Creepy Crawlers was the Easy Bake Oven for boys. Well, aside from the end product which was not supposed to be eaten — which some of us found out about too late. It really looked like gummy candy.

For some reason after seeing the commercials, every little kid had to go out a buy one of these things so they could squirt some colored liquid into the trays and produce the most disgusting bugs possible. But after they came out of the oven, the real fun began.

The idea was to use the monstrosities to play pranks on people. Attach a string to a spider and drop it into Dad’s morning coffee from the stairs. Put a slinky centipede in Mom’s clothes drawer. Or better yet, put a beetle in brother’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The possibilities were endless, and provided countless hours of petty entertainment.

Simply making gooey bugs got old pretty fast, but there were a ton of different metal plates to collect to make different types of grubs and even some other things, like animals, which was just awesome. There was even glow-in-the-dark goo — an instant selling point for kids.

Though Creepy Crawlers may not have been the best toy to play with, but it didn’t matter. It was just cool to make those slimy, fake bugs.