Thank goodness. This one was bugging me, I actually had the one xy came up with but put the wrong link and then copied the name from there. I spent some time last night trying to find the Strange Change Machine, but couldn’t think of the name and search terms didn’t work. I was frustrated because I do remember it as well. What’s really bad is that I remember all of the toys mentioned here. My fave was the Vac-U-Form, though I didn’t have one, my neighbor did.
They put out a model in the early 90’s and I bought one for my son, but it only made race cars and the cars didn’t work that well, The one in the 60’s made all sorts of stuff, and my friend would make us jewelry boxes and neat things like that.
http://www.spookshows.com/toys/vacuform/vacuform.htm
It used the same basic machine as the creepy crawler. My son loved that, especially the glow in the dark stuff.
Most of this stuff would be banned today, I guess, afraid the kids would do themselves in.
I still believe Mr. Potato Head was MUCH more fun when we used real potatoes, then eat the bodies for dinner.