The Bubble Thing

Making big bubbles - and I mean really big bubbles - is at least as much a technology as it is an art. David Stein, inventor of The Bubble Thing, has created a really-big-bubble-blowing technology that works well enough for you to make really big bubbles now, and develop the art later.

His Bubble Thing has two components: a really-big-bubble-making wand, and a bottle of the mysterious "Bubble Mix." (David says: "If you run out of mix, baking powder will tide you over and work good too.") ("Tide" you over? Is that Freudian product placement?) The really-big-bubble-making wand (a.k.a. "the Bubble Thing") is a very large open-and-closeable fabric loop on a tubular handle. You dip the closed loop in a bucket of soap suds, raise it, open it, wave it sideways and it makes really, really big bubbles. And then there's a bottle of bubble mix which, when added to water and dish soap, provides, shall we say, the "ultimate solution" for your really-big-bubble-blowing needs. Yes, it can get a bit messy and slimy and soapy. But even more yes, it will astonish you with your suddenly-acquired really-big-bubble-blowing powers.

The instructions even include, bless them, a game called the "Popping Game." You "win one point for popping little bubbles (smaller than a basketball)." But you lose five points when you pop a big bubble. Squirt-gun, frisbee- and finger-popping are all recommended. Ah, a bubble game. Surely there must be a myriad of such.

As a matter of no coincidence at all, bubble-maven Stein has teamed up with the editors at Klutz Press to produce a handy guide to really-big-bubble-making called How to Make Monstrous, Huge, Unbelievably Big Bubbles. The Bubble Wand you get with the book, Stein explains, is the same size as his own version.

It's most definitely an outdoor toy. It's most clearly designed to be used by people old enough to be sensitive to things like a shifting wind and the soap-in-the-eye potential, and young enough to want to make really, really big bubbles. And the fun, the fun, is like totally major.