For those ’90s kids seeking desperately to relive the decade in which they grew up, it’s one thing to watch vintage episodes of Rocko’s Modern Life and Salute Your Shorts on The Splat. It’s quite another, however, to make up a batch of stretchy, squishy, colorful, homemade Gak. This is nostalgia one can not only see and hear (remember Gak’s rude, flatulent sounds?) but also feel and smell. Tasting, however, is not recommended as some household cleaners are involved. Still in all, talk about a Proustian experience. This is Remembrance Of Things Gak’d.
Nickelodeon marketed the strange (and unfortunately named) substance, a successor to its popular Nickelodeon Slime, during its association with Mattel from 1992 to 1999. The line was eventually popular enough to include glow-in-the-dark Gak, scented Gak, and various Gak-sucking accessories. Now, Mashable’s Andrea Romano and Jhila Farzaneh are offering their own Gak recipe, and the ingredients list is surprisingly prosaic: school glue, Borax, food coloring, and water. The process, too, is disconcertingly simply and mainly involves mixing most of those aforementioned ingredients together in a big bowl, adding the Borax slowly, and then “massaging” (the authors’ choice of verb) the substance that emerges. “Now, you’ll likely have a huge box of leftover Borax,” the authors warn, “which is also very useful for boosting your usual cleaning routine. Or you can just make a ton of Gak. Your choice.” So this is a messy project that, reassuringly, ends with a potentially cleaner tomorrow. Good to know.
[via Mashable]