A brief and creepy history of Creepy Crawlers

To two generations—baby boomers and their kids—the words creepy crawlers mean something. And in the year 2000, a company called Toymax hoped they’d make a new generation scream.

They were reintroducing a classic last seen on toy shelves in 1996, and the press release was exuberant (as press releases usually are). “The overwhelming consumer demand for Creepy Crawlers products prompted us to re-introduce this classic toy,” Toymax president Steven Lebenfeld said. And he had reason to be optimistic. In the 1990s, Toymax pushed more than five million ovens off the shelves and sold more than 60 million bottles of the Plasti-Goop compound that made the squirmy plastic bugs.

As the release noted, with 50 bugs to a bottle, it was possible that more than 300 million crawlers were scuttling across the United States.

Now, Toymax hoped they could catch lightning bugs in a bottle for a second time. This is how they got there.

Creepy Crawlers entrance (and injure) boomers

Creepy Crawlers didn’t start as a 90s kids phenomenon. They came first for boomers, thanks to the Thingmaker.

Mattel introduced the Thingmaker in 1964 (it was a hot-plate cousin to the earlier Vac-U-Form). The premise? It was like an Easy-Bake Oven on steroids. Kids squirted Plasti-Goop into molds and then put them in the Thingmaker. The molds grew extremely hot and resulted in common household injuries.

Creepy Crawlers were just one of the Thingmaker products. Mattel also sold molds for Creeple People and Fighting Men. In subsequent years, there were spin-off molds, kits, and other Thingmakers, but Creepy Crawlers had the most enduring appeal. Still, safety concerns and the natural lifespan of toy fads doomed Creepy Crawlers to nostalgia during the 80s. Mattel discontinued the toy in 1978.

But the nation wasn’t without it for long. It was a sense of nostalgia that led Toymax to give Creepy Crawlers another try in 1992.

Creepy Crawlers make a comeback thanks to boomer nostalgia

In a 2000 profile, Steven Lebenfeld revealed one key element of nostalgia that motivated his company’s Creepy Crawler revival: the smell of youth, including burning plastic.

“We took out the aroma, but it didn’t sell, so we put it back,” he said. “Now it smells the way it used to, and it’s selling again.”

That nostalgic sentiment was even stronger in 1992, when ToyMax debuted the line. “This was a favorite of mine when I was growing up,” Lebenfeld said. That nostalgia—and profit potential—drove ToyMax to secure licensing rights, a few patents to protect against infringement, and to make a companion piece for girls called Treasures N’ Trinkets.

The boomer affection for Creepy Crawlers helped Toymax see a gap in the market. Mattel had let their trademark expire and Toymax picked up the rights. Analysts agreed that boomer nostalgia would power the kits’ sales.

Even though they kept the odor, Toymax’s Creepy Crawlers were redesigned for the nineties. Like all nostalgia, the copy was sweeter than the original. These Crawlers had new safety measures, ditching the super-hot molds for 90s-friendly creepiness. Instead of squirting Plasti-Goop into a sizzling mold, kids injected it into the molds, and the molds were then put inside an oven, with a door that kept them secure until the oven cooled.

The new, safer Creepy Crawlers worked. Sales in the first year were strong and a creepy empire was born.

Creepy corporate synergy, spin-offs, and more. Including a TV show

Creepy Crawlers were taking over. In addition to an ever-expanding line of toys, they added a TV show. It was produced by Saban Entertainment, the same company behind Battletech and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and that probably led to special Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers molds that worked with the Creepy Crawlers oven.

Meanwhile, there were attempts to expand the Creepy Crawler empire to girls, including the Dollymaker Boutique Molding Oven, which required glamor goop to make dolls.

Everything seemed great in the 90s, but Creepy Crawlers had hit their peak.

Creepy Crawlers scurry into the shadows, and a revival falls short

By 1996, the fad had cooled for no reason other than time. The Power Rangers partnership wasn’t enough to keep Creepy Crawlers going, and a Jurassic Park team-up didn’t save sales.

And what about that reboot in 2000, when Toymax seemed so confident? It lasted about a year before fizzling out.

Jakks Pacific bought Toymax in 2002 and took over the Creepy Crawler line. New versions of the toy trickled out over the years, but it’s no longer listed on their site, and there aren’t many new releases.

Creepy Crawler enthusiasts don’t have to worry, however. It was nostalgia that brought the toy back in the first place. When millennials start having kids, there’s a chance they’ll want the toy that used to make them scream. It’s hard to forget a name like Creepy Crawlers.