Batman & Robin in Hollywood

My cousin, Bruno and I loved to watch the TV show, “Batman” when we were kids. We would tuck a pillowcase into the back collar of our t-shirts for capes and run around the block pretending to be Batman and Robin. I usually got to play Batman because I was older (and taller). My mom knew how much I loved the show so she bought the Ideal Batman cowl for my birthday.

My mom and I lived on the top floor of a three-story apartment building at the corner of Hollywood and Garfield Place while Bruno and his family lived across the parking lot in the first house in a row of five bungalows. One day, Bruno and I were playing “Batman” all over the parking lot when we wandered inside the lobby of my apartment building.  My mom, my aunts, uncles and the rest of our family were at Bruno’s place.

We ran around the lobby, up and down the stairs, slid down the banister and tumbled down the carpeted stairs. We ran all the way up the stairs to the third floor when I noticed the roof access door. I thought would be ‘fun’ idea to go on the roof so we could get a ‘bats’ eye’ view of the city. We pushed the door and set a brick in the door jam to hold it open.  We walked around on the roof for a few minutes enjoying the spectacular view. We sat on the edge of the roof. I suddenly got the idea that it would be neat to swing over from the edge of the roof into the open third floor window.  We’d seen Batman and Robin performing this stunt regularly on the show so I thought we could do it, too. I explained the directions very well to Bruno, handed him the Batman cowl and suggested that he be the first one to try.

Bruno was brave so he put on the helmet and he draped his little leg over the side.  I started to give him a boost up the wall when we heard the familiar voice of our Uncle Calvo screaming from across the parking lot.

“Hey! Don't you two dare move! I’m coming up there right now!“ Uncle Calvo was 6 feet tall and very intimidating!  He was the disciplinarian at the family functions. Bruno almost fell off the roof at this point from terror.

Our uncle ran up the stairs and found us on the roof. He grabbed us by the ears then shouting all the way, dragged us back to Bruno’s house for a spanking. I remember the thud of the plastic Batman cowl hitting the tar paper roof.

Personally, I still think the stunt would have worked. After all, we saw it on TV!

Happy Birthday Barbie!

A friend took me to a party at the soon to be my good friend, Kari’s house for a “Barbie Birthday Party” many years ago.  Kari’s house was incredible! She had tons of various toys and dolls on display, glittery pink floors and the entire house were all decorated in Barbie art. Tacky pink Barbie banners stretched across the ceiling, pink lights and gold spray painted dolls hung on the branches of the ficus tree that grew from outside through the crack in the living room window! 

So many colorful people in wild costumes and hats from every decade of the Barbie doll! Spiked pink punch with fruit slices, bowls of pink gumdrops and plates of pink cookies with sprinkles. Kari was dressed as the Twiggy doll in a human-sized version of the Mattel Twiggy doll’s original outfit. She had various performance artists doing erotic performances featuring Barbie as their perverse theme. Plus, the best part was that Kari had set up assorted Barbie craft projects to do in every room. In one room there was piles of doll clothes, shoes, heads, bodies, arms, scraps of fabric, X-acto knives, hot glue, colored foil, glitter, paint, scissors and markers on a circular table so guest could create their own expression featuring the iconic doll. I sat down beside a guy named Bichon who looked like a kooky beatnik. We started to chat, hit it off and became collaborators on a Barbie project. I stripped off the paint from a doll’s face with acetone. I taped off her head, exposing her hair then spray-painted her hair black. Bichon started to make a wedding dress from a few paper doilies.  When the paint on the hair dried, I pulled the tape off and repainted the make-up on her face. I found a tiny bridal bouquet, added a black veil, a ribbon and colored the flowers to look weathered.  Bichon had finished the elaborate wedding dress and it was spectacular! The dress had a long train in the back, scraps of old lace with plastic spiders on the peplum, bows and puffed sleeves with tiny Tic Tac breath mints glued to them. Kari gave prizes for the favorite art creation so after the voting by the crowd; Bichon and I won the contest!

 

The Bride of Frankenstein Barbie was our lovely creation that night.

Bichon and I became great friends after that. Hope you making some fantastic Barbie art in heaven, Bichon.

Gas Station Premiums

Sometimes when I go to the gas station today and see the price of gas, I'm reminded of when I was a kid going to the gas station with my mom. We would usually go on Friday morning before school and always went to the same Texaco station down the street from our apartment in Echo Park. They had the least expensive priced gas plus they gave away donuts and coffee. They had full service too. The way that worked was you drove your car over a rubber cord that lay across the ground in front of the pumps, that rang the bell to alert the gas station attendant, who would come running out of the office to serve you. “Fill ‘er up? Regular or Premium?” asked the friendly attendant. Then he would wipe the windshield and check the oil. It was awesome!

One of the greatest things about the gas station was all the wonderful premiums and giveaways they had. One summer, Union 76 gave away ‘Funny Face’ drink mix pouches compliments of the station. They also gave away a mini version of their famous 76 ball logo to put on your car antenna. Sinclair passed out Sinclair Dino piggy banks and inflatables for the kiddies. ESSO had a faux fur tiger tail representing their mascot, the Esso Tiger, to hang off the rear view mirror. Shell Oil gave away free Presidential Coins and a coin-collecting card. If you collected enough coins to fill up your card, you could score the grand prize. Chevron sold the ‘Chevron cars’ that were featured on their animated commercials in the 80’s.

One summer, ARCO gas (which was the ‘new’ gas station at the time) had a promotion playing off their name, ARCO, featuring a pair of Noah’s Ark animals, ‘free’ (with a three gallon minimum purchase). There were 12 pairs of animals to collect and once you collected all of the animals, you could buy Noah’s Ark play set, which included a figure of Noah and his wife. I wanted the entire set so badly.

Week by week and pair by pair, my mom indulged my latest desire to collect the entire set of ark animals mainly because the gas at Arco was inexpensive. About a month later, there was a commercial announcing that you could finally buy Noah’s Ark. Friday morning, my mom and I drove into the station when mom suddenly announced that we weren’t buying gas today after all. She said, “Mira para alla! They raised the price of gas from .25 to .27 per gallon! Bandidos!” She drove to school then dropped me off. I was bummed all day at the thought that I wouldn’t have the beloved Noah’s Ark to play with that weekend.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and went into the kitchen. On the table was a note from my mom to say that she had left to run some errands that morning and for me to fix myself breakfast.  I poured a bowl of Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries with milk and flopped down on the sofa to watch, Scooby-Doo, Where are you?, The Brady Kids, Josie and the Pussycats. I heard my mom’s car pull up in the driveway around noon and she honked the horn. I ran outside to help her bring in the groceries. Mom said there was one more paper bag in the trunk and to bring it in. She handed me the bag and when I looked inside, there was Noah’s Ark! Apparently, she found a gas station that had last week's gas prices and she bought the ark for me that morning. Love ya, mom!

The Freeway

For the longest time, I had a hectic work commute driving from my home in Mount Washington to El Segundo every day. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles will agree that our freeways are a brain numbing experience particularly, the 110 Freeway. The freeway is surrounded by numerous sports venues, businesses and schools so it’s usually busy at all times of the day and night.

One Friday afternoon, when I was driving home on the 110 and by driving I mean plodding along at five miles an hour, stepping on the brake constantly and changing lanes hoping to move a little faster. Ironically I was in the ‘fast’ lane.

We were moving along at a snail’s pace when the driver in the car behind me started to tailgate my bumper. The driver continued to tailgate and stop short of my car’s bumper every few car lengths. I thought, “What a nitwit” and continued to navigate the stop and go traffic. When you’re driving that slow on 110 Fwy, you really start to notice the amount of debris along the inside next to the center divider; hubcaps, busted car parts, Spiderman diapers, bits of smashed wooden furniture, shredded tires, a broken coffee mug.

Up ahead in my lane, I could see a greenish blue object laying on the ground over the double yellow line. As we got closer, I could see it was a plastic toy. I recognized it as one of the two-headed dragon from Imperial Toys circa 1983. Insane! My car rolled to a stop right next to the thing so I pulled on the parking brake, popped open the door, leaned over and scooped it up! Well, this was too much for the driver of the car behind me because he swerved out from behind me into the right lane, drove around and cut in front of me. The traffic ahead in our lane had moved several car lengths forward.  

A couple minutes later, there was a long tire screech followed by three loud car crashes. A little plume of black smoke slowly billowed from the cars in the lane ahead. I slowly moved into the second lane and drove past the accident to find out that the impatient driver behind me had slammed into the car in front of him, who slammed into the car in front of him, who slammed into the car in front of him. Saved by a two headed blue plastic dragon sent by the freeway gods!

Living Doll

Everyone has seen the episode of the Twilight Zone called “Living Doll” in which the little girl receives an adorable ‘talking’ doll from her mother. The doll says her signature phrase, “My name is Talky Tina” but when no one is looking, the creepy doll comes to life, threatens and terrorizes the girl’s stepfather played by Telly Savalas. Without spoiling it too much, the story doesn’t end well.  Do you ever wonder what happened to the family? Were they stuck in the apartment at the mercy of this demented doll?

Special Effects prop masters created ‘Talky Tina’ from the Vogue Brikette doll that was available in the early 1960’s. They animated the head turning and the arms swinging because the original doll did not have that feature. They also added the talking because the Brikette doll didn’t do that either.

In the mid 1990’s, I found a Brikette doll at an antique store. I flipped because I had never seen one before and of course, I recognized her as the freaky doll from the Twilight Zone. That was my toy for that day and what a score!

My friend, Van Arno said that he had a friend who wanted to meet me. Van told his friend, Rob, about my insane toy collection and Rob couldn’t wait to see it. Van said Rob was totally toy crazed and that we would get along like a house on fire.

Finally Rob came over and sure enough, we had a lot in common. Rob and I were both from New Jersey and just about the same age so we shared a lot of the same childhood experiences. I led him to the toy room and he went wild. Rob’s eyes were practically spinning! We blabbed for hours and hours about all our favorite childhood space toys; Ideal Zeroids, Eldon Billy Blastoff, Mattel’s Major Matt Mason, the Colorform Outer Spacemen but Rob’s all time favorites were the Topper Ding-A-Lings robots. He was obsessed with them! We started to call him, "King Ding”!

The Talky Tina doll particularly entranced Rob. He wanted one just like her. I told him that Brikette dolls were really hard to find and that I’d never seen one before this but I would look for one for him. About two months later, I actually found a Brickette doll in a completely different antique shop. I called Rob and told him that I found a Talky Tina for him. He said he wanted to come over that night to pick her up. Rob was so thrilled to finally have Talky Tina, he put her in his briefcase and we said goodnight.

The few nights later, I got a call from Rob. He said the weirdest thing had happened to him that day at work. Rob was the VP and Director of Legal Affairs for the Anaheim Indoor Marketplace. He said he’d had a meeting with the board that Friday morning. When Rob went to open his briefcase, Talky Tina doll popped out and he almost fell out of his chair. Rob had completely forgotten that she was in there and was startled by her unexpected appearance! He spent the rest of the day teasing and tormenting the staff in the office with her.

Introducing '69 Hot Wheels Action Set

My mom worked on the assembly line at Mattel Toys when I was a kid. My aunt, Dora and my aunt Berta worked there also.  This is back when Mattel toys were made in Hawthone, California, USA! I loved the stories my mother would tell about working at the famous toy company. My mom described the Hot Wheels department as rows of tiny cars with ladies on either side working the assembly line performing some function such as polishing the cars, plugging the spoiler in place, bagging the cars, heat sealing the car on the card, etc. I pictured Lucy and Ethel on the assembly line at the chocolate factory only with Hot Wheels cars!

Every Friday, my mom brought home some little gifts for me. Sometimes it would be a few Hot Wheels cars. She explained that Mattel had a company store on the premises and they sold these cars to employees for a quarter because the cars had little imperfections or were molded in the wrong color (for that model) or had missing labels, etc. I had a greatest collection of 1969 year cars in all kinds of funky colors like hot pink, turquoise and yellow gold. I had about a dozen Custom Volkswagen cars in every color of the rainbow! Hot Wheels cars had the most amazing "Specratraflame" colors and finishes. Real works of art!

On Sunday afternoon, my mom and I would go to my aunt and uncle’s house to visit and have dinner. I loved to go to my cousin Bruno’s house to play Hot Wheels.  They had a big living room and we could spread out the Hot Wheels track set with the Power House, the corkscrew loops, the bank curves and watch the cars race. Bruno had some Hot Wheels cars that my mom had given him. We would lie on the floor watching the cars at eye level and play for hours! It was probably about 9:30 when my mom announced that it was time to go home. We begged for a just a few more minutes, my mom gave me the ‘look’ so finally I began to dismantle the track set and slowly put the pieces in the box. I started to collect up my cars and put them into the big Rally Wheel.

Well, Bruno started to pout and say he wanted to play more then he claimed that one of my cars was his. I said, “Bruno, I just brought that one over, my mom gave it to me a few days ago”.  “No!” I tried to pry it out of his hands but he was squirming too much. We started to wrestle then Bruno’s dad shouted from the dining room to knock it off.

My mom heard the commotion and came over to reason with Bruno. “Brunito, we have to go home now, honey.  Portate bien, and we’ll be back next week, okay?” He got up, started to stomp his feet and shake his little fists. Then, he kicked the Power House and knocked it over. Then he grabbed a couple of Hot Wheels cars, one in each hand. He started to cry and scream, “They're mine! They're mine!” All of the sudden, he threw the Hot Wheels and cars went flying. I don’t remember if any of the cars hit my mom but she was pissed off! She picked up an orange Hot Wheels track and swatted both of us across the butts. There’s nothing like the ‘whirring’ sound of a Hot Wheels track! Bruno screamed, jumped like a little squirrel and ran into the bedroom. Tearfully, I packed up the rest of the playset and my cars and my Power House. We said goodnight to my aunt, my uncle and my little cousin, Mimi and went home.

A few days later, my mom said she didn’t want any more fighting with Bruno about whose car was whose so she decided to paint my initials on the bottom of each of my cars. The only kind of paint she had was nail polish so to this day; I have Hot Wheels cars with the initials, OM, in iridescent pink polish.

The Best of the West

When I was a kid in the 1970’s, we lived in Silverlake, a suburb of Los Angeles. Silverlake was a cool place to live because there were all kinds of different people living there; hippies, Hispanic families, gays, avant-garde artists and old folks. My mother and I lived on Vendome Place in the back house of a triplex apartment. Across the driveway, there was a four-unit Spanish style apartment where my friends, Anthony (or Buddy as we knew him), his brother Andy, Cambie, Christina, Tommy and little Brennan all lived with their parents, Rosemary and Arthur. Arthur was Japanese and famous for being a ‘one-man band’, playing ventures like the Doo-Dah Parade and nightclubs all around town. Arthur was a marvelous artist who impressed me tremendously. Every Christmas, Arthur would paint Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Peanuts characters, snowflakes and holiday greetings on the front windows of their apartment.

One day, Buddy Andy and I were outside playing cowboys and Indians with the Marx “Best of the West” characters. I got the idea that it would be ‘fun’ to send smoke signals to our friends down the street. I knew exactly how to do it, too. I’d seen it on the ‘Lone Ranger’ show countless times. First, we collected some rocks and laid them in a small circle around base of the drainpipe on the side of our house. We sat Johnny West, Cochise and Geronimo next to the rocks. Then we got some dried grass and leaves, crushed them up and put them in the center of the rocks. I reasoned that the smoke from the burning leaves would go up the drainpipe and out of the top, sending puffs of smoke that our friends could see from far away. I snuck a box of matches from our kitchen and came back outside to light the campfire. We lit the fire, it started to burn and we fanned it with a banana leaf. We were going to use the banana leaf to cover the drain and break up the smoke signals. 

Just then, from down the driveway, we heard Arthur scream out, “Buddy, Andy, what are you doing!” and he ran over to where we were. His started to stomp on the fire until he put it out. He swatted Andy and Buddy hard on the behind and pulled them by the ear. They started to cry. He screamed at me to go in the house and stay there until my mother got home. I started to cry and ran inside the house. Buddy and Andy weren't allowed to play with me for a week and my mom spanked me, punished me with no TV or contact with my best friends for a week also. I remember sitting down that week and drawing a picture of cowboys and Indians at a campfire sending smoke signals.