Wednesday 23 August 2017

Those Cockamamie Characters

Yes, kids, you could have Yowp tattooed onto your arm. Fortunately, parents, it’s not permanent.

Back when I was young, you could buy a sheet of inked drawings that you could put on your body and wash them off. A company called Dynamic Toys in New York licensed some of the Hanna-Barbera and Disney characters and sold Cockamamies in 1961.

They’re not terribly sophisticated, but I’m sure they pleased the young cartoon fan that wanted to wear Baby Puss. I’m not really sure what the attraction was; the early ‘60s was not a period of tatted-up hipsters setting an example for kids.

Anyway, as you can see below, Yowp is on the Huck/Yogi set. I assume Hokey and the Major are labelled because they were new characters in 1961. It doesn’t appear there was a Quick Draw McGraw set.

I’m sure we posted one of these before, but reader Rick Greene sent copies of the full set. Thanks to Rick for another of his contributions.

3 comments:

  1. TaTOONS would have been a more marketable name...... I know that I would've LOVED to get sets of these when I was younger!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is "Yakky Doodle" actually spelled "YANKEE Doodle" here?

    Oh, wait... It was 1961, and the Toy Company was in New York. It was probably done for Roger Maris! I say, that's a baseball joke, son!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I lucked out and got a box of these in the early 1980s at a local mom and pop hardware store that always left ANCIENT stock on their shelves. My box was the only one left after 20 years. It was actually cobbled together from several other open boxes. It had 2 or 3 complete Hanna-Barbera sets, several pages of letter and number tattoos and sheets from another set of COCKAMAMIES that I think was Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO!!! So there must have been other COCKAMAMIE sets. I wonder how many as the HB is the only one I've ever seen the cover of. (Haven't seen it for a while, but it's around here somewhere!) All sheets were the same dimensions.

    ReplyDelete