October 25, 2011

KID-CUSTOMIZED FUN HOUSE CATALOG


When I was a kid I would have gotten along very well with Rick Nagel. When his novelty "Fun Catalog" began to fall apart due to heavy use Ricky, as he was known back then, designed an all-new cover featuring products like the Snake Nut Can, the Hypo-Phony, a Frankenstein mask, and a boomerang.


His filled-in order form still reveals his wish list: a rubber bloody hand, a spud gun and a color-changing handkerchief.


Rick explains why the order remained unsent, "I distinctly remember panicking when I realized I had failed to follow their admonishment to PRINT ORDER CLEARLY. My 12 year old brain convinced me they would not honor my order due to the scribblings and it was never sent."

He did however, obtain a phony hot dog which was met with the standard disappointment.
"When the rubber hot dog finally arrived it was a big, fat, curved, old-fashioned butcher style frankfurter, not the straight skinless ballpark type hot dog Mom always bought. No way Dad was gonna fall for that"

Thanks Rick for sharing this little piece of history. May your days be abundant with rubber bloody hands.

2 comments:

Dave said...

the world must have scans of this whole catalog. Please tell me you have this?!

Kirk D. said...

Dave, I do have a non-customized version. I'll try to keep it in mind for a future post!