packaging as content

May 2, 2012

Packaging of Miniature Dummy Heads

Speaking of miniature stuff, I’ve had this leftover image since “Dummy Week” last March. (See: Package Design for Dummies)

I got the image from Clinton Detweiler’s site, but I think it originally came from Tom Ladshaw’s “Gottle O’ Geer” site.

Like dime store packaging, the carded packs for these novelty keychains were structurally simple and graphically in-your-face:

“The keychains were sold two different ways. You could order them in “loose bulk” (for insertion in gum machine capsules, etc.) or carded. The flocked head keychains were only available carded.”

Tom Ladshaw

Die-cut carded pack for Jerry Mahoney dummy head keychain. (via: Toy Tent)

May 1, 2012

Handful of Miniature Soda Cans

Via: Western Paperback Novels

March 13, 2012

Package Design for Dummies

It all started with this bronze head. (An enigmatic Christmas gift from my brother that he picked up at an auction somewhere.) A serious commitment of permanent bronze to an ephemeral cartoon head. At least, I thought this looked like a cartoon character. Or maybe a product mascot? Clearly, I needed to find out whose face this was.

Howdy Doody? No. Alfred E. Neuman? No.

Then I noticed some writing on the back of the neck, inside the head. (The head is no longer affixed to its wooden base.) I couldn’t read the writing because it was backwards and it extended way up beyond where the neck curves into the head. I thought about peering in there with a dental mirror, but I didn’t have one of those.

Then I thought of using some modeling clay to get an imprint…

“©1960 Columbia Pictures Corporation
A JURO Creation”

“Juro Novelties” turns out to be a manufacturer of ventriloquist dummies so I’m thinking they must have, for some reason, immortalized one of their dummies with this bronze statue.

My guess is that it was made by actually casting one the plastic, dummy heads. That would explain why the writing was backwards and why the details on the inside felt sharper.

The Columbia Pictures copyright lines suggests a movie tie-in product. But what movie did this ventriloquist’s dummy appear in?

The only Columbia Pictures picture I can find that that was released in 1960 and has anything to do with ventriloquism, was a movie called “Stop, Look & Laugh.”

This movie features the Three Stooges and ventriloquist, Paul Winchell who used two dummies: Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Of those two characters, I think the one that our “Juro Creation” head most closely resembles is Jerry Mahoney. (An actual Jerry Mahoney dummy head on left via: Ventriloquist Central Blog)

And Juro Novelties did manufacture Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist dolls so that sort of fits.)

Setting aside the remaining unsolved mystery —(Why make a bronze dummy head?)— I wondered how Jerry Mahoney and the other “Juro Celebrity Dolls” were packaged?

In my expert opinion, the very best package design for dummies was the “dummy carrying valise” above. This value-added retail carton with handles, references the sort of battered show-biz suitcases that, in those days, itinerant ventriloquists presumably carried their dummies around in. Classic sixties styling with modern trapezoidal shapes, overlapping illustrations and a nice faux alligator pattern in the background. Also note the low 1960s price of $14.95… (Package photo via: Mr. D’s Daily Ventriloquist Journal; catalog ad via: eBay)

(More Juro Novelties packaging for dummies, after the fold…) (more…)

January 26, 2012

Package Design & Wolverine Toy Refrigerator Doors

Left: photo from The T-Cozy’s Flickr Photostream; on right photo from The House of Oliver’s Etsy store ($29)

We’ve shown similar toys with trompe l’oeil name brand packages printed on them —(toy shopping carts, miniature dollhouse packages, etc.)— but I recently got a glimpse inside a Wolverine brand toy fridge.

Originally, toys like the pink refrigerator on the right (with “a full larder reproduced on door insides”) retailed for only $2.98, but as a collectible the price is now higher. (Wolverine advertising photo via: The People History)

I’ve lost track of some of these photo sources, but 2nd row, left: from Live Auctioneers; on right: from MarkandBlyth’s Flickr Photostream; 3rd row, left: from The T-Cozy; on right: from RainbowMermaid’s Flickr Photostream; 4th row, left from Schaufensterbabe; on right: from eBay Auction ($19) bottom row, right: pink fridge from TwirlswithPearls’ Etsy Store

With the doors of the refrigerators permanently stocked with food packaging, we wondered what sort of packaging the toys, themselves came in.

(Asked and answered after the fold…)

(more…)

January 16, 2012

Super PAC Packaging

As we enjoy a new, hyperbolic political season, generously funded by large amounts of Super Political Action Committee money, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some earlier types of Super Pac.

Not surprisingly, the name was previously associated with packaging.

SuperPac, Inc., whose logo appears at top, offers “A Tradition of Excellence in Flexographic Printing.”

SuperPAC™ (logo: above center) is a trademark of Thomasville Furniture:

Thomasville’s promise to provide our customers with the best overall kitchen, bath, and other room solutions initiated our development of SuperPAC, our patent pending packaging technique.

And SuperPac is also the name of a British company that makes a car stereo accessory. (Logo by Frankman Design)

Superpac is the new way to hold your detachable car stereo front. Designed to replace the dull black plastic case supplied with most car stereos, the Superpac offers you a stylish way to protect your cherished face-off style car stereo.

Mastey de Paris carries a SuperPac “Intensive Reconstructor Conditioner for Stressed, Damaged Hair” (above, right)

Superpac reconstructs damaged hair, rebuilding and reinforcing the hair’s protein chains. Superpac enables hair to retain its elasticity and structural integrity with newfound bounce and resilience.

Mastey de Paris

There was also a Timberland Super Pac boot. (via: Gwar Izm)

Nowadays, a candidate whose political campaign benefits from Super PAC money is not supposed to “coordinate directly” with his or her Super PAC benefactor. In practice, however, a candidate’s Super PAC is often run by a close ally—a Super PAC man. (e.g., Jon Stewart is Steven Colbert’s “Super PAC man”)

Not to be confused with an earlier “Super Pac-Man.”

Top & center: Commodore 64 “Super Pac-Man” packaging from Moby Games; bottom photo: a General Mills Pac-Man cereal with “Super Pac-Man Marshmallows” from Jason Liebig’s flickr Photostream

Now, if we were willing to be more liberal about the spelling of the term—accepting say “PAK” as a reasonable variant (as in Political Action Kommittee?)—then there’s even more to think about.

(More, after the fold…)

(more…)

December 22, 2011

A “Penny Machine” for Christmas

Photo via: The National Museum of Play

Above: something I once wanted and didn’t get. Anyone who grew up celebrating a consumer Christmas has one of these. Not necessarily this toy in particular, but something they wanted for Christmas—something they asked Santa Claus for—and did not receive. The “Penny Machine” is the one that I remember.

I had forgotten that it was called a Coney Island Penny Machine, I’m pretty sure it was just a “Penny Machine” that I told my mother was my number 1 Christmas wish. Clearly, the Remco television commercial below was what sold me on this product.

I must have been a pretty avaristic child to want a toy that endlessly dispensed other toys. Sort of like the trick of using your wish to ask for more wishes.

I hadn’t remembered the commercial being so olde-timey. I don’t think I would have identified much with the boy in the commercial, although I totally identify with the boy on the box—(who looks just me at that age). Perhaps it was the fantasy of impressing a girl with my skill in winning prizes that explains this commercial’s effect on me. Never mind that the carnival attraction, in this case, would have been located in my toy box.

Whatever desires it unleashed in me, my mother didn’t seem as impressed with this product or its commerical. Had it been a birthday request, I might have worked harder to persuade her. With Christmas, however, I figured it didn’t much matter what she thought about it. As long as I was right with Santa, it needn’t concern her. My record of good behavior stood for itself and made me confident that the Remco prize-dispensing machine would soon be my prized possession.

I know this sounds a lot like Ralphie and the Red Ryder BB gun in “A Christmas Story” which is embarrassing, but remember: in that movie [spoiler alert] he ultimately got what he asked for. The significance of not getting what you ask for is different.

Not that I’m whining about it now or that I had gotten everything I ever wanted up until that Christmas. But it’s the first thing that I can remember specifically asking Santa for, that I later noticed I didn’t get. Which raised certain existential questions…

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 21, 2011

Roly Poly Clown Containers and the Santa-Clown Hybrid

1: “vintage Russian celluloid roly-poly ding clown doll 60s” (via: eBay); 2: a toy from The Canadian Design Resource site; 3: a Weeble clown from Abraracourcix’s Flickr Photostream; 4: roly poly clown from Live Auctioneers

Following up on Monday’s “Mr. Sprinkles” bottles, another point of reference for their weeble-like bottle shape was probably vintage “roly poly” toys of this type. Sometimes used as containers, as with the “Roly Poly Clown Bubble Bath” bottle on right and the antique “Clown Roly Poly Candy Container” below.

But my real agenda, in bringing this up, is that I needed a way to segue from clowns to Christmas, and the roly poly thing seems to provide that. The grouping of roly poly Santas below is from Sushipot.

Left: 1930s tin roly poly Santa (via: Antique Trader); center: reproduction of a 1900s roly poly Santa tobacco tin container (via: Ruby Lane); on right: Celluloid Sata Claus roly poly toy (also via: Ruby Lane)

But Santa Claus and clowns have more in common than just roly poly toys and containers. They both wear unusual outfits, often with similar hats. It was inevitable that the characters would someday be merged:

Depending on who you ask, Santa Clown is either a hilarious or thoroughly terrifying combination of two well known figures: Santa Claus and a Circus Clown.

What is Santa Clown? (via: Info Barrel)

(Santa Clown imagery, after the fold…)

(more…)

December 2, 2011

Entenmann’s Boxcar

Photos above and below by Rich Melvin

Licenced Entenmann’s/Lionel O gauge operating boxcar comes in an Entenmann’s-style see-through pastry box:

“It is not often that a railroad club car¹ gives you a craving for sweets, but that is what happened when I saw the 2010 Lionel operating car from the Railroad Museum of Long Island (RMLI) in its authentic-looking white and blue Entenmann’s baked goods box…

This innovative box design was the brainchild of Bob Mintz, chief design engineer of the RMLI.”

Ed Boyle, How Sweet It Is
O Gauge Railroading, June-July 2011

(Another photo and a footnoted digression, after the fold…)

(more…)

October 12, 2011

Eric Barclay’s Painted Packages

Texas-based llustrator, Eric Barclay, has an knack for finding a latent anthropomorphic character, hidden in the shape of most any package. Hence, two sizes of Coffee-mate become “Mr. Shackleton” and “Mr. Hudson” (above). Barclay confirms that his companionable characters are based on two famous explorers:

Mr. Shackleton is named after Earnest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer. Mr. Hudson, the walrus, is named after Henry Hudson who encountered walruses on his explorations of Canada…

As far as the characters go, Shackleton is a herring magnate and Mr. Hudson is his driver and “heavy.” Mr. Hudson knows a lot of people at the horse track.

Other painted packages by Barclay include a plastic squeeze bottle of French’s Mustard, whose shape embodied a circus lion…

(Another container’s inner feline character revealed, after the fold…)

(more…)

August 22, 2011

Geografia’s Polyhedral Planet

We went to Gift Fair last week (NYIGF) and one of the booths where I lingered the longest belonged to Geografia, a company that makes polyhedral paper globe kits, among other things.

When I saw the cube-shaped globe, above left, I said, “I bet that‘s a magic cube.” Sure enough the “Earth & Sky Twistable Globe” was a fully-functioning, folding and unfolding “magic cube” made from 8 smaller cubes—(the same sort of cube as our own Gumball Cube Pack).

In one state, the “Twistable Globe” shows a map of the world. Turned inside-out, it shows a map of the stars. (Really like the inside-outside / introvert-extrovert idea of this.)

Another intriguing reversible globe was their “Lands & Nations Flippable Globe” which was very similar to Jessica Comin’s “laranja mecánica” that we looked at recently. In her case, the cube could be turned inside-out to form a rhombic dodecahedron. The “Flippable Globe” is a cube that can be turned inside-out to form a regular dodecahedron. And its parts are tabbed, rather than permanently hinged together.

The projection of maps onto polyhedral shapes is something that Buckminster Fuller and others have also explored, but Geografia’s products manage to provide fascinating new polyhedral perspectives and (geo)graphic insights.

Here’s a video showing one of their “Sectional Globes” being assembled…

(We’ll be featuring more stuff from Gift Fair over the next week or two.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

July 29, 2011

Kooky Kans

From the “Mixo” dual oil & vinegar bottle of the previous post, we now turn to a different Mixo whose “Kooky Kans” are the latest enterprise of serial entrepreneur, Mike Becker (who previously founded Funko and Flapjack Toys.)

Mixo’s first product line, Kooky Kans combine the look and nostalgia of tin lunch boxes along with the fun of your favorite action figures. I’m filling my Kooky Kans with two things, delicious candy or our super amazing instant playsets we call Kookycraft. Kookycraft is kind of like Japanese Origami meets cereal box cut-outs… of the 60 & 70s.

Mike Becker, Chairman of Fun

An example of Kookycraft is shown below…

Note the can-shaped man in the apron. This is Mr. Mixo, the presumptive company mascot. I was struck by his uncanny resemblance to another anthropomorphic packaging mascot: the Big Shot soda jerk…

(A couple more photos, after the fold…)

(more…)

July 8, 2011

3 Rocket Shaped Bottles

A subset of vehicular packaging: rocket shaped bottles with fins. (In each of these three recent examples, the brand includes the letter “Z” for some reason.)

1. Zimbi Juice Drinks (on left) are described as “Aerodynamic Nutrition in Earth’s first flying bottle.” Their rocket shaped bottles, are recyclable, but are aslo intended to be reused as toys:

Zimbi flying bottles really fly! The bottles are aerodynamically designed to fly when thrown empty; Once you have discovered the bottle’s secret, you can throw the bottle over 100 feet.

IMPORTANT: Only throw the bottles empty. Throwing any bottle that is full of liquid can be dangerous.

2. Zun Energy Drink’s rocket shaped bottle (center) was launched in 2009. Here, the rocket serves as a metaphor for the “brain-blasting Energy®” the consumer derives from drinking the beverage.

3. LazyTown Go Water (on right) is Nordic Water’s TV tie-in brand of children’s bottle water that comes in an “easy to hold, rocket-shaped bottle.”

(Additional photos of all three brands, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 27, 2011

Wacky Packages Display Box

7x8x1.25" deep empty box originally contained 48 packs. Topps 1974. Lid art includes grocery bag containing “Wormy Packages, Quacker Oats, Mrs. Klean.” Edge wear with one corner split. Still glossy and Fine. ($75)

via Hakes

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 21, 2011

Package as Vending Machine

Another surprisingly elaborate package for the lowly gumballl. A far cry from the simplicity of the Lucky Cat packets, but no more absurd than our own Gumball Cube Pack.

I bought my miniature gumball-dispensing package, on left, at Rite Aid Pharmacy. I found the counter display picture online.

(Some other gumball machine packages, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 17, 2011

Uncapped Landfill Bottle #4

This bottle turns out to have contained either Fitch Dandruff Remover Shampoo or Fitch Ideal Hair Tonic. (The same bottles appear to have been used for both products.)

I like the way these men’s hair care bottles originally had matching embossed skirts & caps. The company’s founder, Fred W. Fitch, started out as a barber, so the slanting, slightly helical pattern is probably meant to evoke: barber pole.

And, as was so often the custom in those days, these bottles were, themselves, packaged in a carton. I like the concentric exclamatory graphics on the box.

In 1946 Fitch’s advertising ran afoul of FTC.

In 1892, Frederick W. Fitch was a barber in Madrid, Iowa (pop. 565). His shampoo became so popular that he quit barbering to make “Fitch’s Dandruff Remover Shampoo.” By last year, his company had annual sales of $11,000,000. The advertising that did the trick: “Fitch Shampoo removes every trace of dandruff on first application.”

Last week, after 54 years of such advertising, the Federal Trade Commission decided that it was “false and misleading.” Reason: it made the public believe that “dandruff is an abnormal condition.” The truth, according to FTC: “Dandruff is a physiologically normal condition . . . and cannot be removed permanently through the use of any cleansing agent.”

Fitch Won’t Save It
Time Magazine
Monday, June 10, 1946

(“Fitch Shampoo Airport” after the fold…)

(more…)

May 27, 2011

Mine Enemy’s Candy

Mussolini, Hitler & Hirohito candy boxes, each with an open die-cut mouth (via: Hakes)

I don’t know what it is about candy and war. We’ve had a couple of other posts touching on it… the German Chocolate Hand Grenade… the Candy Bomber…

These candy boxes above, from WWII, feature Axis leaders with die cut mouths, ostensibly a game for children to throw balls into—(the French text on the boxes offers encouragements like “Hitler’s Speech Is Finished” and “A Sharp Movement, It Should Shut Him Up.”)—but I wonder if children didn’t also dispense candy from those mouths.

Which brings us to the War on Terror and Osama bin Laden. While bin Laden has certainly been featured in a number of insulting products here in the United States, children’s candy does not seem to be among them.

Which is not to say that our recently deceased enemy combatant has never appeared on a box of kid’s candy. Consider: Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls.

Photo from: Fullsteam’s Flickr Photostream

Not anti bin Laden candy since it was most popular in Afghanistan and Pakistan and uses that brush script adjective “Super” on the packaging.

In the war on terrorism, this was clearly the enemy’s candy—not meant for consumption in the United States, although, for some reason, available in China.

Manufactured in Pakistan, this product apparently dates back to 2002:

Many vestiges of the Taliban era remain untouched in the beat-up, dusty center of Kandahar, where the ruins of buildings that collapsed during the recent American bombing campaign lie among the ruins of older battles. Venders with carts sell “Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls”—coconut candy manufactured in Pakistan and packaged in pink-and-purple boxes covered with images of bin Laden surrounded by tanks, cruise missiles, and jet fighters.

After the Revolution, by Jon Lee Anderson
The New Yorker, January 28, 2002

Aside from Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls, I know of one other bin Laden candy: Peta’s “Bin Laden Bites” vegan chocolate bars, released in April of last year.

(Photos of Bin Laden Bites packaging, after the fold…)

(more…)

May 20, 2011

Impossible Bottles

The puzzle-like interlocking bottles of the previous post leads me to the topic of “impossible bottles”—those bottles containing things that should not have been able to fit though their necks.

A ship in a bottle is the most familiar example, but enthusiasts have come up with plenty of other stuff—(even packaged stuff like cigarette packs and decks of playing cards)—to put into their “impossible” bottles.

(One more thing, after the fold…)

(more…)

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