The Translucent Creatures
Like the pocket monsters and the organ monsters, the "translucent creatures" are a set of small,
non-poseable plastic toys whose over-abundance of thoughtful, creative design work seems incongruous with
their lack of any known background or even an official name. Currently offered through party-supply stores like
ustoy (search for "translucent") and Carnival source, these two-inch plastic figures currently come in five
different colors of translucent plastic very similar to the Ghostbusters mini ghosts, but it seems that this was
not always the case. There are several confirmed sightings of the same creatures in full color, all from much
older sources, and I really wish they were still being sold in full-fledged paint jobs...my digital camera hates this
translucent stuff!

For now, it'll just have to do. Here are all eight of these mysterious ghouls:
By Jonathan Wojcik
A nice place to start is this downright disturbing man-lizard; an eerily humanoid head with four
hands and a fat, worm-like tail. Its bulging eyes and protruding tongue give it an especially eerie,
almost perverse demeanor and call to mind Japanese horror-movie ghosts. Definitely not
something you want to meet in a dirty crawlspace.
Much like bugs and brains, bugs and eyeballs are two things I adore that only rarely come
together, and truly need no further elaboration here. The giant eyeball "head" on stout, ant-like
body is perfect.
Similar in stature to the manlizard, a gaping mouth is pretty much this monster's entire head, with
protruding horse-teeth and a finely sculpted tongue. It's a simple, flawless design and concept. It's
also being attacked by an ant.
...And in a display of unmatched wisdom, the very same toy line sees fit to offer more than one
eyeball creature with this combination of optic orb and cephalopod. Video game nerds may notice
an overwhelming resemblance to Digdogger, a boss from the original "Legend of Zelda," but this is
most definitely coincidence. It's not that hard to surround an eye with tentacles.
This is one of the only monsters I received in green, which is appropriate enough since its design
just screams "50's martian." You can't tell from this picture, but it actually stands on four toes
arranged in an "X." Notice it also has three slot-like mouths, if that's even where it sticks food.
The most normal-looking monster of the bunch, this appears to be no more than a fish with arms
and legs. It's rather generic, compared to all these other guys, but walking fish are still one of my
all-time favorite generic monster archetypes, and you don't see nearly enough of them in toy form.
Next, we have another cephalopod-type creature, dominated by a giant mouth instead of a giant
eye. It's a simple but memorable visual. I really like the segmented texture of the tentacles, too.
The last translucent creature left to talk about is a lovely sandworm-like horror with humanoid arms.
I'm not sure what else to say about this one. It kinda speaks for itself. Worm with arms. GROOVY.
This image of a fully painted mouth-squid comes from an ebay auction that I ran across long before
I knew what these toys were. I fully intended to bid, but it just completely slipped my mind and I
really wish it hadn't. The seller could provide no information on where the toy was found, but it was
in with an assortment of 1990's Mighty Max and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles accessories.
Forum member Mesklinite01 provided this picture of another fully colored monster, the tentacled
eye in fashionable bright blue flesh! It was apparently found in a vending machine back in 2000.

Anybody seen any more of these in color? Can you get me some in color? E-mail me!
THE NON-TRANSLUCENT CREATURES