Commuterrant

McCullough and the Bee

The surging popularity of all things related to spelling bees has forced me to revisit a painful episode in my past, when I came in a shameful 16th place in the Philadelphia city-wide spelling bee of 1978.

The annual Bee was sponsored by the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, which proudly carried the tagline, "Nearly Everyone Reads the Bulletin." But not everyone read the Bulletin, as the newspaper went out of business four years later, leaving nearly everyone to read the Philadelphia Inquirer. This may have been due in part to the fact that they blew a lot of money sponsoring spelling bees for pimple-addled junior high schoolers.

But I digress.

So I was thinking about all of the bee-craziness in our culture today: books and movies such as Akeelah and the Bee, Spellbound, Bee Season, The Secret Life of Bees... oh wait; that one wasn't about spelling bees. And I remembered that I was all about the Bee before anyone ever thought to make a movie or write a book about it.

So I dug this out of the vault:

Some faces have been obscured to protect the innocent. The man on the left, however was  the moderator who tripped me up with the word "planxty,"  so he gets to have his picture posted on my blog.

It was a big day. I washed my hair three times, with Herbal Essence Shampoo (or was it Faberge Organic? Or Earth Born?) and put on Maybelline mascara. I wore a skirt, for God's sake. I wore my fabulous, reversible blue/silver baseball jacket. And since this was a special occasion, I wore it silver side out. And I went on to shame my school, by mispelling planxty [\Planx"ty\, n. [Cf. L. plangere to mourn aloud.] (Mus.) An Irish or Welsh melody for the harp, sometimes of a mournful character.] I have not had occasion to use the word planxty in the 28 years since.

All I got to show for my humiliation that day was a copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, a silly enamel pin with a bee on it, and this photo. I still have all three, although I don't know exactly where that enamel pin is.

Disclaimer: I don't look anything like that anymore

Dolls of Dementia

Last night, I was looking up 1960s-era dolls on the Web for my wife, who wanted to see a picture of a childhood favorite, Dolly Darlings.  I had never heard of Dolly Darlings, but I soon learned more than I ever wanted to know.  During our online toy travels, we came across the most demented panoply of dolls one could imagine.  I can only imagine the product development meetings at Hasbro, et al., circa 1965, that resulted in the creation of these. 

First, we surveyed the various Dolly Darlings, none of which looked even remotely familiar to E.  She remembered sweet, innocent Dolly Darlings, and we came across what looked like a selection of characters from Boogie Nights.  And the names...the names.

First, there's Boy Trap.

Hello...?  You're six years old.  You should not be named Boy Trap.

Then we have Teeny Bikini, Fancy Pants and Tea Time:

"Monsieur!  Oh no!  You have caught me dusting the bookshelf incorrectly!"

And why are they all looking off to the side? What are they looking at?

Here we have Ann-Margret and Edie Sedgwick, hanging out at The Factory with Andy and the gang:

Wait a minute; what's Ann-Margret doing at The Factory?  Shouldn't she be in Vegas?

Our online doll travels then took a decidedly sinister turn, as we came upon Peteena the Pampered Poodle.  Peteena doesn't know what she wants to be.  She has a Poodle head and tail, but apparently is also a fashion model.  In this particular version, she is "The Poodle in a Bikini."

Like many in the fashion industry, poor Peteena appears to have an eating disorder.  But that's the least of her problems.  She's a Poodle.  And she's wearing a bikini.  And standing in a decidedly uncanine pose.  I think she has broken all of her bones, for the sake of vanity.

We continued plumbing the depths of doll despair, as we discovered Flower Dolls.  These were apparently meant to capitalize on the Dolly Darling craze, but with a twist.  Each doll came fully ensconced in a flower, with a pin so that they could be played with and worn as a corsage.  This looks like something you'd see on C.S.I. Disneyland.

 

And then we truly entered Hades when we stumbled upon Little Miss No Name.

This hyperthyroid waif is wearing a patched-up burlap sack and has a single tear streaming down her face as she holds her hand out, presumably in the act of asking for alms, a crust of bread, or a used, oily rag with which to wash her face.

What on earth would a child have done wrong to deserve such a doll?  And what were the creators of Little Miss No Name trying to accomplish?   Was this a top-seller?  If anyone had given me Little Miss No Name as a gift, I would have thrown her in the fireplace immediately.  Then those sad, saucer eyes would have haunted me for years.

I really don't know how I managed to get through childhood without knowing about these dolls, but boy am I thankful!  I guess I had a couple of close calls, with Liddle Kiddles (who had names like Short-order cookadiddle and Liddle ADD-diddle) and Flatseys, but I count myself among the fortunate not to have been exposed to these cretinous offerings.

(most of these images are from dollreference.com and ebay)

Chocolate Bunnies Make Me Sad

It's that time of year again, when you cannot go into a drugstore or supermarket without seeing them.  Shelf after shelf of chocolate bunnies, on display in festive, colorful packaging.  The first time I saw them again, the spring after my mother died, I had a panic attack.  Not over the chocolate bunnies.  Over the packaging.  My mother designed most of it.  She was gone, and there I was in CVS, standing in front of an entire wall of her boxes.

My mother had grown up wanting to be an artist, like her father.  She went to art school and years later, she was making somewhat of a living as a graphic designer, and had said to me on several occasions that she was reduced to "drawing bunny boxes" for a living.  She told me she had lost the artistic ability that she once had; she could only draw cartoon rabbits, hopping over flowers while looking insanely happy.  She was not particularly proud of her bunny boxes.  Ironically, it's the bunny boxes that have given her a bit of immortality, even though graphic designers never get to sign their work.  I'm not sure anyone ever looks at  "Busy Bigby" and "Sunny" at Walgreen's and thinks about who created the artwork that adorns the box.  But I do.

I no longer feel sad at the annual return of the bunny boxes, but I do feel nauseous.  Why? Because the chocolate is pretty awful.  Do you remember the wax tubes that held juice (aka dyed sugar water)?  You could bite off the end, drink the juice and then chew the wax, thereby ingesting at least 37 different carcinogens.  Those wax tubes o'juice tasted better than this chocolate.  One of the perks of having a mother who designed candy packaging was that every now and then, she would bring home FREE SAMPLES!  I will never forget the case of Rolos, circa 1972.  And the Hershey Bars...every time they unveiled a new seasonal version of Miniatures, we reaped the benefits.  But she knew not to bring home the bunnies.  The bunnies were awful.  And thank God she never worked on the packaging for Peeps.

Beryl's bunny boxes (the two on the left):

 
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