here's the thing...

wood-imal

I've never been to Knott's Berry Farm. But this picture of a wood animal on Dinosaurs & Robots sparked a memory of an old L. Frank Baum Oz book, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse.



My mom had most of the old Oz books, their covers illustrated by John R. Neil. I never read these books; as far as I was concerned, the Oz tale was done with The Wizard of Oz. I didn't want to read any new storylines, which Neil's illustrations, though compelling, promised to be disturbing.

Wogglebugs!


Tik-Tok!*




Its body was a log with four sticks stuck into it for legs.
A branch at one end of the log served as a tail, while in
the other end was chopped a gash that formed a mouth.
Above this were two small knots that did nicely for eyes.

Another recollection of the same kind of wooden animal: In 1985, was driving across Texas on Interstate 10 and seeing bright yellow billboards that posed the question: "What is THE THING?" Further along, more billboards stated, "Don't Miss THE THING."


(I love how you can find anything and everything on the Internets!)

After thirty or so of these signs, I really wanted to know what THE THING was, so at a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere, which was clearly the source of the THING ads (more bright yellow billboards proclaiming "Here's THE THING!"), I stopped. I bought some rocks and paid a small admission. I walked though a shoddily walled maze lined with "artifacts," an old rifle, Hitler's car and many creepy "wood-imals" or "thingimals."


thingimals



Every few feet or so, there would be a yellow poster under one that read, "Is this THE THING?" It was a pretty long maze. Finally, at the end, there was a horizontal glass case and a sign above the glass top: "THE THING. What Is It?" THE THING was a fake mummy with a fake mummy baby at her fake mummy breast. It was a thing, all right.


Looks like the mummy baby must've disintegrated since the '80s.

*Speaking of Tik-Tok, more disturbing yet compelling art: Herblock's Here and Now. A book of political cartoons I didn't understand and couldn't look away from when I was a kid. Especially the scary Mr. Atom, who looked like a big bratwurst.