Googly eyes or wiggly eyes are large, bulging or rolling craft findings used to imitate eyes. The eyes traditionally are composed of a clear, hard-plastic shell, with a smaller, black plastic disk trapped within. The inner black disk is allowed to move freely within the larger clear plastic shell, which makes the eyes appear to move. Googly eyes are mainly involved in arts and crafts and are sometimes glued to inanimate objects for the purposes of portraying personification.

Etymology

There are a number of possible etymologies for this term. Perhaps the simplest and most obvious of them is the English adjective "googly", as in "bulging", applied to the noun "eyes". Googly eyes look like eyes that are bulging.

The term could also be a variation on "goo goo eyes" , denoting the wide-eyed, innocent look of a baby, whose early "speech" consists merely of sounds such as "goo goo". That term is also used to describe the look and behavior of people who are in love.

Another possible derivation of this word is the "googly;" a cricket ball that appears as if it will break one way when, in actuality, it breaks in the opposite direction.

The term was also the source of an aptly-named comic strip character named Barney Google. The character in turn inspired a song called Barney Google (With His Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes).

Examples of googly eyes

• Cookie Monster and Harvey Kneeslapper of Sesame Street fame has googly eyes, and so does Elmo
• Corneil the cartoon dog of Watch My Chops
• Bubbles of Trailer Park Boys
• xeyes
• Great Googly-Eyed Fire Hydrant from Day 22, The Hitchhikers Guide to America
• Googly Eyes on Food - WNYC Radio listeners get creative on Flickr - winners judged by Author Amy Sedaris
• Nutty from Happy Tree Friends
• Googly-Eyes for Yahoo! Widgets
• Christopher Walken's "Gardening Tips from a man who is very scared of plants" SNL skit

References