Read Online Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute - Free Book Online
Book: Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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on. BRI member Jack Mingo tells us how these strange-looking birds became as American as apple pie.
T HE FLAMINGO BOOM
During the 1920s, Florida was the hottest vacation spot in the United States. Tens of thousands of real estate speculators and tourists swarmed to the semitropical state...and many brought home souvenirs bearing pictures of a bizarre pink bird that lived there—the flamingo.
In the North, these items—proof that their owners were rich enough to travel to exotic places—became status symbols. Everyone wanted them. So manufacturers started incorporating flamingos into a variety of new product designs.
They were so popular that by the 1950s, the image of a flamingo was as much a part of middle-class America as Wonder Bread or poodles.
THE LAWN FLAMINGO
In 1952, the Union Plastics Company of Massachusetts introduced the first flamingo lawn ornament. It was “flat and unappealing.”
• To boost sales, the company decided to offer a more lifelike, three-dimensional flamingo. But the second generation of lawn flamingos “was made of construction foam and fell apart rather quickly,” recalls a company executive. “Dogs loved to chew it up.”
• Finally, in 1956, Union Plastics hired a 21-year-old art student named Don Featherstone to sculpt a new lawn flamingo. “I got a bunch of nature books and started studying them,” says Feather-stone. “Finally, I sculpted one, and I must say it was a beautiful looking thing.”
• The first atomic-pink molded plastic lawn flamingo went on sale in 1957. It was an immediate success; in the next decade, Americans bought millions of them. But by the 1970s, lawn flamingos were, “gathering dust on the hardware store shelves along with other out-of-date lawn ornaments such as the scorned sleeping Mexican peasant and the black jockey.” In 1983, The New York Times ran an article titled “Where Did All Those (Plastic) Flamingos Go?”
The Red Sea is the world’s warmest sea.
• Then suddenly, lawn flamingos were flying again. 1985 was a record year, with 450,000 sold in the United States. Why the resurgence? Critics suggested a combination of nostalgia and the popularity of the television show “Miami Vice.” “They are a must for the newest hot social events—‘Miami Vice’ parties,” reported a California newspaper in 1986.
• Featherstone never got any royalties for his creation. But he did become a vice president of Union Plastics...and in 1987, he was honored when the company started embossing its flamingos with his signature. “I’m getting my name pressed into the rump of every flamingo that goes out the door,” he announced proudly.
FLAMINGO: THE BIRD
History. Flamingos, looking pretty much as they do today, were roaming the earth 47 million years before humans came along.
• They were well known in Egypt during the pyramid-and-sphinx period. A flamingo played a prominent role in Aristophanes’ 414 B.C. play The Birds .
• The American flamingo is extinct in the wild—captive flocks (most with wings clipped so they don’t fly away) at zoos and bird sanctuaries are the only ones left.
Body . Flamingos’ knees don’t really bend backward. But their legs are so long that the joint you see where it seems the knee ought to be is really the flamingo’s ankle, and it bends the same way yours does. The knee is hidden, high up inside the body.
• The flamingo is the only bird that eats with its head upside down—even while it is standing up.
Color. While flamingos are known to sometimes eat small fish, shrimp, and snails, they are primarily vegetarians. They consume vast quantities of algae, and this is what makes them pink. Without the “food coloring,” flamingos are actually white.
• Flamingos in captivity are, as a result of algae deprivation, quite a bit paler than their wild cousins. Zoos attempt to keep their flamingo flocks in the pink by feeding them carotene to compensate for the algae they’d get in their
T HE FLAMINGO BOOM
During the 1920s, Florida was the hottest vacation spot in the United States. Tens of thousands of real estate speculators and tourists swarmed to the semitropical state...and many brought home souvenirs bearing pictures of a bizarre pink bird that lived there—the flamingo.
In the North, these items—proof that their owners were rich enough to travel to exotic places—became status symbols. Everyone wanted them. So manufacturers started incorporating flamingos into a variety of new product designs.
They were so popular that by the 1950s, the image of a flamingo was as much a part of middle-class America as Wonder Bread or poodles.
THE LAWN FLAMINGO
In 1952, the Union Plastics Company of Massachusetts introduced the first flamingo lawn ornament. It was “flat and unappealing.”
• To boost sales, the company decided to offer a more lifelike, three-dimensional flamingo. But the second generation of lawn flamingos “was made of construction foam and fell apart rather quickly,” recalls a company executive. “Dogs loved to chew it up.”
• Finally, in 1956, Union Plastics hired a 21-year-old art student named Don Featherstone to sculpt a new lawn flamingo. “I got a bunch of nature books and started studying them,” says Feather-stone. “Finally, I sculpted one, and I must say it was a beautiful looking thing.”
• The first atomic-pink molded plastic lawn flamingo went on sale in 1957. It was an immediate success; in the next decade, Americans bought millions of them. But by the 1970s, lawn flamingos were, “gathering dust on the hardware store shelves along with other out-of-date lawn ornaments such as the scorned sleeping Mexican peasant and the black jockey.” In 1983, The New York Times ran an article titled “Where Did All Those (Plastic) Flamingos Go?”
The Red Sea is the world’s warmest sea.
• Then suddenly, lawn flamingos were flying again. 1985 was a record year, with 450,000 sold in the United States. Why the resurgence? Critics suggested a combination of nostalgia and the popularity of the television show “Miami Vice.” “They are a must for the newest hot social events—‘Miami Vice’ parties,” reported a California newspaper in 1986.
• Featherstone never got any royalties for his creation. But he did become a vice president of Union Plastics...and in 1987, he was honored when the company started embossing its flamingos with his signature. “I’m getting my name pressed into the rump of every flamingo that goes out the door,” he announced proudly.
FLAMINGO: THE BIRD
History. Flamingos, looking pretty much as they do today, were roaming the earth 47 million years before humans came along.
• They were well known in Egypt during the pyramid-and-sphinx period. A flamingo played a prominent role in Aristophanes’ 414 B.C. play The Birds .
• The American flamingo is extinct in the wild—captive flocks (most with wings clipped so they don’t fly away) at zoos and bird sanctuaries are the only ones left.
Body . Flamingos’ knees don’t really bend backward. But their legs are so long that the joint you see where it seems the knee ought to be is really the flamingo’s ankle, and it bends the same way yours does. The knee is hidden, high up inside the body.
• The flamingo is the only bird that eats with its head upside down—even while it is standing up.
Color. While flamingos are known to sometimes eat small fish, shrimp, and snails, they are primarily vegetarians. They consume vast quantities of algae, and this is what makes them pink. Without the “food coloring,” flamingos are actually white.
• Flamingos in captivity are, as a result of algae deprivation, quite a bit paler than their wild cousins. Zoos attempt to keep their flamingo flocks in the pink by feeding them carotene to compensate for the algae they’d get in their
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