phosfate | (no subject)

So I sent off for a red Wax Lion, like the one from Wonderfalls. He arrived yesterday. I can see why the producers were so enamored of him*. He has a sweet, intelligent face, and looks like he could talk if he really wanted to. He reminds me of the understudy Lion in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that had a boycrush crush on Aslan: "Did you hear that? He said 'us lions!'"

This Lion starts talking to me, he's going into a double-boiler, STAT.

The wax isn't quite wax and isn't quite plastic, with a slightly soapy texture. The TV version is more opaque, no surprise since he's CGI a lot of the time. This one is thin and takes on a glow if there's any backlighting nearby.

There is also a rare, insanely expensive Wonderfalls promo lion, with smooshed face, that was sent out to TV critics when the series started. He's cast in resin, and may or may not be solid.

*Background: Wonderfalls Lion comes from something called a Mold-A-Rama machine. They were common in the 1960s. You put in your quarter (or however much it was), and the machine would produce a brand-fresh, injection-molded waxy/plasticy figure while you waited. The pieces are thin and somewhat fragile, but they have a Marx plastic molded toys aesthetic that you don't see often nowadays, except in those tiny bags of fluorescent dinosaurs and green army men. There are still working machines around, reportedly the LA Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo, et al. Animals and dinosaurs seem to be the most common subjects, but you'll also find train engines, astronauts, etc.

Should you not have access to a machine, Mold-A-Rama figures turn up on eBay a lot, prices ranging from pretty much nothing to OH DEAR JESUS. Colors are in the smallest Crayola box range.

I find myself fascinated by the whole business in the same way I was when I first encountered a pressed penny machine. "Such wonders exist? Why was I not informed?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I remember those Mold-A-Rama machines. When I was a kid, we'd come into Houston downtown and go to the top of the old Humble Oil Building because at the top was an observation deck. They had one of those machines there - it molded an oil-drop man, Humble's icon. I had that one and another, a dinosaur from Sinclair Oil. Of course, now both of those companies are long since gone. I am old.

They are right about the smell. It was a bit like melted crayons.

All that aside, I never saw Wonderfalls and don't have a clue about it. I hear it was a Fox show, that explains much.

It was cancelled after 4 episodes, though there are many more in the boxed set.

You would like it, I think.

What was it about?

Jaye lives in Niagra Falls, and works at a gift shop called Wonderfalls. She is not what you'd call a people person, and so not particularly happy working retail, but a girl -- even an ivy league graduate -- has gotta eat. One day, a lady buys a lion out of the Mold-A-Rama machine, but it comes out smushed. Lady tries to get her money back. Lion (!) tells Jaye not to give it to her. That's the first five minutes.

crantz says to tell you: "Random objects tell a girl to do things. Sometimes it ends well"

A year r two years ago, they ran 13 episodes (http://www.logoonline.com/shows/dyn/wonderfalls/series.jhtml) of it on Logo.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Oh, and speaking of something totally different...have you seen this yet?

I saw the ad for 'em. Love it!