American Treasure Tour – Chasing Phantoms

Finally–after over two years of waiting, this morning I finally returned to Phoenixville, PA (pop: 18,600) to attend the 26th annual Blobfest.

This has got to be one of the high points of the year for Phoenixville. Most of the main drag (Bridge Street) was closed to vehicular traffic, and well over 100 vendors were setting up tables to promote their blob-related (or blog-adjacent) wares.

Many of the businesses along the street got into the spirit of things, with blob-themed displays everywhere. Now, let me take a moment to acknowledge that “blob-themed) is a rather malleable category…by definition. Some chose to portray it as a cute figure reminiscent of Western Kentucky University’s “Big Red.”

Others opted for oozing slime which was more reminiscent of blood than “blob.”

Still others went the circus route, which is the ill-advised theme of this year’s Blobfest.

And then there was this….pizza(?)

Anyway, my point is that the entire town (or at least the Bridge Street) was decked out for a proper Blobfest. The festivities were attended by myriad people of all ages and dispositions. Accordingly, there was a play zone and a story time for the little blobs:

Happily, two of the Blobfest attendees were horror author Holly Knightley and her mother, April. They were game to do a photo op from within the blob:

*Holly (left) and April meet their demise.*

(You can check out Holly’s books here.)

Also in the Small World Department: I ran into Ashley Galleo, who is the manager of the American Treasure Tour, that I wrote about in yesterday’s blog. I asked Ashley what binds together the disparate items in that collection, and she said the anonymous collector seeks out things that are “mechanical and fun,” and that bring “joy.” Next time you’re in eastern Pennsylvania, you should check it out.

*Ashley with a minuscule sample from the American Treasure Tour.*

But the real star of the Blobfest was the historic Colonial Theater. Originally constructed in 1902 as the Colonial Opera House, it has spent the one-and-a-quarter century as a vaudeville house, a live performance venue, and a movie theater. Notably for our purposes, key scenes from The Blob were filmed in and around the Colonial Theater.

*My photo from this morning, before Blobfest started. Note the marquee display is the same. Also note the inflatable blob.*

I joined a packed house for a screening of The Blob this afternoon. The interior of the theater looks much like it did in 1958, and probably much earlier than that.

*Mystery mural on the mezzanine level. I couldn’t discover what it depicts. Ideas?*

And the back of the house, on the wall of the projection booth, is this plaque:

Now might be a good time to explain the movie to those of you who haven’t seen it. It’s a classic B-movie horror film, starring a young Steve McQueen. A small meteorite strikes the earth, and it contains a softball-sized “blob” of gelatinous goo. A hapless old man ends up getting the goo stuck on his hand, and before long the blob has entirely digested him, growing in the process. The blob goes on to claim other victims, until it’s big enough to cover an entire diner. Finally Steve McQueen figures out how to stop its reign of terror, but you’ll have to watch it (or search IMDB) to find out how.

Let’s acknowledge that this is not a great movie. The pacing is uneven, the dialogue is (unintentionally) laughable, the “special effects” are unconvincing, and there are plot holes aplenty. Still, it’s an earnest movie, and Steve McQueen is eminently likable. On top of all that, there’s a moral lesson at the end that bears a special resonance today. But I think what I enjoyed most about watching it today was sitting in that same Colonial Theater, with several hundred fans, cheering and laughing together. There aren’t many such opportunities for a communal experience like that these days.

Oh, and speaking of communal experiences: after the evening showing all the patrons ran out of the theater screaming, just like in the movie. I’ll close my report on Blobfest with this short video of the run-out:

BOTD

The Brew of the Day was, appropriately, a Blobfest IPA, that comes from Phoenixville’s own SlyFox Brewing Company.

*You could only buy draft versions for consumption, so I had the owner hold up a can of the stuff for your benefit.*

This is the third year that SlyFox has put out a special beer for Blobfest. I admire that kind of commitment–especially as several of the local bars and eateries have offered nothing blob-related. In fact, that window art of a blob ice cream cone that I featured above was not available as the real thing. Talk about a missed opportunity!

So kudos to SlyFox for doing the Blob IPA. It’s a hazy IPA that clocks in at 6.3 percent alcohol. So that’s good. What’s not good is the taste. I found it far too bitter, too overhopped. And that’s not just on the palate; it also characterizes the finish. In other words, there’s a distinct, lingering bitterness….which also describes me, but that’s another issue altogether. I frankly found this to be almost undrinkable, and ending up tossing it out halfway through.

Now, to be fair, I’m not a fan of IPAs, but I think I can appreciate when they’re done well. In my humble opinion, the recipe missed on this one. One star.

As a result of poor planning and inconvenient flight schedules, I had some time to kill today in southeastern Pennsylvania. So naturally I decided to visit the “American Treasure Tour.” What is the American Treasure Tour, you ask? It’s got to be seen to be believed, but let me try:

Some years back wealthy, anonymous collector who goes by “Mr C” started collecting old theater organs and other rare musical instruments. (For example, he has a hundred-year-old device that automatically plays two violins simultaneously.) After a bit he also started collecting old automobiles. Given the size and quantity of the stuff he was collecting, he needed a large building to keep it in. So he purchased a 1937 B.F. Goodrich tire factory in Oaks, Pennsylvania, sold off all the machinery inside, and turned the second floor into a private museum of sorts.

His storage space was now essentially as unlimited as his budget. The tire factory building has over a million square feet of floor space, so he started to expand the range of his collection to include all sorts of American pop culture memorabilia. But he’s not interested in the small stuff, like Little Orphan Annie decoder rings or Hot Wheels. Instead, he focuses on big stuff: neon signs, a giant bust (ha!) of Britney Spears, an animatronic Chuck E. Cheese, a Stanley Steamer, an enormous jack-in-the-box, the world’s largest slinky… It’s sort of like if, instead of pillaging European cathedrals, William Randolph Hearst had been enthralled with American kitsch.

*About one one-jillionth of Mr C’s collection, as viewed from the tram ride.*

Since 2010 Mr C has opened his collection to the public. The main part of the tour is a 45-minute electric tram ride through over 100,000 square feet of the collection. Frankly, it’s overwhelming. There’s just too much stuff, there’s almost no context or explanation for it, and you end up succumbing to sensory overload. It’s impressive, but it’s not especially edifying.

But here’s where things get interesting: Upon leaving the tire factory/museum, I spotted this item that was too tall to fit indoors:

Yes, it’s a muffler man, as evidenced by the distinctive work shirt, the unusual hand positions, the lumberjack build, and the massive height. But what’s up with the head??

It turns out International Fiberglass made a number of these goofy-looking muffler men for mini golf courses. They used the usual muffler-man body, but changed out the head and gave him different clothes. The official word is that these mini-golf versions were meant to look like Mortimer Snerd, but to my eye he’s a dead ringer for Alfred E. Neuman. Almost everyone these days refers to them as “Happy Half-Wit” muffler men.

Two of the Happy Half-Wits resided on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, for many years, but they were destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. And this is where Mr. C came to the rescue, purchasing one of the Halfwits, having him restored, and placing him on display here outside the tire factory/museum. Oh, and he is not on the official Wikipedia list!

OK, that’s enough of the muffler men for awhile. Tomorrow will be our Blobfest Extravaganza! I promise!

Tag: American Treasure Tour

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