Strung Along

Well that didn't take long. Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins sent along quite a pertinent update concerning the subject of last week's post, 1973's Jeepers Creepers. So sit back, grab a drink to "ghoul" off and marvel at the contents of the retail box, which looks pretty striking all filled up:

You can see the strings here , which I suspect broke off pretty soon after these were played with for the first time. It also looks like each batch of  toys was dumped into the retail subject-by-creepy-subject:

It's a little hard to discern, but there were only five different critters offered: Pterodactyl, Frog (really?), Mouse, Bat and (what looks like a dwarf) Alligator. 

One thing I'm not at all sure about is when these were actually marketed as the line up doesn't necessarily translate to a given season.  The last of the traditional Topps Hallowe'en sets came out in 1972 and this may have been an attempt to try a new format but am not really sure. I am happy to know, however, that my type example is legit!

Creeped Out

I've had in my possession for some time now an example of what I believe to be a 1973 Topps Jeepers Creepers toy.  I'll get into the "believe" momentarily but first, here she is:

My example is fairly substantial, and thicker when compared to what I consider the set's ancestral (1967) Teacher's Pets/Rubber Uglies subjects. It's well-formed and clearly marked as being made in Hong Kong on the bat-back:.

These came in a blue box:

Yikes!  The reason I "believe" my example was sold in this box is the artwork, where a suspiciously similar looking bat is flying under the pterodactyl. I can't quite suss out where the string would have been attached though.

The set dating is from the box bottom indicia, found on this proof flat:

Here's the aforementioned indicia:

As always, if you have examples from this obscure issue, please send your images along!