Paul Bunyan and other fiberglass advertising giants ride again at Bell Plastics in Hayward California

Are you poking fun at the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian auto-making technology?

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Pounded in the Butt by the Gemini Giant?

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One of my neighborhood’s local landmarks is the last remaining Doggie Diner head in the wild.

I believe Zippy had a major role in saving it along with three of his former compatriots, who now live a nomadic lifestyle traveling the countryside on a flatbed trailer.

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This is a good book on the Yugo, which wasn’t as terrible a car as remembered (though it’s not a great car, although they are still found around the former Yugoslav states). And each chapter begins with a joke about the Yugo:

yugo-cornering

I also recommend this mockumentary, though it doesn’t have to do with the Yugo…

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They have on the list one I’ve seen in my region at an ice cream shop:

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Above my friends at Future Studios in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Google maps shows something very different (though oddly interesting) there…

(their image is from May 2009)

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That is odd!

Now if they could get the scoop guy to be on a Segway… now that would be something to see

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Central Florida’s “Tire Lady” became Wonder Woman and moved to Georgia.

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His got a certian, “Come at me, brah!” threatening attitude that woud put me off tasting his wares.

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We used to have a 20’ tall King Kong in Birmingham back in the 1970s. I never really understood the connection or why Birmingham City Council thought it was a worthwhile purchase; I guess they couldn’t afford a mono-rail.

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We don’t have a Paul Bunyan, but we do have Big Ned; an oversized Ned Kelly statue.

image

One of my first memories is a family road trip to Queensland (for us a ~1600km journey) and seeing the Big Pineapple. It goes with the Big Banana (just look at it!); the big prawn; and the big Marino sheep, amongst others…

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Then there’s the Big Worm, in Gippsland.

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When no one is looking, they sneak off to their chairs and take a load off.

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Outside of Sparta, Wisconsin, is FAST Corporation, another manufacturer of giant fiberglass figures, who have been doing this work since the early 70’s. They are the ones who constructed the giant Muskie fish building, that is home of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.

I was driving by FAST Corporation around 2000, shortly after a powerful storm had blown over some of the fiberglass statues. I took a few photos, and later sent them to cartoonist Bill Griffith, who based a series of ‘Zippy the Pinhead’ strips around those photos. Here is one of them.
Zippy

It provides great comfort when one browses the on-line catalog of FAST, knowing that most of these are scattered all over the U.S.

https://www.fastkorp.com/

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So… Does it sing?

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Along I-80 in Dixon California there was a huge fiberglass dinosaur next to a “Cigarettes Cheaper” minimart and gas station, when the owners of “Cigarettes Cheaper” sold the gas station they removed the Dinosaur by helicopter and had it at the company HQ for a bit, in 2018 the city of Dixon bought it for 25k and brought it back to Dixon https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/welcome-home-dixie-the-dinosaur-dixon-votes-to-spend-25k-for-famous-statue/103-557716463
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_Idei_NdY

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I guess I was the only one who read “Paul Bunyan and other fiberglass advertising giants ride again” and thought, “Oh, there is a famous fiberglass advertiser named Paul Bunyan? Wait, why would I know about famous fiberglass advertisers? Is this some BoingBoing thing that I’ve somehow missed?”

Somebody tell Bill Griffith! Zippy has to go here.

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