I have also always had a tendency to root for the underdogs and some of my favorite characters are Wile E., Sylvester, and Elmer. On the other hand, I also like Bugs and probably prefer him to Daffy since even though I understand Daffy’s jealousy and feel he was mistreated by the writers and other characters, it didn’t justify him trying to murder Bugs. My other favorite is Porky. In the books I like Petunia and always wondered why she didn’t appear much, if at all, in the cartoons.
Elmer and Wile E. are probably my top favorites. I have two Wile E. plushies, and the acquiring of each is a story.
In my church, people are baptized when they’re old enough to understand the principles instead of being baptized as infants. It’s always a big deal and a grand celebration for the ones being baptized. Many kids are baptized around age 8. I was too, and it was an amazing and beautiful and spiritual day. I received several lovely gifts, some religious and a few monetary. I ended up with $25, more money than I’d likely ever seen as mine in my short life up to that point. I wanted to celebrate, and for an 8-year-old toy-loving kid in the 90s, that meant Toys R Us!
As I recall, we went to the Toys R Us that was arguably the closest to us at that time, in a fancy shopping center on the East Side. After looking around a while, I found one of the most glorious things for me at that point in my life: a two-foot (or more) Wile E. plush! This was November 5th, 1994 and a very good time to be a Looney Tunes fan. The cartoons played on ABC every Saturday. Figures and plushies were common in stores. I had hoped to find some merch, but I had never dreamed of anything so big!
It was a whole plush line, in fact. I want to say there were at least four in the line, but I can only remember Wile E., Bugs, and Sylvester for sure. I cannot remember the fourth. There was only one plush of Wile E., and he had no price tag. I believe the others in the line were $24.99, so I could have squeaked by getting him at that price. But with no tag, we took him to Customer Service to find out how much he cost. It seemed like ages we waited and waited. At one point the clerks played around with Wile E. and Sylvester. Finally they brought the incredible news: he was $12.99! Perhaps he was on Clearance? Or perhaps they were just being kind to a little kid who clearly wanted him badly. In any case, starry-eyed me immediately bought him and he sat beside me in the car on the way home.
Here he is. Isn’t he wonderful?
I always wondered why the hair tuft was black instead of the accurate brown, but that is such a minor thing. It never mattered to me.
I eventually fell out of love with the cartoons because I really do not like body horror and finally stopped trying to pretend I found it funny. But I still loved the characters and Wile E. has always been special to me.
Flash forward to last week. I saw a Wile E. plush in the back of a claw machine at Smith’s. This one is very small, but he’s smiling adorably and I was attracted enough that I decided to try to get him. This was a very foolish decision, as claw machines, of course, are notorious for not working right for people and my one other attempt to get something from one as a kid ended with me in tears because it didn’t work. This time, I tried five times and failed to get Wile E. There was another plush in front, so the claw couldn’t seem to really get a tight enough grip. I thought of removing that plush and trying again, but I couldn’t get the claw around the other plush. I gave up.
This week, I found the plushies had been rearranged and Wile E. was in front! Well, that was enough encouragement to try again, so I stuck four more quarters in the slot and attempted to get the claw to behave. And ... it actually did. I would have liked to have seen my expression of shock and happiness as it gripped Wile E. tight enough to lift him up and moved back towards the opening. I was tense, wondering if something would still go wrong. It seemed too amazing a thing to happen to me. But then, incredibly, it dropped him down the reward slot and he was mine!
This one is made by Toy Factory, a company that does prizes for machines and carnivals. They have a lot of Pokemon plush. I wondered if their Eevees weren’t furry, because they don’t really look it. But maybe they actually are and just have very short, fine fur like my new Wile E.
Here is a size comparison of the two.
I also wanted to show the tails. While the new one’s is arguably more accurate, it’s just a strip of cloth! My childhood plush’s tail is fully three-dimensional.
After actually having some success at a claw machine, it makes me want to try on occasion to see if I can get any other characters I like from them. I saw a Bugs I’d like to try for two towns away, if he’s still available. We shall see.
No comments:
Post a Comment