Can anyone confirm that this word or one like it is used to describe one of those weighted toys that bounce back into a vertical position when punched down?
Welcome aboard, Mick.
I've never heard them called that - to me, they have always been "tee-toe-tums"
here ( uk) they are known as weebles:
http://www.stuffwelove.co.uk/weebles.htmi googled your word with a few different spellings and found nowt.
wobble, but they don't fall down. Also, it's a much a much easier word to say - I'm still trying to get my tongue around magilli-whatever.
AAUUGHHH! weebles! i hate them! In US circa 1975 or so, there were small (about the size of a pigeons eggs) toy 'people' called weebles. they were made of hard plastic, and had weighted bottoms ..
they were just the right size for breaking bones! if you stepped on them, they didn't crack and crunch under your feet, they either strained you arch, or slide out from underyou, and set you sprawling..they lasted about 1 month in my house..
there was a joke about them..
a bunch of cows are in the pasture, a storm blows through, and after the storm, many of cows have been blown over, some are in ditches, some are struggling to regain there footing, the field is a mess. but the bull is standing there content as ever, chewing his cud..
the farmer surveys the devestation, and rhetorical asks 'how is it the bull is standing, and all the cows are sprawled all over the field?'. and the bull answers, 'we bull's wobble, but we don't fall down'
Long before Weebles ever came out of the ferment in some toy-maker's mind, there were Bobo dolls: blow-up plastic dolls which looked like clowns and had weights in the bottom such that one could punch them in the nose and they would bob back upright. [This is AGE talkin' here.]
hmm
bobo dolls rang a bell with me, and shure nuff
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html
Formerly called "monkey see, monkey do."