That Time A Giant Ketchup Bottle Robot Gave Me A Pickle Pin

 

Stay with me on this one, we will get there, I promise.  

So, the World's Fair used to be a thing, and more often than not, they have been called "Expos," but in 1982, it was still called the World's Fair, and was held in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Often, a landmark structure of some sort was built to commemorate the event (the most famous being the Space Needle in Seattle, or even the Eiffel Tower), and for Knoxville, a large observation tower was constructed, called the Sunsphere. And, it's still there to this day, hanging on.

Promotional postcard sold at the event, because no construction was completed to actually take photos of, at the time they were printed.

Your humble host was there--in fact, here is my ticket for one of the days (it cost $9.95 per day):

Technology is often a theme of World's Fairs, and 1982 was no exception.  Two major ingredients of the fair were two things that had completely taken over the world in 1982:  the Rubik's cube and Pac-Man.  In fact, there was even a giant motorized Rubik's cube that worked itself as it spun around, for people to gawk at and take photos of.

But there were also robots! In particular, the one we are here to discuss today is this one:

[Photo from knoxnews.com article]

In fact, the other day, I was reading this book:

And there, on the page, was this guy...and the memories came right back to me:

This is "H.J.," and I had forgotten all about meeting him at the Fair.  He was controlled remotely by an operator, who rolled him around (from not very far away) and carried on conversations with guests via a headset and microphone.  It was done exactly like the many non-humanoid droids in the first Star Wars: as giant remote-controlled vehicles.

But H.J. did another thing too! A small tray in front opened up, and dispensed a promotional pin to the surprised visitor!

This pin is about 1.25 inches long, and says "HEINZ" on one side.

And somehow, I've managed to keep from losing it, all these years!

Well, that's cool--end of story, right? Actually, no!  Our story is going to take a few more turns...

So, H.J. was a somewhat short-lived promotional mascot for Heinz--here is a promotional postcard put out at the time:

And here our first revelation:  this robot I met all those years ago was not H.J.! In fact he was.....H.J. 2! Gasp!

And here is their wedding photo, R2-D2 officiating.

Yes, the Heinz company had not one, but two of these guys! In fact, as the 1982 World's Fair was coming close to wrapping up that October, the first H.J. suddenly went missing on his way to a trade show in Cleveland, and H.J. 2 was quickly shipped off to fill in, leaving the 1982 World's Fair with no giant talking ketchup bottle robots!

The story gets even stranger (I did lots of research for this post), because A UPI-archived article from November 5, 1982 reveals the fate of the first H.J.!  No, he wasn't stolen by college students, or added to Pee Wee Herman's house! Instead, he was....left in the freight terminal of the San Francisco airport, where nobody paid any attention.

Yep, that happened.  There he sat, like the Ark of the Covenant amidst a sea of crates.  But fear not, our story has a happy ending! An "observant airline worker" located the missing oversized automated condiment container, and returned it to Heinz! The day was saved!  

And, as it turns out, it gets even better, because the Heinz company actually offered a reward for the return of their lost robot, which the airline worker received! It was.....

....two cases of ketchup.  You can't make this stuff up!

Spooky Month 2025 - Pack #2: Halloween Audio Adventures, Sound Effects, and MORE!

 

Here is the conclusion of  "four weeks of Halloween celebration in two posts," so let's get with it:

Scary Stories: Frightening Tales For Halloween (Rhino, 1994) - Sure, the cover art sucks, but don't let that fool you, this is actually a compilation, a sampler of sorts, of vintage spoken-word stories, including Boris Karloff, James Mason, and the great Nelson Olmsted, whose work we have shared here before.  Lots of fun!

Boris Karloff - Tales Of The Frightened, Volumes 1 & 2 (1963) - Here is a pair of famous Karloff-narrated records, each containing short horror stories written by Michael Avallone (these were also published in book form with the same title, and at one time were even used in grade schools!).  In a way, they all go in the same direction, but yet I couldn't stop listening.  Clean (or complete) sources for these are hard to come by, and as always, I did lots of work to clean these up.

Vincent Price - A Graveyard Of Ghost Tales (1974) - And speaking of wonderful reading voices, here is a great LP of stories read by the master himself.  This is a great audio-book-type of collection that is excellent for listening to while driving.

Sounds Of Halloween (Madacy, 1994) - "WARNING: This compact disc is not to be listened to in the dark. Listen to this disc at your own risk!" Also, get lost in the cover art....wow, just wow! How "metal" is that?

And finally, a surprise treat for our finale:

Count Chocula Goes To Hollywood

Monster Adventures In Outer Space

The Monsters Go Disco (General Mills, 1979)

Get this--in 1979, three different 6-inch cardboard records were available inside specially-marked boxes of the Monster Cereals (don't let anybody tell you they were cut from the backs of the boxes like in the old days, either).  They feature some voice greats:  Larry Kenney as Count Chocula, Bob McFadden as Franken Berry, and for these records, Peter Waldren filled in for Paul Frees as Boo Berry.  They are as nuts, and as 1970's (I mean...disco!) as you would expect!

Happy Halloween!

LINK:  Spooky Month 2025 - Part 2

Spooky Month 2025 - Pack #1: Halloween Music!

This month is flying by, so before it's too late, here comes our yearly barrage of Halloween goodness! These will be divided into two hefty packs.  Part 1 will focus on vintage music, with three of my most-beloved compilations:

Silly, Scary Songs From The Sony Vault is one of my favorite compilations, and is packed full of 30's and 40's goodness, with some notable band leaders and talent that you'll probably recognize.  It's not only fun to immerse yourself in vintage Halloween vibes, but it's also at times like being inside a Halloween-themed Fleischer cartoon.

Halloween Stomp completely continues--seamlessly--where the last disc left off, with even more vintage Hallow's Eve goodness.   Don't miss it!

And then there is Halloween Nuggets, which is 3 discs and 99 TRACKS of vintage 1960's tracks which fall under categories that people might call "obscure," "Halloween," or even "novelty," but which I call "every day listening." Here are the contents:

And with that, you have plenty of soundtrack for an entire party! So let's get this Halloween celebration underway:

LINK:  Spooky Month 2025 - Part 1

Battlestar Galactica SOLAR EXPLORER Rack Toy (Larami Corp, c.1978-9)

 

Not much in the way of suspense or photos here, but here it is! An unused vintage rack toy.  As you probably know, companies made legions of plastic compasses, binoculars, flashlights, plastic knives, axes, and everything else...and then just stickered them with logos of various properties, and viola: rack toy! Guaranteed minutes of fun for your whining child. Then it breaks, of course.

Often, they would try and loosely connect it to the property in question.  Here, the binoculars and telescope become tools to enable you to be a "Solar Explorer," but just try and be the first man to land on the sun, I dare you.

There is even a sloppy sticker we can see.  If you want to know MUCH more about these legendary toys, I would highly, highly recommend the book RACK TOYS by Brian Heiler of Plaid Stallions fame.  It's still in print and reasonable--we get nothing from this endorsement; it's just completely rad and you will love the book.

And, as the great Chuck Barris used to say: "We will be right back.............with more stuff."

MONSTER OLD MAID Card Game (Milton Bradley, 1964)

 

Here is a vintage monster item that I actually found in a shop somewhere, complete even, for 1/3 of what it's worth! This game is nothing if not a snapshot of the classic monster era, from the golden years of model kits and local TV horror hosts.

Let's face it: you had Old Maid as a kid, and I did too (we looked at the 70's Marvel Comics version here, years ago), although mine was the crappy version with an actual Old Maid.  60's kids were much better off.  

Before we dive in, I need to point out that there are some very unusual choices for the card art in this game...starting out, you can easily see the "Universal Picture" copyright on the front, so you know we are in good hands--but still, some strange decisions were still made in the monster selections for this game.  

As you know, here at The Sphinx, we go the extra mile:  I thought it would be fun if we tried to identify exactly what these unusual cards depicted, and even find their source images...so here we go:

Here is the instructions ("Directions") card, which is one-sided.  The backs of all cards in this game looks like this:

As you probably know, all numbered cards in Old Maid come in pairs (except for the Old Maid), so we will look at the better-condition card for each number in the set, starting with #1:

Card 1 is the Creature From The Black Lagoon, old Gill Man himself (first name Gill, last name Man). He was the youngest Universal monster at the time of this game's release.

Card #2 is Frankenstein's Monster, and you would expect them to use Boris Karloff, but nope, instead here is Glenn Strange, who played the monster in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF DRACULA, and ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.  Below is the exact promotional photo that this image was taken from:

Card #3 is The Mummy, and once again, it's not Karloff either, but instead Tom Tyler from one of the sequels: THE MUMMY'S HAND:

Card #4 takes a weird turn.  It alludes to I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957), which wasn't a Universal movie at all, but American-International...a film which was only 4 years old at the time, and was a big hit.  It actually depicts Henry Hull from WEREWOLF OF LONDON:

Card #5 is Dracula, so you know it's Bela Lugosi.  For fun, here is the promotional photo they used:

Interestingly, you can see that they touched up his left eye, which was covered in a shadow in the original photo...back in the days where you had to use an airbrush!

Here we go again, with Card #6.  This isn't even a "Wolf Man" per se, it's a werewolf, specifically Oliver Reed in Hammer's CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF! As it turns out, Universal distributed the film in the U.S. Here is a promotional photo using this image:

Card #7 continues the Hammer theme with their PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I would've used Claude Rains, but I am sure that the Herbert Lom one was more common in the FAMOUS MONSTERS magazines of the day:

Again, Universal distributed the film in the U.S.

Card #8 is the reverse of #6: "The Werewolf," but actually "The Wolf Man!" (I guess we are splitting hairs, which...there's a werewolf joke there somewhere.)  This is Lon Chaney, Jr. from ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE WOLFMAN (the best A&C movie):

Card #9 UPDATE: This is Lon Chaney senior from the silent HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1923), right? Well, not exactly:  thanks to a comment from Anonymous (see below), this is actually James Cagney from MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES:

...which of course, was also a Universal flick!

Card #10. If you are reading this post...then I don't have to tell you.

Card #11 is Gill again. Now the repeats really kick in.

Card #12 is Glenn Strange's Frankenstein's Monster, again:

At least, for #13, they gave us a different Mummy actor, which in this case is Lon Chaney, Jr., from THE MUMMY'S GHOST:

Card #14 is Henry Hull, again, making you think he's Michael Landon...again? This card looks very much like an old postage stamp-type design to me.

#15 is a Dracula repeat, but hey, it's Bela, so what are you gonna do. They had to work on this image some, from the original:

Card #16 is a repeat--see Card #6!

Card #17: Not Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, or Herbert Lom, but--once again--James Cagney from MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES! Thanks to Anonymous, for setting me straight on this one!

Moving on, we finally get Lon Chaney, Jr., as THE WOLF MAN--oh, wait, "The Werewolf."  Whatever, I give up.

Card #19: See Card #9 for the answer!

And now, the Old Maid--Dracula's Daughter! Hey, that's pretty fun--hold it, Gloria Holden was Dracula's Daughter:

This instead is Andree Melly from Hammer's BRIDES OF DRACULA:

Which, you guessed it, was distributed by Universal.

And there you have it--I have to admit, I would've been tempted to broaden the scope, and include some giant 1950's Universal monsters, and throw in a Tarantula, a Deadly Mantis...I don't know, even a Monolith Monsters card, just to help break it up.  But, I can see, from a purist perspective, why they did what they did.  It's very much of its time...and it's certainly not every day that you run into a vintage monster collectible from back then!