As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I do cat rescue, so we know a good bit about felines. We have more cats than most people have and we’re experienced with navigating different cat personalities and cat politics. One thing we’ve never done is turn out cats into elephants, but we recently saw some photos that make me think it’s a good idea. Some folks around the world have started using googly eyes to make their cats look like an elephant, with the tail being the elephant’s “trunk.” But this has a lot to do with the history of googly eyes, to be honest.
As much as this is about cats, it’s also about googly eyes. But where did googly eyes come from and how did they get their start? Of course, I had to investigate it and I found some fascinating information. First, what exactly are googly eyes? They’re also called “wiggle eyes” and they’re small plastic craft items that look something like eyeballs. Traditionally, they’re composed of a white plastic backing covered by clear hard plastic shells that have large black plastic disks inside of them. The combination of the white disk with the black circles looks something like the pupil and sclera of the human eye.
Since these eyes are all over the place, they’re a little more “googly” than the human eye, of course. The black disks on the inside are allowed to freely move within the large clear plastic shell. This makes the eyes look like they’re shaken or tilted. You can buy googly eyes in all sorts of sizes, from tiny to huge. In recent years, people have taken to attaching googly eyes to inanimate objects for humor and it’s delightful.
Using googly eyes serves to personify the objects and make them appear more appealing or less threatening. So now let’s look at the cats.
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