Laurel and Hardy Finger Puppets 1972

Sometimes, I like to try to remember toys from my very early childhood. Often, they are just fleeting fragments of memories of things that may not have even existed at all. When I was about 5 years old, my folks would put me to bed on Saturday nights but then allow me to wake up a few hours later to watch some of the old movies that played on one of the local channels. Sometimes, they were old Universal monster movies like Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon... and sometimes, an old comedy like a Laurel and Hardy movie would be shown.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made 106 films together between 1926 and 1951. Today, I couldn't tell you much about them, or even the name of a single film they made. However, when I was five years old, Laurel and Hardy were favorites of mine.

At any rate, I had a vague memory of having a pair of Laurel and Hardy finger puppets and was curious whether they were something real or something I had concocted in my head. Thirty-eight year old memories can be a bit fuzzy.


The internet is a pretty astounding thing, really. After only five minutes of searching, I had not only discovered that the finger puppets were indeed real (from 1972) but also for sale... cheap. My priceless memories were someone else's junk drawer fodder.

And so, a box arrived in the mail and time folded back on itself as I held these two fleeting bits of memory in my hands once again. It's a strange feeling to have such vague and distant memories come to such vivid reality in an instant.