Do they still make Soaky toys? They did as of a few years ago. I have a plastic Scooby Doo on my desk filled with bubble bath — Sergio gave it to me because he thought it was a great bit of sculpture — but it's not a Soaky-brand toy. Soaky toys were a line that came out from Colgate-Palmolive — plastic cartoon character figures filled with bubble bath. I guess the idea was that once they were empty, you could play with them in the tub…but I recall that some of them had a little groove where you were supposed to take a knife, cut a slot and then use the toy as a bank. I also recall having a batch of these toys when I was a kid, though I don't recall ever taking a bubble bath.
Anyway, here's a commercial for one of the most popular Soaky lines — Alvin, Simon and Theodore, aka The Chipmunks. In the spot, the voice of the Soaky Kid is done by Dick Beals, who is still working and who can still sound like a seven-year-old boy. This is because Dick is still about the height of one. Over the years, he's done hundreds of cartoons and commercials, and was even used often to dub voices for children in live-action movies. His most famous role was probably Speedy Alka-Seltzer but he was also Ralph Phillips in several cartoons that Chuck Jones directed for Warner Brothers. And he was a regular on Roger Ramjet and on Frankenstein Jr. and The Little Rascals and all sorts of other shows. I worked with Dick on a few shows and he's a real pro and, of course, one of the great unsung voice actors of television and movies.
