Too Gross! Remembering Mattel’s Mad Scientist Toys of the 1980s

 

In 1987, Mattel introduced the world to a great — though messy — toy line that encouraged children to take up science, or at least mad science.

First in the line was my favorite item of the line: The Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Kit.

 

 

Here, burgeoning men and women of (mad) science would “yank out alien organs dripping in glowing ALIEN BLOOD!“  The kit had a mat (for containing mess), an alien figure, and all the alien’s…innards.

To wit, inside that alien body there are “12 body organs” and there is “only one way they’ll fit together.”

So “it’s the slimiest puzzle on Earth.”

The bug-eyed scientist featured on the box also opines “Yeech! What an oozy operation! Can you make all the organs fit inside the alien?”

The Mad Scientist Dissect-an-Alien Kit includes: “alien, 12 alien organs, Glow-in-the-dark Alien Blood compound, plastic scalpel, Operating Mat, Alien body bag, and a Journal of Mad Experiments with Instructions.”

 

 

A funny fact about the Operating Mat is that it includes colorful background names for all twelve of the alien’s unusual organs.

There’s the “veinausea,” “heartipus,” “liverot,” “spleenius,” “mad bladder,” “stumuckus,” “blooblob,” “fleshonius,” “branium,” “gutball” and “lungross.”

This Mad Scientist toy was also sold with a short comic-book describing the scientist’s discovery of the alien creature.

Here’s a TV commercial for the dissect-an-alien kit:

 

 

There were other great toys in the Mad Scientist line too, including A Mad Scientist Experimental Laboratory, seen below:

 

 

Also for sale was “Glowing Glop.” This toy enticed youngsters to “turn water into GLOP” instantly, and noted that the results were “Awesomely oozy!”

 

 

Another Mad Scientist toy was called “Scientist Splatters” and allowed kids to create “a fresh batch of Gooey Plasma.”

Before the line folded, there were Mad Scientist Playsets (a laboratory and operating room), watches (Called Time Freaks), alien “blood kits” and even a dress up play kit.

All in all, Mattel’s Mad Scientist toys not only anticipated (the wonderful) Doctor Dreadful, they fully lived up, delightfully, to their promotional slogan:

Too gross!