Elastoc

In France and Italy, the first manufacturers of the revolutionary synthetic polymer nylon were Rhodiaceta and Rhodiatoce respectively. The production started in 1952 but, at that time, "plastic" was synonymous with "bad quality" and thus something had to be done to break this detestable image and promote nylon. Hence, the figurine Elastoc (Tiramolla in Italy) was distributed to kids and its slogan was ”Elastoc est élastique mais pas en toc !” which translates to “Elastoc is elastic but not a fake!”.
It met with tremendous success because there was no equivalent.

The Elastoc figurine was in black nylon on a twisted wire frame which allowed it to keep the chosen posture. Manufacturing was somewhat approximate and the frame was not always fully embedded in the plastic but sometimes appeared on the surface.

My sisters and I, we worshiped that character that could be twisted in all directions indefinitely while any other toy would have broken quickly. In fact, if the nylon resisted perfectly, the wire would end by breaking. The Elastoc you see in the photo is still intact, I saw my sisters destroy their Elastoc and thus placed mine in my childhood treasures!

Elastoc / Tiramolla was one of the characters of comics created by Giorgo Rebuffi in 1952. I am certain I got my figurine before I had the chance to read one of these comics but this is not enough to say which one was inspired by the other.