There! More fun that find a old Strange Change machine at the flea market! 14 day free trial ! No credit card required!
I have heard tell that ToyMax actually did produce a new strange Change Machine in the early 90's. This information comes from someone who actually owns one of the toys. Unlike the pictures features in early ToyMax catalogs the creatures were all made out of glow in the dark plastic. The machine worked with the aid of a light bulb (similar to that in the new series of Creepy Crawler toys). I am not sure where this toy was distributed widely or not, and this is the only one I have ever heard of. Update! You can sometimes find them on http://www.ebay.com
I have also heard that similar memory plastic toys are still being produced in Europe and can be opened using very hot water.
The Strange Change
Toy was fairly unique in both concept and form. This is one of the
few toys that Mattel made during the 1960's that is still just as
good today as when it was made. (Well, if you use it too many times
the memory plastic does not work all that good...)
The toy came in one of Mattel's most colorful boxes ever. Two
sides were in full color and the ends and other two sides were in
magenta, black on white cardboard. The side of the box, shown to the
left, is a link to download a large version (519x248 42k aprox.) of
the same picture to your computer.
The set consisted of a play mat/map, a vacuformed green set of
strange looking mountains, the Strange Change machine itself, a pair
of blue tongs, and sixteen fantastic time capsules.
The machine was the centerpiece of this toy. Unlike
the squat and ugly Thing-Makers and Vac-U-Form machines this machine
had a metallic cherry red finish and a futuristic plastic chamber on
the top. The overall look gave the appearance of a 1960's time
machine. In fact later versions (like the one shown above) were
remarketed as "The Time Machine"
As for how the toy worked that was even more 'cool'! First you
would plug the machine in and wait for it to warm up. The you put one
or more of the time capsules on the right hand side on the machine to
warm it up slightly. Then you would open the chamber up and toss in
one of the capsules. The capsules were shaped like little squares
with the Mattel logo on one side. Closing the chamber was the next
step. After a few minutes a small plastic figure would emerge slowly
from the capsule. Next you would remove the toy and wait for it to
cool down. Just like the Thing-Maker the heating element in this toy
was very dangerous. When you were done playing with the figure you
would heat it back up in the Strange Change Machine and then quickly
stuff it into the the compression chamber. By turning the crank on
the side you compressed the hot plastic figure back into a time
capsule. After a few minutes you could remove the capsule.
Clicking on the picture to the right will
download a 521x343 59k aprox. picture of the front of the box. The
capsules themselves came in four different colors. The Red and the
Magenta were made out of a very sturdy plastic. The Yellow ones
occasionally burned or became discolored. The green capsules fared
worst of all becoming brown easily.
There were very few other related items for this toy. I only know of
one. There was a pak of additional time capsules. I think it
contained 5-8 additional figures. It was sold as a blister pack on a
dark blue card with black ink.
Here is a rough sketch of the "magic" behind Strange Change.
Strange Change time capsules are made of a special plastic with shape
memory. The memory is created by the manufacturing process. This
process is much the same as the process by which heat-shrink tubing
is made. The process went like this:
Mold the creatures in their "unfolded" form. In the case of Strange
Change, the creatures were injection molded. Mattel designed the
creatures and supplied the molds.
As the creatures left the molding machine, they were strung onto
piano wire to make it easy to transport them through the rest of the
process.
Now the magic part: the molded creatures were
passed into a chamber and subjected to a high-energy beam of
electrons. (Kids, don't try this at home...) The beam changed the
molecular structure of the polymer. On a molecular level, many normal
polymers (plastics) are like a bunch of cooked spaghetti, after you
add a little olive oil! When you bend or stretch them, the molecules
just slide past each other and they stay in the new shape. An
e-beamed polymer is different. The beam knocks the long polymer
molecules around enough to create bonds between them. These bonds are
like little springs that hold the "noodles" together. So, what you
get is more like a stretchy net than a bunch of noodles. In order to
get the net to stretch, you need to heat it up a bit to soften things
up.
The e-beam cross-linking process (as it is sometimes called) was
invented by the founder of the company who made the time capsule for
Mattel. It was first used to make lightweight, high-performance wire
for aircraft (the cross-links allow you to use a thinner coating of
insulation on the wire, so you can make lighter, smaller wire). Soon
after that, the idea came to the folks at the company that you could
use the cross-links to give plastics shape memory. They started
making molded parts and plastic tubing and sold it as stuff that
shrinks when you heat it. Who needs electrical tape anyway! We sell
about a billion dollars a year of stuff these days that is related to
that one idea.
Stick with me for a minute, and all will become clear....
After the e-beaming, the creatures were dipped in a silicon material
to keep them from sticking together during pressing.
Finally, each creature was removed from the wire, heated up, and
pressed into the little square time capsule form complete with Mattel
logo, and cooled to lock it into shape.
So, big deal, right? Anyone can heat up plastic and then press it
into a shape. The question is, why does a square of plastic turn into
a creature? Now you know! The key to Strange Change is not turning a
little square time capsule into a creature, but rather letting a
creature return to its real shape after it was pressed into a time
capsule! By heating the creature, the plastic softens enough so that
little springy bonds between the polymer molecules stretch and you
can change its shape into a time capsule. If you cool it in that
shape, it stays there because the plastic becomes too hard to easily
deform. Now, take that time capsule, pop it into the chamber, and
heat it up. The plastic softens, the little springy bonds between the
molecules pull it back into its "real" shape, and....ta da...a
creature!
This idea makes a cool toy because the process is reversible many
times before the net of polymer molecules starts getting "worn out".
So, you can scrunch and grow the thing many times before it no longer
works.
A while back I got this in the e-mail...
Joe wants to know...
Are there any
other people out there that still like this toy besides you and me? I
still play with it occasionally and it always brings back fond
memories. When I was young I got such a kick out of it when an arm or
leg would suddenly POP out of the little blocks in the "time
machine"! You could sit for hours, which is how long it took for them
to form, and make up all kinds of things. And of course you would
have to make them scream - "No, no.. STOP, DONT PUT ME IN THERE
AGAIN.... ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!" when you mashed them back into the
compression chamber real hard with the tweezers. Good sadistic fun.
Also, you always forgot to use the tweezers and picked up a very hot
semi-molten figure that immediately stuck to your fingers, ouch! You
just cant get a toy today that will give you a good third degree burn
like that one could let me tell ya.
Please say you did these things too so I don't sound crazy!
Regards
Joe
The Strange Change toy originally had a decal or paper inset on the heating chamber which said "Time Machine". This may have been deleted in later versions of the toy due to it being a fire hazard.
Also original boxes boasted "Create 'em & Crush 'em in The
Time Machine. Later issues of the toy had "Time Machine" changed to
"Strange Change Machine" on both unit & boxes.
Rumor for the name change was that Mattel planned a line of Strange
Change toys ( Flower power, Car-toons, & Monster Mansion were the
speculative titles) and would then be able to drop the same "Strange
Change" heating chamber into each set.
The original set came with 14 cubes & 2 formed creatures(orange
pteranodon & pink "membrane man". You can tell a cube has never
been used when the Mattel logo is raised up on the cube, and not
pressed in as would be if you crushed it with the unit. All unused
cubes also have a number on it.
After repeated "crushing" , the creatures would tend to shrink and
lose most detail.
I believe all creatures in the boxed set always came in the same
colors (i.e. the robot is always yellow, the snake is always orange,
etc.)
2 accessory paks
were also released of 4 creatures each. "Astropods" and
"Creaturelings". The colors did not stay consistent with the
accessory paks as they did in the boxed set.
"Creaturelings" contained the following :
"Astropods" contained:
These accessory paks also came in 2 variations. First release had 4 cubes on blister card. Second release had 3 cubes/1 formed on blister card (Crab or Fly).
