Indie Squid Kid

To close out Plush Week, here is, hands down, the coolest plush cephalopod in my collection…maybe the coolest plush cephalopod EVER MADE. Measuring over two and half feet long, Wild Republic’s Gaint Squid dominates the toy box. This awseomely anatomically accurate Architeuthis (although the tag claims it to be simply a “Squid”) was produced in 2005. I picked mine up from a vendor at Dragon*Con a few years back, but it is still available online. For example, Amazon.com.

In addition to its overall size, this toy has many other impressive details. It’s eyes are nearly two inches in diameter, it has a ventral siphon, and there is a well-defined collar separating the head from the mantle. If you part the fuzzy arms and tentacles, you will find a pointy black beak. The only thing this squid is missing are the suckers.

A week ago on Father’s Day, I said I would reveal the outcome of Kid Indie Squid Kid’s encounter with the plush Architeuthis. And the winner is…

Kid Indie Squid Kid clearly had the upper hand (or tentacle, as the case may be me) in this battle. Although he seems to have enlisted the help of a certain ursine ally.

I have always had a fondness for plush versions of animals that are not, by any reasonable definition, cuddly. I remember a particular stuffed toy vulture that I wanted more than anything when I was about 8 or 9, and one of my favorite recent non-cephalopod toys is an awesome plush horseshoe crab. Sharks, bats, armadillos…the less you’d want to snuggle up with the real animal, the more I want to see a plush of it. Cephalopods, of course, also fall into the traditionally non-cuddly category, and what kind of cephalopod could be less hugable than the most venomous octopus in the world, Hapalochlaena, the Blue-ringed Octopus!

This particular Blue-ringed Octopus was purchased at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum gift shop some time in the mid-90s. It was made by K&M International, Inc., a leading purveyor of nature toys, plush and otherwise. These days, most K&M animal toys are sold under the Wild Republic brand, but this guy was made in 1994, which seems to predate the name change. Once again, I’m using a pen for scale (yes, I took all these pictures on the same day), and the exact measurements are 11″ across and 5″ high—at least twice as big as the real thing. The tag text just describes a generic octopus, and I seem to recall that it was available in a few different colors and patterns. Obviously, I had to choose the one that could cause instant death. Fuzzy, adorable, instant death.