Does anyone know the name of an old toy which can still be found today in specialty gift shops, and such… As best as I can describe, the toy is a stack of short, wooden planks, all strung togther, and folded up accordian-style.
When you appear to let go of the stack, the wooden planks unfold, unfold, and unfold. They keep unfolding in a cascade-like effect. Does this ring a bell with someone? Although still around today, I bet you could find these in the gift shops of Colonial Williamsburg, for one.
Ok, ok…I’m curious: What was your google entry that found this so quickly? What keywords brought this to the surface so soon? In general, how do you Google on something you only know by sight?
You had the right bits in your OP. Toy classic wooden got me there by page 4. In case your results for this search are different from mine, here is the site that gave me the image.
I knew it just fromthe description. I’ve had one since the early 80’s and had fun watching my stoned roomate play with it. He used to watch it work like it held the key to the universe.
Um, IIRC, the Click Clack from the 60s/70s was a different toy (aka “Klackers”, “Popper Knockers” or “Kerbangers”: two lucite spheres connected by a string wuth a ring in the middle. I also heard rumors that there had once been glass ones which were removed from the market for shattering, but I suspect that was a schoolyard UL. Surely plastic was easier and cheaper to make, and no adult could overlook the added danger and weight of glass models. Even the plastic ones could crack, chip, shatter and otherwise “put your eye out” (that being the goal of most toys in the 60s).
I found many mentions of it on the web, but don’t have time to hunt down the definitive link. I’m too shaken by my latest conspiracist realization: I knew the eye-patched Hathaway man was meant to tempt us into losing an eye to a 60s toy as a shortcut to Jame-Bondian postwar elegance and international sophistication, but I never knew the Canadians were to blame
My ‘click clack’, which I saw again relatively recently clearing out stuff from the family home after my mother’s death, was definitely a jacob’s ladder toy. It probably dated from around 1964 - 65. It went ‘click, clack’ as the sections fell down past each other.
The name may only have applied in the UK; I remember the balls on a string toy was available over here as well but I don’t recall the brand names… I’d have said it was only available later on - in the 70s, maybe.
Claes Oldenburg, a 1960s pop artist who specialized in doing giant versions of everyday things, did one of these called Giant Clacker, so I always thought they were called clackers.
Anyone know the name of that toy that went “zip” when it moved, “bop” when it stopped, and “whirrrrr” when it stood still? I think it had two green buttons somewhere…
