There are the standard souveniers we all see on our travels: little spoons, big mugs, T-shirts, other geegaws all proudly proclaiming they’re from the area from which they are sold but are actually all made in Chinese factories. (Wouldn’t it be funny to go to China and find a souvenier made in the US or maybe France?) Every once in a while, however, we’ve all come across the occasional item that is so ugly, tacky or lame that you can only think, “What the f*** were they thinking?”
I used to work at a souvenier stand at the Seattle Center, a major tourist attraction here. You know, it’s got thet there Space Needle thingy. Hoo doggy, ain’t it big! The manager of the stand would buy some of the stuff we sold from liquidators in the area. The resulted in some butt ugly stuff. Such as the some of the snow domes we had. Now snow domes are fine, but these had been around so long that there was slime mold floating around inside. The manager said to put them out anyway. :rolleyes: :smack: Why? The little balls that have lost their bounce. Put those out too.
In our display case were these wooden sea gulls that were about half the size of real ones. Anyone who is even a little bit familiar with birds would think they looked a bit odd, even if they didn’t quite know why. No, it wasn’t the paint job in itself, it was because they were painted on duck bodies. Take a look at a sea gull and your average Mallard. Ducks are broader in the beam and a bit squat. Ducks’ and gulls’ heads and tails aren’t shaped the same. Still, these gull/ducks were kept in the display case as if they were rare and expensive relics. Well, duck/gulls might have be rare, but expensive? Uh…yeah. :rolleyes:
We had other cheesy stuff that isn’t coming to mind right now. While I’m thinking, why don’t you tell me about tacky tourist treasures that you have come across. Have you ever bought something because it was sooooooo tacky you couldn’t resist? Let’s hear your tales!
I want a gull/duck! I gotta have one! My younger brother and sister and I used to make a game of buying each other the tackiest souvenirs we could find on vacation. As a result I have the infamous Florida nekkid mermaid seashell ashtray, a bobble head doll from Seacaucus, NJ (my brother had a brief torrid affair with a girl from there), and salt and pepper shakers sitting in a little outhouse from the Ozarks. Now tell me them ain’t some treasures!
Well, it wasn’t touristy, but one Christmas I bought a gift for a family I know. He’s Conservative Jewish and she’s Orthodox (and from England). The gift I brought them (apart from some Kosher candy coins for Hannukkah) was a plastic reindeer candy dispenser. When you pressed down on his back, he’d loft his tail and “dispense” a rootbeer-flavored jellybean (brown, of course).
I presented it to them along with a little speech for her sake “Welcome to America. We didn’t invent tasteless humor, but I believe we hold it in higher regard than any other nation on Earth. As evidence, I present the following gift.”
Where else but America could one find such an intentionally tasteless gift made expressly in (perhaps dubious) honor of a serious religious holiday?
If there’s a prize for the tackiest souvenir ever? I hope so, cause I have the winner! Some friends and I stopped in Bucksnort, Tennessee, on the way to Memphis. Not much there–an adult bookstore, a trout farm, and a gas station. The gas station had a few little tourist goodies. Along with the standard mugs and salt and pepper shakers, we found a big ceramic frog, with a cup in his lap. When you lift up the cup, you find out that he’s a very well-endowed frog. Hm, didn’t know frogs were that big! It said something like “Someone in Bucksnort loves you.” Yes, we bought one, and we gave it to our professor who collects naughty folk art.
At an end-of-year party while at University, we had the idea of doing an ‘awards ceremony’, throughly taking the piss (“best couple” going to two guys who were always drinking together and playing pool, etc). For the ‘certificates’, we went to Manchester’s central Tourism Information Centre, and bought a stack of postcards.
Now, Manchester has many many things going for it. But it’s not photogenic. There were postcards showing:
a tree
the main student residence building (a dreadful utilitarian 60s tower)
I lived in Las Vegas for many years, the capital of truly tacky souvenirs.
I have quite a collection of coffee mugs with whorehouse logos & slogans on them. (All bought from stores in in the city, not at the establishments themselves). On the schlock-o-meter, they rate about a 2, maaybe 2.5. OK, but not competitive for the OP. But I like them and they’re scandalous here in the Bible Belt.
Now here’s competitive …
A friend of mine ended up as the VP - Ops for a company that ran about 1/4 of the free-standing souvenir stores in Vegas and 1/3rd of them in Reno. With Vegas alone having 35 million visitors a year spending $22 billion (not counting gambling losses), that’s a LOT of schlock to peddle.
The hottest selling category, by far, was a thing called a “schlong frog.”
It was a green glazed pottery frog that came in several variations, but most were 4 or 5 inches long. They’re completely ordinary looking until you pick one up. At which time a recessed penis about 3/4ths the size of the frog flops out. Har-de-har-har. High schoolers might have thought they were cool, but I never quite got the joke.
He sold over 15,000 units per month from his 2 dozen stores.
He paid about 20 cents apeice delivered from China to his warehouse outside Reno. They sold (10 years ago) for $4.95 to $8.95.
I think the worst souvenirs I’ve seen are the moose nugget (poo) novelties they sell in Alaska (and other places with plenty of moose, I’m sure).
Basically, someone takes a dry moose turd, shellacs it, glues it to something, creating a lovely necklace or pair of earrings, a swizzle stick, a key chain, et cetera. I thought it was funny when I was twelve, but now I just think it’s gross.
In Northeastern Brazil: a wine bottle, covered in cow skin (with fur), with a hoof attached to the bottom to make it resemble the lower leg of a bovine. It stood upright, of course.
And, in the same theme, I knew a woman who had friends who travelled a lot, and inexplicably liked to send back souveniers like real, actual wolf skin made into amusing little toys … mercifully, I can’t remember any others but they were all pretty greusome.
Has anyone been to Brighton? Penis-shaped rock candy? I guess it’s a universal theme.
Tourists love the little hermit crabs sold for $2 each at the beach souvenir shops . . . the same hermit crabs that swarm by the thousands just about anywhere around here.
[QUOTE=SSgtBaloo]
Well, it wasn’t touristy, but one Christmas I bought a gift for a family I know. He’s Conservative Jewish and she’s Orthodox (and from England). The gift I brought them (apart from some Kosher candy coins for Hannukkah) was a plastic reindeer candy dispenser. When you pressed down on his back, he’d loft his tail and “dispense” a rootbeer-flavored jellybean (brown, of course).
I presented it to them along with a little speech for her sake “Welcome to America. We didn’t invent tasteless humor, but I believe we hold it in higher regard than any other nation on Earth. As evidence, I present the following gift.”
Where else but America could one find such an intentionally tasteless gift made expressly in (perhaps dubious) honor of a serious religious holiday?
[QUOTE]
Nope, we get them in Australia too. I think the package reads, “Oh Deer!”
My entry is a snow globe of . . . the CRUCIFIXION. :dubious: :eek:
I bought it at the now-defunct Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey in the late 1960s, just because it was so wrong.
I mean, snow globes are reasonable for the Nativity. But the CRUCIFIXION??? Which is supposed to have taken place in the springtime? And the swirling snowflakes give the scene of the dying Christ such a festive air . . .
I bought my stepfather a paperweight, shaped like the state of Texas and made out of clear acrylic type material. In the middle was a piece of a gen-yoo-wine Texas cow patty.
My stepfather said that it definitely embodied the spirit of Texas, but he refused to look at a cowpatty on his desk. So he painted it blue. The paperweight, not the cowpatty.
I was in San Felipe, Mexico for the last New Years. I did get some nice souvenirs including a mobile of brightly-colored fish and a replica Aztec calendar. I also got a Mexican porn comic from a gas station. It’s kind of hard to pick up a porn mag from a gas station when you’re with your mother and seven of her closest friends.
In Salt Lake City - Shotglasses with a pictue of the LDS temple on them
In Sydney, Aus - A kangaroo scrotum coin purse
In Delhi, India - A Kama Sutra Pop-up book
In Singapore - countless “Singapore is a ‘fine’” city merchendise with all the offenses and dollar amounts listed.
OK, the LDS shot glasses made me laugh out loud. I suppose they were next to the coffee mugs, right?
Also, I just saw on the news that Singapore has lifted their 16-year-old ban on chewing gum. If you want to buy some, you have to present picture ID that must be recorded by the shopkeeper. If they don’t do this, they are subject to heavy fines. This is so people won’t spit out gum on the streets. I wonder what the fine is for that?
MagicEyes, I’m thinking a prize should probably be geoduck-related. For you non-Washingtonians, a geoduck (gooeyduck) is a giant clam weighing two or three pounds. Their most distinctive feature is their neck, which they can extend up to 6 feet. It looks like a male horse’s whatsis, which I suspect is the reason for the geoduck’s other name, the horse clam. If I’m lucky, I might be able to find salt -n- pepper shakers shaped like them.
Speaking of S-n-P’s, we also used to sell a pair that when stacked on one another, looked like Mount St. Helen’s before it erupted. When you lifted the top one off, the bottom looked like it after the eruption. The “lava,” which was geologically incorrect* was so red that it looked like a massive bleeding wound. Icky!
*It never had Hawaii-type lava flows but a slow basaltic build-up. I forget the technical name.
The Singapore fine for littering is $1000 so i think the gum thing is about the same.
The other part of the ban being lifted, the gum can only be sold in pharmacies and must have medical benefits… so only like anti-plaque or nicorette and things like that.
