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Spidery Octopus Things That Rolled Down Windows, Those

Wonder if they roll down monitor screens too?RAW LIVER-ishly replusive to the touch and prone to attracting huge quantities of fluff from eight miles away they may have been, yet the strange invention of Dr Ken Hakuta became a short-lived early eighties playground sensation like few before or since. The long and short of it was that if these worryingly over-adhesive arachnidy cephalopods were affixed to the upper portion of a smooth glass surface, they would gradually roll down in a condensatory motion, before reaching the bottom and plummeting off into, you guessed it, yet more fluff. Their popularity was, however, terminally dented by rapid outlawing from the vicinity all self-respecting schools, due to their capacity for lesson-disruption and, in rare instances, failed experiments in seeing if they would also roll down an unwilling participant’s spectacles.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. FishyFish

    August 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    They never worked quite the same once they’d had a few legs pulled off. They’d stick, and then simply plummet to the ground after a few seconds.

    I bet they’d be fun in some of today’s modern galss and steel buildings. Literaly hours of productive working time could be frittered away by having races to see who’s octopus could clamber down all10 storeys to the atrium (or, for the risk-takers, if they could descent the managing director’s office window without being spotted).

  2. Tim Worthington

    August 20, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Experiments with Spidery Octopus Things? This is what we like!!

  3. Graysonscolumn

    November 11, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    I think these were also periodically given away as competition prizes in the Topper, weren’t they? Usually rebranded as “Olly the Wall-Walker” in deference to Desert Island Dick’s eight-tentacled pal.

    gc

  4. johnnyboy

    December 16, 2009 at 12:58 am

    Also seen in an episode of Family Guy (the one with Bill Clinton) where whilst visiting an underwater zoo, “Look! it’s the fabled lost city of New Orleans!” Peter gets attacked by an octopus and is saved by the old sea dog with wooden limbs who throws it against the wall, where it slowly flops and flips down said wall onto the ground.
    Obviously was a global fad, not just in the UK.

  5. Adrian

    December 16, 2009 at 9:26 am

    I suspect that the same material that was used to make the octopus is used nowadays in those pads that are meant to keep coins, mobiles, etc stuck to the top of the car dashboard. They still attract the same amount of fluff though!

  6. paulus

    May 30, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    Followed up by a squeezy latex tube full of legionaire’s disease laden fluid.
    The fad lasted about the same, 2 week duration as the octopuss.

  7. Lee James Turnock

    July 20, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    Known in the States as Wacky Wall-Walkers, according to the Ben Is Dead book ‘Retro Hell’.

  8. Richard16378

    May 15, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    At the same time you could get those flying saucers with a ring of suckers around the edge.

    These could be made to stick to tricky places, I remember someone threw one at a skylight at school where it stuck fast.

    I don’t know how they got it back.

  9. Doktordoris

    June 19, 2014 at 4:05 pm

    I remember being given one when I was about seven. We went to Marks and Sparks and I chucked mine at the ceiling, and there it stayed, until a helpful member of staff stood on one of those wheely stool things that stop moving when you stand on them and poked it down with a mop. Then I went home for pot noodle and robin of sherwood.

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