We usually arrived in time for "story-time" which was told by an adult in a tutu in the "fairy cave", and you had to go in with all the other little kids and no grown ups (except the fairy), which was a little nerve racking for a little sissy like myself. But I was bribed with the promise of shiny, star-shaped glitter; as much as I could pick up off the floor was mine to keep. That's a pretty good deal I remember thinking, and the glitter is free? Sorry, let me get this straight, the glitter is actually free for me? To keep?You get the idea, I was ecstatic.
The fairy cave was this dark room with lots of plastic trees and toys hanging off them, toys which could be yours too if only your parents would pay up. What was hilarious was that all the toys had a sort of creepiness about them, they were almost cute...almost. The Lost Forest seemed to be a place where all the mutant, retarded toys would go and act like they were hot because it was really dark in there, ... like The Lounge at 3am.
Perhaps the most memorable creature was the "Puggle", which can only be described as an obese turtle which had lost its shell, grown whiskers and put on a nappy. The Puggle came in a rainbow of velour fur coats and even had a little bag that you could keep it prisoner in. The Lost Forest Website (yes they have a website which is worth a visit) recommends the following instructions for the wellbeing of your Puggle,
"last thing at night, tie it up tightly and don't let it out until the morning.This way the Puggles will not become extinct"
There were also flying pigs and a grotesque hairy troll thing with a big nose which was called an 'Uh Oh'. I think I liked it mainly because it was blue and because it was supposedly always getting into trouble. I begged mum to buy me an "Uh Oh" but she refused and when my Uncle finally bought it for me she didn't want to be anywhere near it. For years she was secretly trying to throw it away.All in all I managed to scam 2 Lost Forest toys out of my immediate family, which wasn't too bad considering the prices. One Uh Oh and one Catastrophe Cat toy with long black arms and a weird face. It liked to hang off trees and could do so easily because it had sand sewn into it's paws. However I found C.C was more useful as a weapon, it's heavy paws really hurt my little brother if you swung them at his head.
And where is this weirdo forest now? I hear you asking. Well it was only open from 1988-1994, which meant that I was merely seven years young when the forest died out and I felt the brunt of it. I found out just now that the concept was originally thought up by Billy Thorpe and some other guy (who isn't famous). No wonder its so trippy, I bet Billy used to hide out in his own imaginary forest and talk to the animals in order to escape the pressures of stardom.
That's all folks, tread carefully in the woods and don't eat any of the mushrooms that have faces, unless you have already eaten mushrooms...then everything will have a face.



