What's the time? SLIME TIME!

In the mid-late 1980s, Hasbro created two lines of absurdly large watches for kids. The first, called Watchimals, featured furry wristbands with animal heads that would open to reveal a digital watch inside. There were twelve characters to choose from: a bear, butterfly, elephant, peacock, mouse, toucan, dog, dragonfly, goldfish, moose, snail, and unicorn--which were primarily marketed for girls (a related line of products, Wearimals, were furry animals that could be clipped onto clothes, hair, etc). But the focus of this post is Hasbro's second line of cumbersome timepieces called Slime Time, which featured two colour variants of three characters--a snake, bat, and frog--that also opened up to reveal a digital watch inside (and were marketed for boys).

back panel

These days, Slime Time watches are very rare indeed; occasionally one will show up on ebay, at a ridiculous price, and even Google doesn't come up with much (so that should tell you something). This is most likely because kids probably found them cool to wear for about a week, then tossed the creature portion aside and just kept the digital watch.

Or could its obscurity today have something to do with a past lawsuit? In 1987, Mattel Inc. sued Hasbro over the use of the word "slime" in their Slime Time watches, believing that they had the exclusive right to the name. (The outcome of this lawsuit is unknown.)

Toys 'R' Us ad (1987)

The earliest record I found advertising Slime Time watches was on February 18, 1987, and they were designated as 'new' at the time. Toys 'R' Us was selling them for $9.97, while Simpsons inflated their price to $12.99 (that's about $19-$24 in today's dollars). It's hard to gauge how popular they were, but the price held steady around the $9-$10 mark for the better part of that year, up until Eaton's discounted them by 50% in mid-December--just in time for Christmas! Alas, by December 1988, remaining stock was being liquidated by the likes of Towers department store for just $3.


I've included many photos below of the bat version (purple variant)--because I have one in my collection. It makes for an interesting display piece, and sits alongside my Chauve-Souris watch by Swatch (produced in 1999). I'm still on the lookout for the black bat variant; considering the obsessive collector I am, I'll likely try to hunt down all six of these bloody things!

side panel

side panel

front panel (note that the bat watch hangs upside down!)

Here's the original commercial spot from 1987:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMJaddo_AHQ]

And here's an ad for the Slime Time watches from the 1987 Hasbro Dealer Catalog, courtesy of orangeslime.com:

Sep 2017 update: I've now added the black bat variant to my collection! Woo hoo! Thanks very much to Dominic, who just so happened to have one. Awesome. :)