When I was a kid, one of the Halloween items that got played with year round were my plastic vampire fangs. While you can now order sets of 72 knockoffs for a mere $6.49 (that’s less than 10¢ each), back in the day I could only get one set and hope they lasted. And last they did.

Mine were made by Imagineering, a company in Phoenix, AZ that specialized in the most wondrous monster makeup products for kids in the 60s and 70s. Yes, the Disney Imagineers used a similar name and I’m not sure which one came first, but that fact certainly makes it difficult to find much info on the company. There are lots of mentions about an Imagineering documentary on Vimeo, but it’s no longer available.

Imagineering was started by Larry Liff. He designed the very first plastic vampire teeth, though his savvy marketing department called them Evil Teeth so as not to pigeonhole them into vampire-only sales. They were originally released in the mid-60s and continued to receive packaging re-vamps (YES!) throughout the 70s. They originally sold for 29¢ to 49¢. An unopened package can now fetch $40-$100 on Ebay depending on the time of year and the condition of the packaging. Not bad for an item that was deemed a throwaway at the time.

Gordon Viges was responsible for the company’s packaging art. Everything was hand-drawn and hand-lettered and really contributed to the hipster vibe of the whole affair. If you’d like to check out some of the products and their packaging, there’s a gallery here at the Tick Tock Toys site.

It cannot be stated strongly enough just how much items like this represented Halloween to me. Yes, they were ridiculous. No, they didn’t fit quite right. Yes, they hurt to wear. No, you couldn’t talk with them in. Yes, they were nasty when covered with spit. I didn’t care about any of that. What I cared about was being a freaking vampiriffic vampire! These teeth along with a tube of Imagineering Vampire Blood were some of the tools that helped make that happen.

You can keep your fancy dental molds and film-quality tooth appliances. I’ll stick with these Evil Teeth…even if they don’t fit so well these days.