Blatant Plug

An opportunity for a grant of sorts has given us an occasion to give kudos to one of LATDA’s favorite toy manufacturers, Accoutrements. Their retail outlet, Archie McPhee is selecting five blogs at random that link to products on their site and awarding them $100 gift certificates. And while that will buy a lot of interesting artifacts for the LATDA collection, we honestly love Archie McPhee and will sing its praises regardless.

Located in Seattle, WA, Archie McPhee’s has been a Mecca for my child since she was 7. Every summer she and my mother would travel by train from LA to Seattle to visit my sister. The highlight of this trip would be an afternoon (and often it was a whole afternoon) at McPhee’s spending her birthday gift certificate. The first time she experienced this indulgence, she spent hours pondering over cocktail monkeys and Monster Women , picking up this item and putting back that, while keeping a running total of dimes and quarters in her head. Even though she studied her mail order catalog well in advance, she was always sidetracked by the myriad of items (and bargains) that only existed in the store. When she finally got up to the check out counter, the salesperson was amazed to see that she had stayed within her $20 budget by 20 cents! And amazingly (but not unusual for her) many of the treasures she brought back were gifts for friends and family.

My daughter often said that her dream job would be to work in the Archie McPhee store. I think she would like to work in product development now.

I met the founder of Archie McPhee’s, Mark Pahlow, at the 2003 Toy Fair in New York. I was quite surprised to meet this buttoned-down, black-suited, soft-spoken man and wondered if this was the head of some faceless corporation that had bought out the original company. But when he told me how he started his career in amusements by selling alligator clickers as roach clips to Billy Shire (the genius behind Wacko/La Luz de Jesus Gallery/Billy Shire Gallery), I knew he was truly the mind behind McPhee’s.

A year later, I was interviewed by someone at the Seattle Times who was writing an article about Archie McPhee. The reporter asked me if I (as a representative of LATDA) thought the Smoking Babies were funny. I wasn’t sure if she was actually offended by the smoking baby, but I told her that I owned one and that I bought it because it reminded me of the original smoking monkeys. I was quoted as saying: ‘Archie McPhee brings back those objects of childhood that gave us our first appreciation of art.’ As a standalone comment, that doesn’t make much sense…I think I had been talking about toys as art (appreciation of an object in and of itself without reference to function other than its ability to evoke emotion).

I did tell her that I remembered my brother buying a smoking monkey at a seedy little novelty store in Venice. I think the store was a front for something even seamier, but they did sell novelties from a glass counter. We were fascinated by the magic smoke rings that came out of those pungent sticks which I now know were made of Fiberglas. Imagine the carcinogens we must have inhaled while leaning up close to watch the monkey smoke! (The Archie McPhee cigarettes are nothing more than incense-style punks. No smoke rings. Pity) When I saw the smoking baby this entire memory flooded back into my mind.

If we win the $100 gift certificate, I ‘ve got my eye on the Nun Chuck . If we don’t win, then maybe my daughter will buy one for our collection next summer.

ADDED 7/06 - I was given a Nun-Chuck for my birthday in April!

Wah-moh?

Or that is how I’d guess Wham-o would be pronounced in Chinese, now that a Chinese company has purchased the company famous for creating the Hula Hoop, Frisbee, and the ever-popular Slip ‘n Slide (which raised some hackles a few years ago when featured in the forgettable movie Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star – Wham-o actually filed suit against Paramount for copyright infringement).

There is a kind of irony in a Chinese company taking over a quintessentially American toy company. So many American toy companies owe their biggest successes to ideas that originated in other countries. Then they turn around and have their products manufactured in China.

But Wham-o, founded in post-war Southern California, seemed so American. They started with a classic and universal toy – a slingshot. Arthur “Spud” Melin and Richard Knerr named their company after the sound that was produced by a sling shot projectile hitting a target. Then they proceeded to develop some of the most classic and original toys this country has seen.

The appeal of Wham-o products, to my mind, has always been in the potential for using them in creative ways not recommended by the manufacturer. People have been using Frisbees to create new games (Frisbee golf?) and there is even a story of a Hampshire College student who in the 80s, earned a degree in “Flying Disc Entertainment and Education” At another college, a Slip ‘n Slide was used to demonstrate the concept of friction. There was usually a cream pie delivered to the hapless student/guinea pig at the end of the demonstration. There is an entire site devoted to the uses of Hula Hoops and the people who love them. (I ran across an article that said that the Chinese saw Hula Hoops as a health hazard, but I can't find the back-up material to support this statement)

Two Wham-o products that I haven’t seen for a long time are the Water Wiggle (1962) and the Air Blaster (1965). If you search on the internet for “Water Wiggle” you will find a lot of entries for a squishy hot dog sized toy that is just a latex tube filled with a viscous liquid augmented with glitter or small objects. The copyright on the Wham-o product name must have run out back in the late 70s when the toy was recalled for apparently causing the death of two toddlers. I never had the experience of playing with a real Water Wiggle. For some reason every summer I would come down with tonsillitis after playing in the sprinkler, so eventually outdoor water play was banned for me. I envied those kids in the commercials being chased around by the crazy buck-toothed Wiggle.

My brother had an Air Blaster. I vaguely remember the gorilla target, but I don’t remember my brother using it very often. His targets were usually his three sisters – preferably around the ears. Since this was a potential hazard to our delicate eardrums, it was grounds for suspension of play. I think my brother must have started making paper effigies of us to line up and shoot down.

One other Wham-o product that I remember was the original Superball. The invention of the Superball coincided with the Disney movie, “The Absent-Minded Professor”. I remember thinking that Superballs must have been pretty close to “Flubber” (the flying rubber invented by the main character). My uncle had the first Superball I ever saw. Even adults were intrigued by its qualities.

Until I checked out the Wham-o web site, I didn’t realize that one of the last great toys to be released by Wham-o, before they were sold in 1982, was Silly String (1972). I didn’t have any personal experience of Silly String until my daughter was about 5 or 6. Her cousin brought over a couple of cans and started a tradition of Silly String attacks with my husband. By this time I was a fretting parent who couldn’t see the fun value in the messy and possible chemically hazardous toy. And speaking of unforeseen uses, there is a story (most likely apocryphal) floating around the internet that says that soldiers in Iraq use Silly String to detect trip wires for booby traps.

But the point of this blog entry is to lament the loss of Wham-o as an American icon. Will the new Chinese owners understand American Wacky? Or was that actually lost when Wham-o ceased to be an independent toy company in 1982? We have a copy of a LIFE Magazine article (somewhere in the archives) about the founders of Wham-o. The founders and workers look like what now passes as retro-hipster – thick, black, plastic-framed glasses, crazy flat-top haircuts, no tie, short sleeve shirts. Each photo shows people (old people) having a lot of fun. Does “zany” translate into Chinese or will they just trade on the few tried and true Wham-o classics?

Toys from Trash and Pooping Santas

Miss me? It has been a long time since I’ve blogged. I feel as if I was caught in the scene from “Ragtime” (the musical) where they depict the abuse of the assembly line workers (Speed up the belt!) I try not to inject politics into LATDA (since you endanger your non-profit status when you do – ask that church in Pasadena) but these are not times that are friendly to non-profits or cultural institutions. Funding is shrinking like never before. People around the world have suffered major catastrophes. Government money is going either out of the country or into homeland security. People are depressed and trying to get along with activities of daily living. Who has the time, energy or money to support the arts and cultural institutions that could educate people about other cultures so they won’t feel threatened by them?

Two things happened last weekend that reminded me of how long we’ve been working on making LATDA a reality. One was a photographic spread in the Los Angeles Times Magazine by Don Barteletti called "Toy Story". His six photo spread showed children in poverty-stricken parts of the world playing with toys that they created from the flotsam and jetsam of their spare existence.

The article reminded me of two early T(toy) – files that we started. The first was a COLORS magazine article on toys from around the world. I tried to order it from the web site but could never get their shopping cart to work or even a response from their email contact. There is a tantalizing preview of the stories on their web site, but maddeningly, no mention of dates or other details. There is a section on handmade toys from war-torn countries that is pretty interesting if you have the patience to deal with the flash components of the site.

Right after seeing the COLORS magazine, I attended an exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance (2001) called "Not Sold In Stores" Like the toys seen in the LA Times story, this exhibition consisted of toys made by children from cast-off trash. Ingenuity and creativity combine with the primal urge to play and results in some pretty fun toys. The version of the exhibition that appeared at the Museum of Tolerance was small and installed in an awkward, off-to-the-side location in such a way that it was impossible to walk around a display to read or view all of the artifacts. I kept wishing that LATDA could give the exhibit its due and devote a larger space for the exhibition as well as add some educational programming.

The best objects were soccer balls made out of wadded up plastic grocery bags and various types of netting to hold them together. One of the few statements that appeared in the display said that there was a preponderance of helicopter toys wherever they went. There was one made out of a gourd, one of wire and one made of wood scraps. There were some very interesting dolls. Two from Africa were made with what appeared to be real hair. What was strange is that it was thick, straight, black hair. Couldn’t tell if it was from an animal or a human.

One comment by one of the children was that he hoped to grow up and make “real” toys. I would like to have met that child.


Pooping Santas

This Christmas I bought a couple of toy candy dispensers (of questionable taste) for gifts. They were a pooping snowman and a pooping reindeer. The toy loads from the head and a gentle push of the head ejects a round candy from an appropriately placed hole in the base of the toy. The snowman poops white snowballs (although it was suggested that it should poop ‘coal’) and the reindeer poops red and green candies.

The corresponding T-file for LATDA was brought to my forebrain today when I found a Pooping Santa among the post-Christmas toys at Y-Que in Los Feliz. It reminded me of the Toy Museum of Catalonia in Spain.

When LATDA was in its conceptual stage we did a lot of research of toy museums of the world via the internet. One Google turned up a page of the Toy Museum of Catalonia. At the time none of the site appeared in English. It consisted of photographs of several small clay figures called ‘caganers’ which translated to ‘crappers’. There were crapping priests, nuns, sea captains, wise men, mothers, couples and even a Santa. They were very graphic representations that left nothing to the imagination as to what they were doing. The puzzling thing was what connection they had to a toy museum!

I saved the link for some time, but it disappeared one day to be replaced by a multilingual web site for the Toy Museum of Catalonia. (Spend some time on this site…it is truly delightful!) Over the years the web site has changed, but there was never any reappearance of the caganers.

With this recent discovery of the crapping Santa candy dispenser I was inspired to search for the meaning of the caganers again. And what a difference three years makes! Not only did I find references to the caganers; it seems that there was an exhibition of the collection from the Toy Museum of Catalonia at
Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts up in Napa in 2002! (Although how it fit into their mission statement is something I’d like to hear more about. There is even a web store in Spain that offers a great selection of caganers including one of George Bush.

An article by API writer, Sarah Andrews, explains that the 18th century tradition of the caganer is connected to the nativity displays in Spain. Caganers are hidden in the elaborate nativity scenes and the game is to find them all. They supposedly symbolize the re-fertilization of the earth.

Needless to say the Pooping Santa did much to re-fertilize my brain.

Happy New Year and thanks to all you LATDA supporters who renewed your memberships! Your dollars and faith in us are keeping us going!

American Girl

Got a call today asking if I knew of any anti-Japanese, American toys produced during World War II. My resource books only depict a few racist shooting gallery toys and Bo-Lem-Ova, a bowling game guaranteed to 'KO' the Axis. Most of the unflattering images were specific - Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini - rather than generic ethnic stereotypes. And Hitler was featured more often than anyone else, possibly a reflection of the fact that many of the large American toy companies at the time were owned by Jewish people.

Positive ethnic representation has always been scarce in the American toy world. In the case of black stereotypes, negative examples abound prior to the 50s. When it became politically incorrect, ethnic toys (especially dolls) virtually disappeared until the late 60s and early 70s.

I read recently that Mattel is finally opening an American Girls store in Los Angeles. It will be at the Grove in the old F.A.O. Schwarz space. And while I am interested in all toys, dolls have held a special place in my heart. I am after all, a mid-century girl (see my 'no trains' comment in last blog entry), born to grow into the gender-neutral-toy generation of parents.

When my daughter was born, we gave her cars and building toys. And you couldn’t get more gender-neutral than furry old Grover. But she was born a year after American Girls. It wasn't long before the catalogs started arriving in the mail. Looking through each catalog stirred something in me. I wanted everything - the dolls, the clothes, the accessories. I could hardly wait until my daughter was old enough to leaf through the catalog with me.

For her seventh birthday, my daughter received a Samantha doll. Her generous aunties made sure that she was well-equipped with many outfits and accessories. At least Samantha had dark hair, but I secretly wished that my daughter had asked for an Addy doll - the escaped slave child who found freedom and a new life in the North. I wanted an Addy doll because it was the only ethnic doll in the American Girl series at the time. (There was an Asian baby doll, but it wasn't the same as having a story book character girl)

Eventually Addy was joined by Josefina, the Mexican American girl, and more recently Kaya, a Nez Perce Indian. There is also a series of 18 American Girl Today dolls, of which two are black, one Hispanic (remember there was already a Josefina doll), and ONE is Asian. When you consider that one out of five people in the world is Chinese, well the odds seem rather skewed.

Every year since 1995 I have been attending the San Francisco Gift Fair. Twice a year I would go to the American Girl booth and lobby for an Asian American Girl. I even put together a historical story for a girl friend for Molly, the World War II era AG. Masako (or May, her American name) would be dressed in a navy overcoat and wear an identification tag hanging from her front button just like the girls in the famous Dorothea Lange WPA photo. She would have one small suitcase (only what she could carry) and be ready for a long trip to Manzanar. When her family relocates to Chicago rather than spending the war in camp, Masako would meet Molly (she lives somewhere in Illinois - I am guessing Chicago, since that is where the original AG Store is located).

How much more American can you get? This is an American story full of history. But every time I pitched the story to the people in the AG booth, I would get an incredibly tepid reaction, followed by a polite reply that AG did not accept cold solicitations.

At first I thought that it might be too depressing a premise for a doll story. But then what could be more depressing than slavery? Addy certainly survived a terrible period in history. Then I wondered whether AG felt that the Asian market was too small. Or maybe it was too large? Maybe AG was afraid that soon Asian Americans would demand Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, and Hmong hyphenate American Girls. Because of course they don't all look alike. Maybe Asians need a celebrity advocate, like Oprah to get recognition.

I'm very happy that American Girl continues to give positive ethnic and gender representation in the toy market. But if someone from Mattel is out there is listening, call me about Masako...

Plasticville USA

This is another collection management story.

Six years ago when we had our very first fundraiser to raise money to process our corporate paperwork (it was a garage sale), someone dropped off a couple of battered cardboard boxes containing odd toys in various stages of disrepair. Not wanting to accidentally sell anything that we might want for LATDA, we set the boxes aside. One of them we triaged at the time, the other managed to get stored away and unearthed recently.

The box was covered with a layer of grime and dust, but appeared to hold pieces of plastic buildings and a couple of train accessories in their original packaging. It was hard to tell if there were any complete buildings until each piece was cleaned and laid out on the table. The most intact piece was a small station platform with a sign on top proclaiming the destination, “Plasticville”.

Half a roll of paper towels and an hour later, I had assembled ten more pieces of Plasticville – a tulip greenhouse; a concrete blockhouse radio station; a pink mid-century movie theater called the ‘Paramount’; a house under construction; a fire station; a gas station; a water tower; a train refueling station; a barn with the requisite ‘Mail Pouch Tobacco’ ad on the roof; and a pedestrian bridge plastered with nostalgic advertising for Corvair and Bardahl Oil.

As I pieced together each building, I realized how much fun I missed not being encouraged to play with trains. It was a different sense of ‘world-building’ than one experiences playing with dolls and dollhouses. Certainly a larger perspective – with detail coming from architectural features rather than accessories. Another of the LATDA leadership harbors the same regrets…her brother was the one with the train set. I think there is a train layout in LATDA’s future.

Plasticville is still being manufactured today by Bachmann Trains and there is a Plasticville Collector’s Association. I learned from the PCA that our pieces are HO scale. I love the ad on the HO page. One might infer that Plasticville might be somewhere in the vicinity of Hollywood Bl. and Western Ave., judging by the conductor’s announcement.

Toy Dept.

It was one of those days when I seemed to be late for everything. I dashed off to Pasadena to pick up a gift for a last minute wedding, ended up taking a circuitous route driving west on Colorado Bl.*, when my eye was caught by a giant Rock'em Sock'em robot in a store window. I almost missed it, and only caught the word “TOY” in the rear view mirror. Running late or not, it was a LATDA imperative that I round the corner and go back to check it out, promising myself I would only allow a 20 minute detour.

What I found was the Toy Dept. (slogan: REAL toys, like YOU remember!) The Rock’em Sock’em Robot was centerpiece to a good old fashioned merchandising display of boxes of Mattel’s redux version of the classic toy. The other window featured a supermarket cart full of Funko bobblehead dolls. Rather than the blare of tweaker/rap/rock or the blah of the Wave, as I walked through the door I was greeted by the perky and familiar strains of Looney Toons music and mid-century toy commercials.

The YOU in the slogan was definitely me, judging by the demographics of the rest of the patrons walking wide-eyed and gob-smacked down the length of the store. But I don’t think I remember any toy store being this nice when I was a child. This was the toy store I imagined I remembered. (See my blog entry for 2/24/04)

There was a man in the process of stocking shelves in the very back of the store. The last ten feet of the store had the air of not quite being finished – as if the paint had only just dried. I extended my hand and congratulated him on a job well done. I ‘interviewed’ “Uncle Dave” (I forgot to ask his last name…and it only says “Uncle Dave” on his card) at length and was impressed by his vast experience in the toy world. He certainly looked younger than most of the people in the store (including me) and hardly seemed old enough to have developed such a keen eye for nostalgia. He and his partner (whose name I neglected to collect – remember, I was late for a wedding) designed every aspect of the store down to the custom shelving. They even fabricated much of it themselves. They made the Rock’em Sock’em Robot in window out of salvaged gatorfoam board from some discarded promotional displays.

As Dave said, they wanted to make a toy store that was not merely an electronics store. They have drawn on the classics, stocking as many items in their historical packaging as are available. Mixed in are newer toys that require the same play value as the classics – hand manipulation, humor, team play, and imagination.

I need to go back to peruse the selection more carefully. But I didn’t walk away empty-handed. I bought a pair of wind-up battling sumo wrestlers…a cultural spin on Rock’em Sock’em.

*the address is 255 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena (626) 396-9487

Funny Munky

Went to the opening of the Funny Club show at Munky King in Chinatown last night. This was another attempt on my part to learn more about the art/urban/vinyl/toy phenomenon. The tiny space was PACKED with hipsters, fans (who obviously understood the scene already), and artists. I spied Gary Baseman in a corner but had already been peristaltically moved in a clockwise motion by the crowd edging to speak to the two artists, b.b.birdy and Nakanari. The designers were customizing blank DIY figures with paint pens as well as signing posters.

The mood was festive, but a little on the loud side for any kind of talk thanks to the reggae DJ truck in the front of the store. It was also too crowded to really stop and look at any of the work, so there will have to be another trip to view the show more carefully. I also made the gaffe of mistaking the founder of the store for someone else.

As I said, I didn’t get a good look at the show to make any informed comments about it, but I did pick up two of the DIY toys that were flying out of the store at $11 a pop. Gary and I examined them over dinner at the Empress Pavilion and found them tantalizingly well-engineered and fun to play with in their raw form (although we had to take care not to lose the tiny pieces in the string beans). The Cautions! Copy on the box seemed out of step with the slick product design, but maybe they were just having us on:

“The small products are enclosed in this box. Please do not hold them in the mouth by any means. There is a risk of being suffocated. Please do not give the children under 6-year-old by any means. There is a risk of the accident of not considering. Be careful of the handling enough. Please do not play with the products damaged for safety.”

Anyway, I will be going back to Munky King and would suggest you go too!

Bob Baker and Charles Phoenix*

Last night I was lucky enough to be transported by a theatrical experience that could only happen in Los Angeles. The performance took place at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater at the intersection of the Belmont Tunnel and the Beverly Blvd./First St. Bridge – an unlikely place to re-live one’s childhood at 8:00 PM on a Friday night.

First off, this was not my first visit to the famous landmark. When I realized that the theater was inaugurated in 1962, a year after my family moved to Silverlake, I erroneously remembered having gone there as a jaded ten-year old. Imagine my surprise when my sister reminded me that my first visit took place around 10 years later as a not-so-jaded 20-something. The occasion was my half-sister’s birthday – 4th or 5th, I don’t remember which. It was strange that other than a cousin or two, the entire birthday party consisted of adults. I remember being mildly interested in the performance, but my ability to suspend disbelief was hindered by the garish colors and loud music (not to mention the clowns…I am not a big fan of the clowns). What I do remember being fascinated by was the tour of the workshop after the performance. Strong in my memory was a description of how they created puppet heads by casting them in a latex compound that was light but durable.

My second visit was in 1989 when I took my own daughter for her third birthday. Again, 14 years later, our group consisted of more adults than children. I remember thinking that little had changed in the performance, although the puppets themselves and the theater seemed a little bit shabbier. But mostly I watched the kids’ reactions to the show. My daughter has always been rapt spectator – not fidgety or squirmy like some kids. But it was difficult to tell whether she was delighted or frightened by what she was seeing. She seemed to be processing everything as it came into her brain. It was only later that she would comment on what she felt about what she had seen.

Fast forward to last night – another 16 years passed and I found myself re-entering the theater, this time completely surrounded by adults. I have always meant to attend one of Charles Phoenix’s famous slide shows, but the combination of Bob Baker and slide show was irresistible and compulsory for LATDA research.

Perhaps it was the transition of entering the theater at night or the excitement of the crowd, but suddenly I felt considerably less jaded and ready to enter another world to be entertained. I had never really heard what a Charles Phoenix slide show was like, so I was pleasantly unprepared for his stentorian delivery (reminded me of George Takei, whose voice I often hear echoing through the halls of the Japanese American National Museum). His video interview was short but spoke volumes about Bob Baker and his contributions and dedication to his craft. The slide show augmented the stories about his early career and added that home movie quality of anecdotal information. Sometimes the tone of Phoenix’s narration was a little arch, but I decided that was simply his style and that he honestly admired his subject matter.

One thing that struck me in the video was an interview with one of Baker’s apprentices. He was a young Hispanic man who spoke of how he felt when someone pointed out to him that his work was art, and that he must be proud of what he was doing. I noticed that over 50% of the people (puppeteers) working for Baker were of Hispanic descent, and I wondered if it was a reflection of the neighborhood he worked in or of a kinship between Mexico’s artistic tradition in the field. Or were these some of the many school children who witnessed the magic of Bob Baker’s shows and had returned to learn from him?

It seemed that the all-adult audience dictated the presentation of the actual puppet performances. The lighting and execution of the performances seemed more professional and polished than I remembered. Some of the brashness in sound and color were still there, but at times I was completely mesmerized by the acting. And unlike my well-behaved daughter, I was standing up at my seat, craning for a better view. My favorite puppets were the various dancing skeletons – my least favorite…still the clowns.

Anyone want to raise funds for a Bob Baker Retrospective at LATDA?

*There are still two performances left and a few tickets still available!