#465 HORROR PETS - STINKA (1994)

 

Another miniature pocket-set, but this time it´s not a Bluebird´s Mighty Max one, but something different. When I first spotted it, I though it might be a MM bootleg, since the plastic case is less detailed and far worse painted.

 

Inside I found a fly, which I wasn´t sure if it could actually belong to the set, but I took the risk because both the case and the fly were marked Mattel 1994.

 

 

At home I found it belongs to the Horror Pets, a collection of small pullback-motorized animals. To make them more "attractive" (or should I say more expensive?) they were sold inside of those cases. The cases are clearly influenced by Mighty Max, as I said before, so Mattel probably decided to release its own take-away toy for boys. The theme is also similar, remember that MM playsets were based on monsters and creatures, in this case insects and other little disgusting animals.

 

 

 

The fly has a quite powerful pullback motor. This motor makes the fly really fast, and because of its low weight, it turns randomly, as a real fly would do. The insect is made of soft plastic and is very well detailed, (wings, head...) The shell doesn´t really match, since it is some kind of poorly painted alien-egg.

 

 

The collection was quite a flop (very simple toy, and probably very expensive) and it remains quite unknown. Not many resources on the internet about this, but I have been looking for pictures, and there was at least two different types of toys: the "Insectoids" are the pullback insecccts in their shells, but there were also "Monsters", actually the same type of toy, only much bigger (roughly the size of an adult hand) and with more attractive features, like movable jaws or light on eyes.

 

In another blog I found a cardback showing other Horror Pets (Insectoid) models:

 

Taken from http://x-entertainment.com/updates/2011/10/25/mattels-horror-pets/comment-page-3/

 

You can also see the french commercial here: http://www.ina.fr/video/PUB3774457004

 

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: STINKA (Insectoid)
• Toy Line: Horror Pets
• Year: 1994
• Company: Mattel (U.S.A.)
• Size of the playset: Around 8 cm long
• Size of the figures: 4 cm