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Come on, everybody must have grown up owning one of these! The wiggly plastic snake was a very simple toy, basically consisting of a number of plastic segments which were connected together in such a way that when you held the tail of the snake, the rest of the snake would wiggle about in much the same way as a real snake would. The entire snake would be made out of a single colour of plastic, quite often a colour that was most un-snake like. There would also be stickers on each segment to give the snake some markings.
It was one of those toys that everybody had, but you can’t quite remember how you obtained it in the first place. Most likely it came into your possession as either a stocking filler at Christmas, or you bought it with your own pocket money whilst you were on holiday at the seaside. Once you had it though, every time you re-found it again in your bedroom the usual tomfoolery began:-
- First, you’d sit and wiggle it about for 5 minutes or so.
- If you had younger siblings, you’d first try and scare them with it.
- Next, try and scare Mum with it. If she was in a good mood she would probably pretend to be frightened. If she wasn’t, or was busy or something, you’d get the “Get that thing out of my face” response.
- Lastly, try and scare Dad with it. This would fail and he’d probably snatch it away from you and try and scare Mum with it as well. This would be greeted with a “Don’t you start”.
Well, that’s how it went in our house anyway. I remember mine was black with yellow spots. What fun!
I wasn’t a child of the 1980s but i do renember getting one of these in a birthday party bag and carrying it around with me 24/7. My parents wouldn’t let me have a real pet snake so i pretended it was real. I think i stood on it and it broke.