TWITTER 
Suckerman
Synopsis of Toy
Toy shelves have seen many a novelty item over the years, but only a small percentage of these items live on in the memories of their former owners. To do so, they must be built upon a really cool and unforgettable novelty. Like, for example, that grotesquely long-limbed fellow called Suckerman. This sucker-covered creature didn’t have a very long life in the toy marketplace, but he enjoyed plenty of notoriety during his time and continues to be a cult favorite today. The secret to this longevity is a gross yet cool element of novelty that made it the toy to have for aficionados of all things creepy…
Mattel Toys released Suckerman in 1978. This creepy-crawly creation looked like a cross between a man and some sort of serpent, with a little vampire thrown in for good measure. His all-vinyl body was impressively crafted, with a realistically scaly texture to his skin and a creepy facial design that boasted bugging eyes and scary fangs. Your Suckerman came in green, black, red, or a translucent white that glowed in the dark. He was flat (maybe one inch thick) and too limp to stand due to his soft vinyl body, but he made up for his lack of brawn and backbone by being 16 inches tall. But the standout feature in his design was a series of 28 suction cups that adorned the front and back of his body.
These suction cups enabled Suckerman to stick to just about any flat surface he was thrown at. If its owner threw him at the top of a high wall, the combination of gravity, the limpness of Suckerman’s body, and his many suction cups would give Suckerman the appearance of slithering down the wall. This was all that Suckerman could do but damn, it was cool. The sight of Suckerman’s descent down a wall was skin-crawlingly creepy and helped many a young lad freak out an unsuspecting parent or older sibling. The creep factor increased exponentially if it was night and the kid was lucky enough to own a glow-in-the-dark Suckerman.
Being a novelty item, Suckerman didn’t have a very long life shelf at the toy stores and was gone from them within a few years. Just the same, this toy is very fondly remembered by its former owners and can still fetch a pretty penny at toy conventions and online auctions. Suckerman’s cult status is living proof that it is perfectly fine to be a novelty item as long as the novelty is cool… and rest assured, the novelty of Suckerman was, is, and always will be very, very cool.