Mattel Boglins: Mini Boglin Squeel (1988)

Boglins are a toy deeply involved in my life growing up. Although I never owned any until I was about 18 or 19, they scared the ever living crap out of me as a kid. I must have seen the commercial for them (look it up on YouTube and tell me YOU wouldn't get creeped out as a 6-7 year old) and that did it for me. I'd have re-accuring nightmares involving them once a year in grades 3 and 4, and saw the Soggy Boglins on the shelves at Kay-Bee Toys and being very leery of them springing forth from their packages to eat my eyes or something (I got scared a lot as a kid). Then, yeeeears later once the internet came into being (for me in 1997) I saw this image on a Monsters Website of some sort:

It has eyes, just due to the lighting from 1997 when this photo was taken, has
upped the creepy factor by about 1,000%. Yikes.

When I saw that, a flush of memories came back and now those toys I remember being afraid of had a name. That's what changed me from being afraid of these things to being obsessed with finding them and finally getting a chance to own what once scared me. What helped a lot in my searches was eBay, a virtually new site back in 1997-98 and I scored most of my collection from there. Even back then they were hard to find and went for at least 25-$30 MIB. My MISB Snish the Soggy Boglin cost me $60 which at the time was a lot, but it was new and sealed and I had to have it (he'll probably get reviewed soon).

Contents! What do you get??
One rubber Boglin puppet and nothing else aside from the box. This is by no means a bad thing, as this packaging itself doubles as an accessory if not a play set for the rubber monster puppet inside.

Don't let that $1.00 written in black sharpie throw you off...Boglins are the real deal.

They also all came with Species Tag cards to provide us new Boglogists with the needed information and care for our new mutant pet. The Large Boglins had them attached on a plastic connector and looped through a hole in the box, but the Small Boglins had them as punch-out cards on the side of the box...which mine is missing. *sigh*. This will be a pain in the neck to find, but for now know it should be included in a Mint-Complete-Loose Squeel.

Okay cool, tell us about 'em!
The Boglins toy line at it's heart had this one concept: these things are not toys, but rare living creatures found in a swampy bog, crated up and sent to you for safe keeping. If you look all over the box, only the underside of it has any notation that this is really a toy. If the Mattel logo was absent, and the Boglins logo lost the little sentence underneath it, the illusion would be complete.

Squeal outside his "crate" (Front View)

The sculpting on these toys is phenomenal, they all look like they could spring to life at any moment and for a production toy that probably cost you $9.99 back in 1987- that's not a bad deal. The only thing I disliked about the Small Boglins is the lack of a real body like their Large & Soggy Boglins cousins had. I figure it was so A) a kid could more easily puppeteer it and B) they could be sold for a lower price point since there is less rubber being used to make them. They're still great additions the Boglins toy line and since you get 6 different designs to pick from that gives you a lot more options.

Squeal infront of his "crate" (Side View)

This line had fantastic packaging, I mean FANTASTIC packaging. The fact that people threw these boxes away was a damn sin for the level of detail and heart that went into this line is ridiculous. The back of the box, however never gets a lot of attention, so let's change that right now.

I consider myself a professor of Bogology...not that it gets people to call me "Professor" though.

Like I mentioned above, Boglins really went the full mile to sell the whole concept that these are real creatures. The back of the box has a torn up piece of paper "nailed" to the back of the "crate" (hooray for quotation marks!) with the scrawling of a person who discovered these creatures and crated them up for shipment home....which is kinda messed up if you think about it. Your Boglins are all poached kids! Yay!

Fun Fact: The Large Boglins box does not show the Handling Boglins
drawing despite featuring a Large Boglin in it. The more you know!

As I unfortunately lack the Species Tag that came with Squeel (it was punched out of the side of the box LONG before I won it on eBay) so what this little Bohlin's specific personalities, diet, etc. is lost to time. That being said, Mattel tried to make the Boglins as scientifically accurate as possible. All Boglins have a Species and a Genus, much like actual animals.

So, for example, a Frog belongs to the Famly of Amphibians, the Genus is Frog and the Species depends on the type (Bullfrog, Poison Dart Frog, Tree Frog, etc.). With Squeel here, his belongs to the Family of "Boglin", is a part of the Genus "Boglinus Minius" and is of the "Squeel" species.

Yes this is not known often but the name of each of these Boglins are not showing you individuals, but species names. So if you bought and owned a Squeel Mini Boglin you can name him "Fred" or "Steve" if you want: the choice is yours.

I'm glad they never made these with hair, the first four look like they belong in a Barber Shop Quartet.

Note that only the back of the Small Boglins packages do you see them depicted with hair. The hair was removed for reasons I am not privy to, but if you look at the Boglins Commercial you can see some small boggling with hair. This leads me to believe it was a running change and once they hit production the hair got cut. *ba-dum-bum!*

Are WE part Boglin, OR are Boglins part US? *mind blown*

They always hinted that we were somehow linked to Boglins in some way, they never get specific but the family tree on the backs of all the packages always shows an off-shoot with Humans included. Not sure what their plan was for this but it may have always meant to be just a fun thing to think about and never explore.

The back of the package for Mini Boglins, Large Boglins & Soggy Boglins varies but they all have instructions on how to use said Boglins puppet on the bottom.

Behold! The bottom of the Mini Boglins packaging! I bet no one else
on the internet has THIS image. I'm sure everyone spent many a sleepless
night wondering about this...

Should I try to get this brand new?:
If you can find one new, sealed in the packaging and it's within your price range- OF COURSE YOU SHOULD! Boglins are tough to come by and nabbing them still sealed was tricky for me, AND this was back in the early 2000's way before people really started hunting them down. I rarely look for them on eBay these days as they can go for ridiculous prices mint-in-box and as I own at least 1 sample of each size (Mini, Large, Halloween & Soggy) I'm satisfied for the moment.

So what do you really think about it?:
This line is great, pure and simple. One of the secret gems of the 1980's and continuing the theme of "gross toys" that Mad Balls, My Pet Monster, MAD Scientist and others did during that wacky decade. If you are a fan of monsters, puppets, monster-puppets, biology, or even just weird old toys, pick up a Boglin or two. You will not be disappointed.

There are many pictures of Boglins on the 'net, so forgive me if this review is a little light on photography of Squeel. Instead, I decided video would be best for showing off exactly what this little critter looks like. Seeing it move and squish around is worth a thousand words more then a few turn-around photos.