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Wednesday, September 10, 2014

A Mess of Flubber


In 1962, Hassenfeld Brothers Toys signed a deal with Walt Disney Productions to produce a line of toys tied to the film Son of Flubber. Of course, one of the first items produced would have to be "Flubber" itself. The company took what was essentially "Silly Putty", dyed it green and added sparkles. The item was an instant hit.

Suddenly, however, reports of rashes on kids who played with the toy started cropping up. Hassenfeld ran tests that showed that Flubber was not the cause of the rash, but the stories persisted, so they pulled the item from toy store shelves. They were then faced with a huge problem- how could they get rid of all that Flubber? Burning it or dumping it was deemed impractical. Luckily, they were building a new parking lot. The Flubber was buried under the asphalt where it allegedly still bubbles up through the parking lot cracks on hot summer days. Hassenfeld Brothers Toys would go on to shorten its name to Hasbro Toys and still operates today.