Alien critter mini figures from Nickelodeon Gak Vac (1992)

If you were a kid in the '90s, I'm sure you remember Gak. The squishy, squeezable compound, a Nickelodeon product, was a popular fixture in toy aisles back then. What you might not know is that the Gak product line actually included a few Little Weirdos-approved monster mini figures!

photo by flickr user astronit

The creatures pictured here were released with only one product in the Gak line--1992's "Gak Vac." The Gak Vac was a small toy vacuum that you could use to suck up Gak and then spit it out. The best part is that the set also included these four figures, referred to as "weird looking critters" on the Vac's packaging. I guess the idea was that you'd plop these little dudes in the Gak and pretend they were squirming around in it while you sucked it up.

The figures are between 1 to 1.5 inches tall, made of a light, hard plastic and all came in a sunshiny neon yellow color.

Probably because people don't think about figures when they think of Gak and possibly because the Gak Vac wasn't that hot of a seller (if the K-B Toys discount sticker in the above shown example indicates anything), these little weirdos fly under the radar even among vintage mini figure and monster toy collectors. They might be super obscure, but they are definitely cool figures with fun sculpts. Click the photos below for a close-up look at each one of them.

An updated version of the Gak Vac was released a few years ago. It also came with a few mini figures (called "Gakoids"), which were stylistically quite different from the vintage creatures. For a review of that, check out bigazzhead's review on LittleRubberGuys.com.

How many of you guys remember the Gak Vac and its mini critter companions?