 Catcherpillar
Available in 1 flavor
Glow Ghost / Glow Ghost Capers Collectible Figure
Item No.: n/a
Manufacturer: Pineapple Ind.
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $1.99
Availability: ca. 1987
Other: No known variants exist
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As part of the second year or wave or whatever of this series of toys, Catcherpillar chased around the title characters of the Glow Ghost line. If memory serves, the first batch of these guys - the 3 ghosts - came largely unadorned with painted faces and nothing else in little prison boxes. The second wave came carded with Catcherpillar and a little storybook, as mini-comics and storybooks were all the rage in 1980s toy lines. Seriously, you weren't nobody if you didn't have a storybook, toy catalog, or a hybrid of both.
At around 2 1/2-inches tall, this is a glowing bug with sculpted Mickey Mouse gloves on his hands, an eyebatch, and a stern, disapproving pose. What this has to do with menacing the glowing hollow vinyl undead, I do not know, but it has the words "PINEAPPLE IND MADE IN CANADA" on its tail.
I don't know what a caterpillar has to do with insects, but he wasn't one I was ever really hunting - I wanted the little ghosts because I liked them more than the companions in Kenner's The Real Ghostbusters line when I was a little kid. I kept hunting and haunting thrift stores to find 'em, but only found a Baggs and eventually got the rest on eBay. I still love 'em. He's the same kind of glow as the green ghost from the line, but not particularly spooky. Just... weird.
I'd love to know if there might be some piece of spooky folklore explaining this one, but the look seems to be a pastiche of other 1980s (or older) toys. I mean, gloves? Eyepatch? Belly stripes? I don't even know why they're there other than to add some definition to this simple figure, but I like it. It's completely hollow, a one-piece (presumably) rotocast vinyl figure that is shaped not unlike a very small sex toy. (I guess the others were, too.) The folded, disapproving arms and stern expression come across well for something so simple by today's standards, as modern figures have a lot of great deco and texture but are lacking on conveying personality or emotion. They do "cute" well, or maybe even authentic - but all the articulation in the world can't convey impatience or disdain as well as this goofy little thing.
I wouldn't necessarily suggest throwing down big bucks for this figure (or the set with the 3 ghosts), but if you see it and it's in your budget? They're wonderfully charming. As evidence by the fact that this is day #1,539 of this little feature I have far too many toys, but I love things that glow, that are small, and are from my childhood. So this one works. These appeared in the wild at the time of Headmasters Transformers, Battle Beasts, and more - but I only saw them in a craft store or mail-order magazine advertisements aimed at children. I dig it. I won't sell it until the end if I can help it.
--Adam Pawlus
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