Here's a smart looking gun isn't it? I picked
it up in Tokyo in 1986, my first trip to Japan. Very nice gun - it's got a nice mechanism too which I'm
liking. Perhaps I should fire it? Well you better back away just in case it's dangerous... well, it's
a toy one so it won't be too dangerous; I'll aim it and then... wow! Look at that. Isn't that amazing? So
the front of it, if it hits a small child, it's very soft, because that's a little one of those,
and if it hits your chin, it's very soft; and then the others all fit inside each other; well
this was something that intrigued me because it's actually a telescopic effect, and I thought hello,
I've got several other telescopic effects I need to look at; and then I thought further - hang on
what about looking at toys which grow longer or bigger but only in one dimension; so let's have
a look at the whole range. The first ones will be telescopic toys, with about two or three samples, and then the others will be other mechanisms, for making things grow longer. Here's the second of
the telescopic ones - this is a very nice smart pen; but it's telescopic! It is a ballpoint
pen that I'll show by taking the top off, there we are, a biro point, but it's telescopic -
look at this! Oh my goodness me, it feels beautiful; it's really well made from steel this, there's one
more section, that is some ballpoint pen isn't it? So either you can write distantly like this, or
you hold it in your hand and feel it wiggling away behind you like that; it's whatever so it's
a bit of fun but it does look so smart it'd be a very nice thing for magicians to have in their
breast pocket because it looks so nice; Then a little time later I think
I found two more telescopic things these are just pure fun, because they're
cutlery; there's a telescopic spoon would you believe, and a telescopic fork;
they don't go that far but it's a bit of fun; I fancy the idea of being at a party
and having a chat with your neighbour opposite you on the other side of the table, saying can I try a
bit of your... and then do that! Well, either with or without their permission! Just a bit of fun; and
the same thing with the spoon. Oh, that's come apart... So these are a bit of fun for people to play with,
to play jokes with, because they're both telescopic you wouldn't actually use in normal circumstance;
you're just using it for a bit of fun. And the last one is actually a very sensible
thing, which I have used very occasionally, because there's a magnet on the end - that's a little round
magnet; it picks up things like that... and it's telescopic; that means if you've
got something dropped down between two bits of furniture you can't easily
shift you just have to reach down with this and pick it up, and say there we are, and you've
managed to catch it on the bottom, providing it's of course a magnetizable bit of metal, like
a little paper clip or knife or something like that; so that's a very useful one; that could be
useful it's a bit of fun; then these are just pure... well... jokes; and of course an excellent little toy.
All telescopic, all growing longer in one dimension. What else? What other methods are there for doing
this? Well there's some here which I've had for many many years, which are ones that unfurl;
this is a very short piece of plastic but it unfurls like that into a long piece of plastic,
all in the one direction; it's one dimensional, and of course it's a blowout, so I'm not going to
do it with the fingers, I'm going to do it by [TIM BLOWS] one of those... but if you like a longer one, well
I like longer things, so this one here is more like 10 foot long! Oh wow! It comes back in a very old mess. That
certainly grows longer. And then there's several toys in my collection which are also unfurling,
but they're cute little animals. This one here is a little snake, and that tongue there if
look carefully at it, is a little bit of balloon rubber, and when it inflates
it comes uncurled; so this is the body here which contains air; when I squeeze it it's just
like animals do... I've got frogs which do the same thing with tongues that come out and I
see frogs in ponds reaching out to catch insects flying above the water; they go ... with a long
long tongue, and do that. So uncurling, unfurling, one-dimensional growing things is a nice one. I
like that. There's another way of making things longer, it's not quite the same; I used to
call these paper yoyos at one time; I haven't got a satisfactory name for it, but never
mind; and it's a toy which I've got three different versions of it here, it grows longer
by having a coil of slightly elasticated paper, which is curled up; it wants to stay like
that, but when it's pulled out like that it tolerates it but it wants to go back again; but it'll do an action like a yo-yo almost, which is
why they call these at one time paper yo-yos; and I've got three different versions of it; that
one which I picked up in Tokyo was a baseball bat, this one is an ice cream, I thought once it might pop
up but this one doesn't pop up, they said you have to pop it up like that to make it work, it's got
a one of these paper yoyo things; but that gets longer in that one dimension just by unfurling
it; and the last one of course is one of the joke fists for punching you in the face! Very nicely done; so that's another method for
making things longer and growing. Then there's probably the most traditional of the lot which I am
aware of, which is the spring which opens up when when it's released. There's two springs in
here; it's the old 'nuts in a tin' joke that jumps out open it up and the springs are going
to pop out in a hurry, and make a squeak tool So you've got a short spring when it's compressed
like that, and when it's released because it's got energy it gets longer and longer and longer, all in
the one direction; I'll put this just one back for now to show the effect; and the tin of
nuts is one of those jokey ones, because it's got a separate compartment at the bottom, which
has little nuts in it or something like that, which rattle like that, and make you think it's
really going to be candy or pops or something. It's always occurred to me that balloons, if they are
those long balloons, they are widening at the beginning, but after the first little blow they
just go one direction only, here's two examples of it; they're both what they call modelling balloons.
This is a 260E which I used a great deal when I was doing children's parties and having to blow up
balloons to make dogs and birds and other things; you put it over the nozzle and when you blow it
up it will grow slightly fatter to start with and then it's all length length length
growing longer and longer and longer and longer, all in the one dimension;
goodness, it is not very straight! Well it'll go on and on; and then of
course you can release it and it goes away. Have you come across a
version like this which they only sell in specialist shops for balloon artists; it's
called a spaghetti balloon. It's exactly the same as the other one, except it's much much smaller, and
so you can make much smaller little dogs and birds and things with it; so let's see if I can
make this one blow up as well; there we go... and so on. And then you make models
by twisting like that. They're also growing in the direction way only. So
another one. I must put that in as another mechanism. Here's one which is very bizarre and unique; it's a
Japanese folk toy which I picked up about 20 years ago; it gets longer due to a very extraordinary
system of ropes. They're pieces of bamboo possibly, I don't know exactly what they are, but they've
got string in that peculiar form so they're captive and they grow like this; each time each
one is able to grow just a certain amount and then it stops growing and reaches the end stop; to make it so what you do to actually operate is you just fling it out this way like
this, and it gets very long... whoa look at that! That has got extraordinary long and just about
straight in one dimension, due to the most peculiar form of joins; some genius Japanese
guy invented this, and they sell them in Tokyo as a folk toy, as something with a bit of magic to it; Very nice effect that; the only time
I've ever come across that type of thing. Then there's these Popoids as I call
them, which are these corrugated tubes; this is an American one; this is a very large one, and then
you whirl it in the air to make it sound like... this... but they also made about the same
time other versions of these, very small ones; Tomy did this, which is the same thing but it's
just very small; and then they join them together so you can put two or three together and make
little robots; and this one was an even smaller one. So each of these starts small like that, and grows
in one direction... longer and longer and longer; and this is I think my favourite version because
there's so much you can do with this; as well as making a sound pipe with that static wave with it; it's
delightful, but it will actually join together like this, you can join the two together
like that, so a lot of fun! Anyway it's a one-dimensional 'grower' as I call it. Now there's
a set over here, I'm just going to reach for it, a very strange idea this' I hadn't thought of
it recently as a one-dimensional grower, but it is really. These I got way back in the beginning of my
toy collecting days, in the 1970s. They're joke ketchup and joke salad creams; and all you do is you squeeze
it; well, you do it over a person's shirt as if you're actually squirting them with
ketchup, but it's not - it's a bit of string, and the string is being pushed out by the air
current; I'll see if i can push it back in a bit quicker; there's a bit of string inside, you put it in
and when you squeeze it, I'll squeeze it over my shirt and give me a splash of spaghetti, no, of of ketchup all over me, there we are; Well it's not ketchup, but it's that's the
idea. Something that's growing long; and here's another one - that goes out; and then
there's things close to the frog which unfurl, but this one's working with a string; it's a frog
which you could do with the uncurling thing, but it's not; it's a piece of string that pops out, and if
I can get it in the right position I can get it to pull back again; just about yes; it's got a bulb of rubber here, when you squeeze it, out comes a
tongue and a long squeezy effect like that. So a very nice effect that. The last item is I think
probably my favourite, it's a magic wand which is absolutely extraordinary! You can get
a piece of paper and you fold it this way or that way, and this is what this thing is
working on; its an extraordinary mechanism. We do sell the magic wand actually on the website,
but I'll show you two giant versions of it. This is the one we're selling, but not this particular
design. This is an Israeli invention. You've got a bit of plastic, take the ring off, you release
it - you see how short it is, it's only it's only about an inch and a half long - it suddenly pops
up into something like that; isn't that beautiful? So what's happening is it's
unrolling in this long direction like that, it's being rolled like that; but when
you start making it again in the original form, you've got to open up one end, and then roll it
up in this direction like this with your fingers, roll here, roll here, like this; it's very tricky
to do actually; I do it by another method, but you roll like that, and it gradually goes back into a
small roll. I'll do it the other way which is a bit of a bit of fun this... you just squeeze like
this, and then in a minute you squeeze it together; so these are very very popular, and have been
done for I think the last 20 years or so, since the Israelis played with the plastic
and found it has this wonderful sort of two states; so you want to put
a retaining ring around it otherwise it misbehaves; so you put a little ring
of stuff around it like that, and then it's restored; this is another one, a white one, there we are... it's a proper wand. Now here's two very special ones that they make for
magicians; this is a serious bit of magic, but it's the same principle. It's short like
that, when the top is taken off from each end it suddenly opens up into... a
giant one like that! Isn't that extraordinary? And the best of them by a long way is this one here,
which is again a magician's trick. It starts like that; I've got to take this tube out actually, take
the elastic bands off, and this is a serious prop for magicians to do something remarkable with.
What they usually do is keep this secret, put it into a bag like that, and then when it
opens up - are you ready for a big surprise? - this is quite an extraordinary one; as it comes out,
it's going to start coming out at this end here, and longer and longer and longer, and I'll take
it out of the bag now I think, but it's going to get longer and longer and finally that,
and it looks like a seven foot pole; it's actually made of plastic but it sounds like
wood, and it makes the most astonishing sight! Considering it is only that long
to start with, it had opened up to that size... Extraordinary! So that's looking at some things that grow, but in one dimension only,
and with ten completely different principles for producing it. I think there'll be more I should
turn up with, but I just love the idea of something starting off with the telescope, the obvious one, and
finishing with something like this; each of them is growing longer and longer in 1 dimension only, and there's
so much fun in them, so much fun with these things!
