Okay, I finally had a score...at a thrift shop! I usually envy you guys and gals that seem to have access to these mythical flea markets and thrift stores which produce endless toy gold. I usually find broken Playskool toys. Anyway, I went into a Goodwill to look for theatrical costume pieces...women's boots, to be exact. Normally, places like that have all sorts of cool clothes until you actually need them...GRRRR! Didn't find the boots I needed, but took the obligatory trip over to the toy section (or what passes for one) just IN CASE something cool was there...and there was!
I caught sight of a baggie full of vintage jigglers or rubber bugs and such. The biggest, most interesting thing in the bag was a big green bug. It immediately caught my eye since it was clearly a total fantasy creation. Naturally, I bough the two dollar bag of bugs and promptly ripped it open as soon as I got to my car. Here it is:
In the bag, I assumed the empty cavity was on the underside...typical of a lot of rubber bug toys. As I opened the sack, I realized that the gaping hole was on the top or back of the buggy monster! I had honestly never seen such a thing before.
Might be hard to make out in my photo, but on the belly of the beast it's marked "Hong Kong" and "Remco 1983". Now, any toy collector is probably familiar with the name Remco. I never heard of anything bug related from them other than the Hamilton Invaders stuff from before the 80s. The creature itself is one solid piece and made of marbled rubber. The only paint applications are the eyes.
Here is the Remco bug monster in my clutches, to give you an idea of the size. Not some tiny little thing. Aside from the aforementioned large cavity, there are also two smaller holes on the sides. Naturally, I Googled anything I could to try and scrounge up info on this thing and got nothing. I quickly posted pics on Instagram and every Facebook toy group I was part of to try and get and I.D. on this thing. So far...NOTHING!
I wanna assume the two smaller side holes were for wings of some kind. Could be wrong, though. The gaping hole on the back...no clue. I mean, could it have held something like a slime sack or some kind of light-up thing? Maybe a cockpit of sorts for some humanoid insectoid warrior to ride in...I dunno. I'm stumped! I also thought it could be some obscure candy container and the big hole was for a small baggie of crappy bone meal candy bits. You never know. The bug itself KIND OF reminds me of the old Centipede arcade game. Some kind of candy promotion? But if so, would Remco have really made novelty candy containers shaped like rubber bug monsters? Once again, just grasping at straws.
At any rate, help me find some info on this thing! PLEASE!
