Another great find from the Coleco 1988 Games and Preschool catalog (via the Orange Slime website). I had lots of these things when I was younger, I think my mother enjoyed them more than I did!
Until now, I didn’t think they had a collective name but Tomy referred to them as Waterfuls which sadly isn’t a word that has made into popular culture.
Hayden Yale
Child of the 80's. Born, raised and living in the Cheshire countryside, England.Lover of fan art, especially if it is based on my childhood heroes from Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Transformers and TMNT. Penchant for almost anything retro, especially movies, games and art.
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Owned 3 of these…man I had a typical 70’s/80’s childhood
I had one of the round/tube style ones when I was little, dating back to around the late 70s/very early 80s, it didn’t have any branding on it though.
I had a couple, including the sword fish that catches rings. They were big for a year or two.
I’m really impressed with the water turning into the toy effect. That was pretty slick and pre-CG.
When I was a kid in the 70s/80s, the pediatric dentist I went to had some of these Tomy Waterfuls on hand to play with as fillings were drilled into my teeth.
Today, over 30 years later, I take my kids to the same dentist (same dental practice with younger dentists though) but the VERY SAME Waterful games are STILL THERE!
And now, even though the dental exam rooms all have flatscreen TVs with cable cartoon channels playing, my kids PREFER to play with these Waterfuls rather than any other distraction offered to them.
Wow, these things were, and still are, popular. I was thinking it was just me. I wonder which came first, Tomy’s Waterfuls or the clones?
It looks like these were also made by ideal (most likely tomy originated them & then licensed them to ideal for the US market). The green one with the lobster in this pic is the one that I had: http://www.plaidstallions.com/ideal/uk6.html