–40 Years Ago Today: Big Bird PROVED Mr. Snuffleupagus Was REAL!–
The GREATEST BOMBSHELL in children’s TV history: After 14 years of gaslighting Big Bird, Sesame Street killed the awkward plot line that Mr. Snuffleupagus was imaginary, and Big Bird finally proved to the world that Snuffy was, in fact, REAL.
In honor of Big Birds Victory (Nov. 18th 1985), I snatched up this 1980s Illco Big Bird flashlight and built a modern high-power light engine for it.
Believe it or not, this plastic flashlight, which sold on clearance at Toys “R” Us for just a buck fifty, had better features than most flashlights being marketed to adults. It came with three snap-on color filters housed in the white tail piece, which also doubles as an anti-roll mechanism.
The output was a TRAGIC 8 lumens, but it was totally in line with other flashlights being sold in the 80s, like my Duracell DuraBeam. This aluminum and brass light engine just slips in, replacing the factory bulb, but it boosts the power to a whopping 310 lumens!
I remember that most characters thought that Mr. Snuffleupagus was imaginary, and I remember that eventually those characters believed Big Bird, but I don’t remember the big reveal as a defining moment of my childhood.
(Of course, it’s been 40 years now.)
Good luck with the eBay auction!
The shipping of Big Bird to NL costs a whopping $26.13, so no Big Bird for me. But you won’t see me crying.
The Sofirn IF22A is/was on my shortlist for a very long time, but it never made the € 25.00 mark I was prepared to pay for it.
But there’s sale on Ali, and this week only it’s available for € 24.59, and on top of that there is a € 3.00 coupon.
So even without Big Bird, I’m still a happy camper.
What I forgot to mention: you polished that crappy flashlight till it shines on you like a crazy diamond. Cudos!
So glad you like it. The heat sink in the big bird light should be plenty to run it long term. That LED pill in the center is from one of my 324 lumen Maglite dropins. In the maglite the only heat sinking it would have is the tiny amount of metal in the switch tower. That large aluminum plate I added to the outside is considerably more.
My only concern with this build as far as heat was effects on the plastic lens and reflector (hence the reason I didn’t go higher in output). Most flashlight plastics are well able to handle this heat, I just wanted to be extra careful since the plastic is almost 40 years old.
I don’t have any plant at the moment to offer a kit for the chrome Eveready’s or Rayovacs.
Thanks for watching. This really was a fun project.
Every time I think about this Toy it reminds me that there are brilliant engineers working behind the scenes to bring us even the simplest things in life. The amount of thought that was put in the design of that anti-roll tail, and the case for the color filters made me “light up”.
