome, I guess, but it begs the question, what kind of research requires a harpoon? (Other than “What can we harpoon today?”) I suppose it could be used to defend their hovercraft from the deadly Kraken…

This particular Kraken (which seems to be officially called the “Black Kraken Monster”) resembles a cross between an octopus and a squid. Its head and tentacles are arrayed in a very octopus-like pose, but it’s head extends into a long squid-like mantle. It appears to have only seven arms, and each ends in pointy club. The mantle ends in a similar arrowhead point, so it almost seems as though it might have been intended to be an eighth tentacle. It has malevolent red and yellow eyes, purple spots OF PURE EVIL.

More recently, the Kraken figure has shown up in the Matchbox Hitch ‘N Haul series, specifically the Wild Water™  set. The Kraken is now being called a Giant Squid, and it is joined by a shark and scuba diver. The hovercraft has been replaced with an (infinitely less interesting) SUV pulling a jet ski on a trailer. The squid has been repainted a sort of purpley-blue and, in case you were wondering, the SUV is a Chevy Suburban.

There is also this variant version with a powder blue squid, shark, and diver, a red jet ski, and a Land Rover Freelander.

leviathans 9, originally uploaded by Ryan Rubino.

Behold the glory that is Lego Sperm Whale vs Lego Giant Squid! I thought about saving this for Flickr Friday, but I just couldn’t wait!

For more photos of these beautiful brick behemoths, visit Ryan’s Flickr set.

Fisher-Price Imaginext™ Deep Sea Diver (2002)

This toy squid is perplexing. It accurately has eight arms and two club-ended feeding tentacles (the detail which these kinds of replicas get wrong more often than not), but instead of extending forward from the front of the head and encircling the mouth, the arms are arranged along the middle of the body like the legs of an insect. Adding insult to injury, the feeding tentacles trail behind it like some kind of double tail.

It has a beak, which is good, but the horizontal orientation combined with the forward-facing eyes give its head an ant-like quality. Speaking of the eyes, the illustration shows hourglass pupils, like an octopus. This is wrong for a squid, but it’s also oddly specific—as if the designer had a visual reference for the eyes, but just winged the rest of the figure without much thought.

Seriously, was the design of this toy dictated over the phone or something? Had the designer seen a squid one time, perhaps while high, and figured he remembered it well enough? Did he then get distracted by a picture of a spider half-way through?

I don’t want to rag on the Fisher-Price Imaginext line too much, since it recently has produced a couple of cool (and more accurate) cephalopod toys…but those will be the subject of future posts.

Mr. Caissy from Accounting, originally uploaded by Bekathwia.

Sighted on BoingBoing.

If you happen to be one of the three people on the planet not familiar with boingboing.net, it is your one-stop-shop for all that is wonderful on the web–things both relevant and irrelevant. Squids obviously fall into that category. I’ve previously posted a news story from BoingBoing here, and below is a mere smattering of other squid-related posts.

Giant squid cake
Giant squid sex: violent, tangled, and deeply weird
Edible squid postcards

octopus, originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.

This is a fact: When it comes to high-quality toy animals, Safari Ltd. blows any competition out of the water. Their replicas include not only a wide array of sea life, but also birds, insects, jungle mammals, farm animals, and the most scientifically accurate line of plastic dinosaurs ever produced. Safari figurines are widely available online, in retail stores (arts & crafts store Michaels, for example, usually has a good selection) and in museum gift shops the world over.

The Wild Safari Sealife® Octopus doesn’t provide a specific taxonomic identification, and, like most toy octopi, it’s not entirely obvious–after all, there are hundreds of known species of octopus, and their body color and texture is famously variable. If I had to make a guess, I’d say it’s most likely the Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris)–the well-studied species known from the waters of southern England to norther Africa and the Mediterranean.

The figure itself is 5″ L x 1.5″ H and retails for $3.99.

Buy it from Safariltd.com
Buy it from Amazon.com

Today is my first Father’s Day as Indie Squid Dad, and it seems like the perfect occasion to introduce you to my Very Good Excuse for taking so long to resume this blog.

Meet Kid Indie Kid Squid (a.k.a. Commander Awesome)! He’s hanging out with a portion of my plush cephalopod collection. They’ll all be his one day, so it seemed best to begin the acclimation process early! Each of these stuffed toys will eventually make an individual appearance here in the blog, and I’m sure I have another box of them somewhere…

Kid Indie Squid Kid is wearing an Ahou Octu bodysuit (don’t call it a “Onesie,” Gerber has that trademarked!) by Finny’s Greens.

Subbies – Squiddy, originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.

It’s summertime, and, for many, that means regular trips to the pool. I have to admit, I don’t have much use for swimming pools these days unless they are the kind that have a swim-up bar. However, if I were a regular pool-goer, you can bet this little guy would be my constant companion.

Meet Squiddy, the marvelous motorized mock-mollusk!

This was a house warming gift, so I don’t know where it was originally purchased, but it is by Mind Walk, a maker of fine aquatic and magnetic toys. It is a member of the Subbies line, which, at some point during the last 6 years, must have been bitten by a radioactive pool toy or something because they are now called Super Subbies. (Incidentally, other Super Subbies include Orky the Orca and Manty the Ray.)

Squiddy is powered by two AA batteries (not included) and, as the marketing copy says…”He Scoots Through The Water With His Arms Trailing After!” And, just in case one catchy tagline wasn’t enough, the back of the package tells us that Squiddy is “Cool In The Pool…A Blast In The Bath! And…”Watch Him Spin, Flip, and Race…All Over The Place!”

You can tell by all the exclamation points that is is a very exciting toy!