Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/05/12/loop-a-lot-1966-crummy-toy-c.html
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Watching the video, one might imagine the director desperately pleading with kids to please just smile, yes, you’re bored, we need one more shot, please smile, the monkey’s diaper is going to need changing and the trainer is demanding overtime pay, we’ll get you some ice cream, etc.
[quote]You could make one out of a piece of cardboard in a couple of minutes.[/quote]Perhaps they had some sort of patent?
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And if you fail, coins everywhere.
It’s like a coin atlatl.
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was that Lancelot Link???
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You could make one out of a piece of cardboard in a couple of minutes.
A wire hanger works well. In junior high I made a chandelier type thing with three extra hooks wired to the first and then spun a penny, a dime, a nickel, and a quarter. It’s a neat effect when, after you have stopped it, you tap the contraption on a table and all the coins fall off, in case anyone thought you had glued them on.
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I had one of those. I remember it so I guess it wasn’t that crummy.
I remember the thing was putting different weights of coins in different slots and doing a ‘challange’ with people.
I don’t think it was 1966 tho…more like early 70’s. The clothing and hair cut for the kid isn’t 66…and they wouldn’t have wasted color for kid’s commercial when most people didn’t have color TV’s.
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A chimpanzee is not a monkey. Also, why was the brilliant professor (who cannot Loop-a-Lot) German? So much deconstruction is in order!
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Latchkey kids had a similar thing at the time, but without the balancing act. It was called Your Housekey on a String.
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Also, why was the brilliant professor (who cannot Loop-a-Lot) German?He was one of the lesser luminaries from Operation Paperclip. Yes, we forgave his somewhat questionable past, but we couldn't just let secrets of centripetal force get out to the Soviets, now could we?
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Who is that actor? I’m blanking on his name, I know I’ve heard that voice before like in those claymation christmas special maybe?
I’m not sure if this is a crummy-toy / commercial or a crummy / toy commercial. My money is on the latter.
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I have studied this product for a few minutes now, and i think to make it better they needed to skip the chimp, lose the kids, fire the professor, throw the looper in the trash, and design a more interesting toy.
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Grinning chimpanzees never looked the same after I found out how theyre made to grin. Turns out that in chimps, showing the teeth is a fear reaction. To get them to grin on cue, the trainer holds up a slingshot off camera where the chimp can see it. (Three guesses to figure out how the chimp associates a slingshot with fear)
Cute, huh?
God, I used to hate Lancelot Link. Even as a 5-year-old, I winced.
At least the chimp was able to pretend to be interested for a second or so. The kids couldn’t even make it that long.
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that is…disturbing…
He’s doing a riff off of Sid Caesar’s Professor Character.
Also Ludwig Von Drake.
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Continued in the present day by Stanley Tucci’s Dr. Erskine character in the first Captain America flick.
This all goes back to German scientists and WWII, doesn’t it?
I owned a red (maroon?) one of those years ago. Seems like I played with it for 10? 20? minutes at a time maybe 5-10 times. It wasn’t terribly difficult, but I did send pennies and nickels flying thru the house multiple times, Luckily I didn’t break anything though.
I was a pre-teen physics nerd.and this was a easy (albeit weird) way to play. And yeah I’d say it was maybe the early 70s, but I’ve slept since then.
What, you wanted a FPS in 1966? We didn’t have LED watches or calculators yet. Computers were analog if you even HAD one. (See www.crcpress.com/9781439835487 for our non-slide rule calculators.) BTW: most of the responses to a ~50 year old commercial are just SO funny and insightful. Then again when I was a teenager I’d have said the same snarky things.
Also: go hug your parents. Mine have been gone for over a decade. I’d give literally anything to talk or even just see them doing any random thing back then for the 30-odd seconds this commercial runs. Alas, not to be.
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