What is this cat cup toy thing?

April 8, 2015 6:25 AM

What is this toy called? Did you have one when you were young?

It's a little cup with a straw attached, and when you blow into the straw a cat head inflates and pops out of the cup.

The linked picture is a screenshot from the anime Space Brothers, and the character in the shot is an American who periodically plays with kids' toys. Nearly all of the other toys are things I recognize from my own childhood, but I've never seen one of these. The anime pays a ton of attention to detail and is generally very accurate about US-localized things, so I'm wondering if it's an American toy I've never seen, or a Japanese toy that found its way into the lineup.

Where is it from? Were they ever common? Can I buy one? Google is not much help here.

posted by Metroid Baby to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

When you say the head pops out of the cup, do you mean it actually comes out like a separate ball you could play with? Because it's not very like, but the description does call this a "classic child's toy".
posted by theweasel at 7:02 PM on April 8, 2015

Response by poster: Nope, it's like an inflatable thing attached to the inside of the cup. I used to have one of those ball-blowing things, though, and I'd forgotten about that!

I'm assuming the lack of answers means nobody recognizes this toy - weird!
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:55 AM on April 9, 2015

I did some googling for you in Japanese with tags like "cat, cup, balloon, toy, Space Brothers" in different combinations and came up with nothing relevant, although the results for cat-balloon-cup were pretty adorable.
posted by chocotaco at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I grew up in the US (Ohio) in the 60's and early 70's and never saw anything like that.
posted by metahawk at 11:09 AM on April 9, 2015