Tubular Solid Bodied Glove Puppet

This inventin relates to a glove toy, or puppet.

Glove puppets are well-known as childrens toys and generally comprise a glove/like structure, open at one end, into which a hand can be inserted in order to allow the animation of the character depicted by the main body of the glove through movement of the hand within the glove.

Glove puppets are however of limited use as childrens toys, being fun when animated on the hand, but, when not on the hand, because of their open, empty and limp structure they are disappointing as a soft toy for a child to cuddele.

An object of the present invention is to provide a glove toy which may be placed on the hand for animation in the manner of a glove puppet, but which also provides a sufficiently solid bodied toy to be of interest to a small child. This object is achieved by the present invention which provides a glove toy comprising a tube of substantially flexible material, wherein said tube is closed off at both ends; an aperture is defined through the side wall of said tube between first and second end parts thereof, to provide access for a human hand into the first end part of said tube and; said second end part is filled with sufficient stuffing to be rendered self supporting. Preferably,t he stuffing extends from the second end part at least partially into said first end part.

In an embodiment, the first end part of the tube is folded back inside itself to form a head and mouth of the toy, for animation by a hand inserted into said first end part through said aperture. By varying the material comrpising the tube and the surface decoration thereof, or by altering the manner in which either end of the tube is closed off, the structure of the glove toy may form the basis for a representation of a wide range of creatures.

A specific embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the following drawings.

FIG. 1 is a section through a glove toy in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows the basic structure of the glove toy shown in FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 shows the manner in which both ends of the structure shown in FIG. 1 may be closed off.

Referring to the drawings, the glove puppet/toy comprises a tubular body 4 which is formed by a seam 5, joining together two sides of a piece of cloth. In this context "cloth" may be a single whole piece of cloth or it may be a composite cloth, i.e. a number of pieces of cloth of different colors and/or different textures and/or different shapes sewn together to provide pattern by variation in color or texture or surface contouring.

Part of the way along the seam 5 which runs along the ventral side of the body of the tube, is an aperture 6. The aperture 6 is large enough for a hand 7 to be inserted into the body of the toy. The tube is closed off at one end by a seam 8 to form the rear of the toy and the rear end and upper part of the body is filled with stuffing 9, which is held in place by a lining 10.

At the opposite end, the tube is closed off to form the head of the glove puppet/toy. The top most point of the tube is drawn down to meet the ventral seam and the end of the tube is closed off with a transverse seam 11. When the structure thus formed has been turned inside out so that all seams are on the inside, the closed end of the tube is folded back inside itself to form a mouth 12.

Thus, the invention enables a soft toy to be made, which by virtue of the underside opening, intermediate the ends, can be manipulated to produce the effect of interesting creatures from the animal world and from the world of insects, hitherto unseen in the marketing of toys.