Whatever Happened To Sea Monkeys?
The comic books I read as a kid had Superheros on the cover, kind of like the ones pictured above.
Or maybe Archie and Jughead.
And that comic book included an advertisement for something super cool, too.
Sea Monkeys.
If you were a child of the 1960s and '70s, you know exactly what they are (or were).
If you're of a younger generation, you have absolutely no idea what the heck I'm talking about.
OK, it's 1964. Or 1971. Or 1967. Or maybe 1973. You're reading (intensely, I might add) a Batman or Superman comic book, maybe Richie Rich or the Incredible Hulk. Most certainly it could be an Archie. And then, inside the back cover, see that? A whole bunch of little advertisements, advertisements that were for the coolest things in the world.
Especially, Sea Monkeys.
For not much money, you could send off for these incredible, magical creatures. Wow, these could be your new pets! I mean, imagine it...monkeys in an aquarium (or, in my case, maybe just a tub of water). It just doesn't get any better than that!
But hold on cowboy, let's back up just a bit here.
Sea Monkeys?? Just what exactly are Sea Monkeys?
Well, after scrupulous and exhausting research (I Googled Wikipedia), it turns out they weren't monkeys at all (SHOCKING!!). What they actually were was something called a type of brine shrimp that undergoes something called cryptobiosis.
Uh, ok, that's a little too complicated. If you want to read all the details you can here.
Anyway, they were created in 1957, and through the 1960s and on into the 1970s, they were in every...and I mean every...comic book. And no, I'm not just blowing smoke here, they bought around 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising for a while there. They were illustrated to (in my opinion) look a whole lot better than what you actually got in the mail.
Yep, as I recall the 2 coolest things advertised in every comic book were the Sea Monkeys and the X-ray glasses. Yes, they were pretty special, too.
The article goes on to say that Sea Monkeys are still a presence in popular culture, but they're nowhere near as popular as they were...back then.
And think about this...looking at those fabulous Sea Monkeys through a pair of those astonishing X-ray glasses.
Mind blown.
SEE: 30 Toys That Defined the '70s