Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
These were part of a very large lot of licensed D&D items that sold on eBay, many of which allegedly came from the TSR archives. There was a third sharpener identified on the package as a Deadly Grell, but it was actually a five-headed hydra, as seen below. A similar hydra makes an appearance in the AD&D Characters Coloring Book, also from 1983. A series of “bendable monster” figures, including a Deadly Grell and a five-headed Hydra, was released by LJN in 1983-1984.
With “lunch money” pouch!
Wow. That’s one mean eraser.
It’s less than 2 inches in circumference! Helix made Star Wars-themed school supplies for the UK, some of it seen below via Matt & Kristy and eyeSPIVE. You’ll see the pencil sharpener, very clean and bright, in the second shot.
I hope there’s a calculator in the “Maths Set,” because that’s the only thing that ever made numbers easier for me.
You remember Diener’s popular Space Raiders and Space Creatures erasers. What we’ve got here are a couple of notebooks in a series of 12 based on the Raiders designs. There were only eight Raiders, so I’m not sure what the other four notebooks covered. I can’t wait to find out.
What’s interesting about the notebooks is that (1) they provide a backstory for each Raider, (2) they tell us that “many models” of the erasers were sold individually at the time, and (3) the company that produced them bought the license from Diener the same year Diener unveiled their sci-fi line at the 1978 toy fair.
Thanks to James Agee for the reminder about these beauties. Please let me know if you remember having any, or if you see photos of others.
(Images via Etsy; both items sold)
All of the info I have on the set, as well as the photos, come from Little Weirdos, a cool site focusing on mini monster figures.
We don’t know when they were first produced. I suspect they were a response to the popularity of Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings and D&D, which would put them around ’79/’80, same as the Space Raiders and Space Creatures figures.
Does anyone remember them? Is the Medusa wearing a bra?
Lefty Limbo jogged my memory of these novelty erasers earlier this year, and I finally found photos of complete, carded sets (colors varied). They were originally included in McDonald’s Happy Meals from 1979 to 1980, and were very likely sold individually at this time as well. The earliest date I’ve found on the cards is 1981.
I slightly prefer the Space Raiders because that’s what we traded at school, although I think the Space Creatures are more interesting in terms of design and detail. (Check out Neato Coolville’s great post on their resemblance to classic movie monsters.)
Murray Garrett started Diener Industries in 1957. The company peaked in the early ’80s, when promotional and retail sales combined were reported at $8 million, but the erasers, molded “using a secret process,” gained popularity throughout the ’70s, as dentists across America started giving them out to kids who were scared to death of dentists. (Dentist’s offices accounted for 25% of Diener’s business as late as 1983.) I remember digging through all the squishy pastel colors in the jar to get the one I wanted.
(Jay McDowell and Brian Williams have reminded me of the “prize bin” at school, where many of us were introduced to these guys.)
Diener was sold to Wincraft Inc. in 1993, with Garrett staying on as president. Its last big success came that same year, with the release of Jurassic Park. Dinosaurs had been a Diener staple from the beginning.
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Don’t forget to turn in your quiz answers!
2 Warps to Neptune 