Lot of 18 gag gift boxes11/24/2023 The parking limit gag box is an early one, small enough that it could be a pocket gag. The whole idea of the gag box evolved over time, and the type of containers changed, too. Stan: Their sense of humor was such as the times. When you open up the box, it says, “Drink Milk,” and it has two boobs. An example in the book “Cheap Laffs” says, “Don’t Be an Alcoholic” on the outside of the box. Mardi: A lot of these are in pretty poor taste, actually. “Girlie” gag boxes often had something titillating inside, like tiny pieces of lady’s lingerie. Collectors Weekly: What else would Fishlove put in his gag boxes? Inside, on one side is a chamber pot, and on the other side is a toilet. For example, for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, one of his most famous gag boxes was called “A Century of Progress,” which, of course, was the theme for the fair. Sometimes he would use a little chamber pot instead, and sometimes he would use them in combination, showing the passage of time. For example, we have one that looks like a stop sign in a stand, and it says, “Parking Limit 30 Minutes.” And when you open it up, there’s a toilet inside. He would just order tons of these toilets for gag boxes. All he had to do was change the wording on the box. His strategy was pretty ingenious, actually. The beauty of it was that Fishlove could use the same toilet in any gag box. And so he started making all kinds of gags using this little toilet. When Fishlove looked at that toilet, he didn’t see doll-house furniture. “We’ve had combat fatigue cases that never cracked a smile for weeks until somebody handed them a gag.” Fishlove focused on toilets when, in 1924, TootsieToy started making doll-house furniture using a new injection-molding process. Well, anything to do with elimination, really. Mardi: Toilets were Irving Fishlove’s thing. Collectors Weekly: What’s with the toilets? Stan Timm: In the book “ Cheap Laffs” by Mark Newgarden, the co-creator of Garbage Pail Kids, he says gag boxes are “essentially three-dimensional greeting cards, often aggressive in tone and risqué in content.” It’s like a joke card, except it’s a box that has a three-dimensional object in it, like a tiny, little toilet-where I guess the greeting card might have a picture of a toilet. And that’s exactly what gag boxes are all about. And then when you open it, of course, it’s a gag. With a funny greeting card, you read the outside, and it entices you to open it. Mardi Timm: The whole idea of the gag box is to entice you to open it up, just like the greeting card. This toilet joke plays on the draft for World War II when it says “If You Gotta Go … You Gotta Go!” Collectors Weekly: What is a gag box exactly? Fishlove and his company called, “The King of Gag Boxes.” The Chicago couple recently took the time to explain, in their usual hilarious and charming manner, why they’ve collected more than 200 gag boxes. Or as the Timms delicately put it, “The Process of Elimination.” That’s actually a chapter title in their upcoming self-published book on Mr. Turns out, the company’s head honcho, Irving Fishlove, was obsessed with farts and poop. I couldn’t quite get my brain around why the Timms were so crazy about these old-fashioned gags, until they summed it up for me in two words: Bathroom humor. I was more interested in other Fishlove innovations- chattering teeth, beer glasses with naked pinups inside, and, of course, fake rubber vomit. Fishlove and Co., they’d tell me about gag boxes. Ever since I first encountered Mardi and Stan Timm, the foremost collectors of novelties produced by H. It’s all about the toilets-thousands and thousands of tiny toilets.
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