I remember 1994. I was sitting in a conference room at Disney, discussing how to infiltrate children's minds with television somehow, the way Nickelodeon totally owned the color orange. 1994 was also the year that Nick Jr. introduced its...
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June 2010 Archives
June 30, 2010
Leave The Room, Kids! It's Oppo!
Now With 100% Less Mongolian BBQing!
Brooklyn has lost its most famous, Mongolian BBQ dome playground. Once a neighborhood hot spot, the NY Times reports the giant steel climbing domes have been replaced by run-of-the-mill playground equipment:Beneath the house and climbing gym, the circles of newly...
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Wie? Wer? Was? Lololand Berlin Boardbook
The way I heard it--which seems not to be true--is that Berlinomat is an official city branding project in the form of a souvenir vending machine in the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. Well, it's just a store that...
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The Man In The Skirt Who Changes The Diaper Changes The World
The sociology-themed blogs at Contexts.org are the gifts that keep on giving. Thanks to DT [and Contexts!] reader Marla for pointing out this most excellent headline and photo from Sociological Images: Man In Skirt Changes Diaper [contexts.org] Does this mean...
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Volvo Tuner V70-R Wagon By Heico
It does make you wonder why Volvo has never had an in-house or even semi-official tuner like BMW's M-works or Mercedes' AMG. Because it might be nice. Also, it might be less expensive than the EUR70,000 Swedish performance shop...
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Allons Enfants De La Patrie De Cette Handmade Teething Moustache Magnifique!
I'm sorry, did that last post about the esoterica of lead standards, and the Washington miasma of congressional lobbying not get my point across clearly? Let me try it another way: HOLY CRAP, PEOPLE! IF YOU DON'T CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES...
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United We Etsy! Handmade Toy Alliance
The Handmade Toy Alliance is getting a boost from Etsy, which makes sense, because Etsy gets such a boost from the army of craftspeople and small business owners whose livelihoods are still set to be snuffed out by the industrial-scale...
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June 29, 2010
Louise Bourgeois Sings Nursery Rhymes
Those of you still mourning the recent passing of the great surrealist/abstract sculptor Louise Bourgeois can take comfort knowing that she did, in fact, record 22 French nursery rhymes before she died, and they were, in fact, remixed "into an...
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Wait, Ruth Krauss And Mary Blair??
So while we're busy poking around the early work of Ruth Krauss, it turns out she did a Little Golden Book with none other than legendary Disney artist Mary Blair. Maybe if I'd been a little girl at some...
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Wait, Ruth Krauss And Ad Reinhardt??
Ruth Krauss we know, because with a carefully crafted minimum of words, she wrote a ton of children's books, including The Carrot Seed, which was illustrated by her husband Crockett Johnson. And because the Krauss-Johnsons basically adopted a teen...
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June 28, 2010
Metafilter Answers: Before There Were Car Seats
A very amusing discussion on Ask Metafilter about how kids rode in cars before there were safety regulations or car seats. Or seat belts. I'd find it more awesome if ANY of the many ingenious-but-deadly inventions featured on DT over...
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Mars Ain't The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids
Noted actor James Franco is also less-noted artist James Franco. "THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOUR BOYS," his first exhibition, just opened at the latest [re]incarnation of Clocktower Gallery in lower Manhattan. It is curated by Beatrice Johnson and Alanna Heiss,...
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Ost-some! Spielwagen Pop-up Playgrounds In Berlin
It's not so much that communists hate children, it's just that the communist idea of fun centers on balls-out renditions of patriotic songs and large-scale choreography, not anarchic playground scampering. And so even after reunification, Eastern Berlin's parks and...
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June 27, 2010
Seasons By Blexbolex
I don't know French illustrator Blexbolex's work, but it has the kind of modern spareness I like about Jacob Lawrence's paintings and Leo Lionni's paint collages. From the Enchanted Lion book trailer below, Seasons looks very nice. And since...
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'Elsewhere In Manhattan On Saturday'
I'm a little freaked out to read that while I was typing up the Freakout post, a 6-mo baby was killed and her mother was critically injured by a falling tree branch at the Central Park Zoo. It happened as...
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June 26, 2010
Woodworkers' Kids Always Have The Nicest Hand-Carved Rocking Toys
Holy smokes. Master California studio furnituremaker Rick Pohlers created this rocking toy for his own kids in the 1970s. It's carved cherry with a leather seat, and features Northwest Coast Indian-style detailing on both sides. It's not huge, either,...
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DT Friday Freakout: Wows! Edition
If the heat doesn't getcha, maybe some sensationalistic news reports from the worlds of science, medicine, safety, and parenting will freak out your weekend: Kellogg's has recalled 28 million boxes of cereal in white foil bags, because of "an off...
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If Henry Moore Had Ever Been Pregnant
I wasn't familiar with Tucson artist Kathy Haun's work, but according to Objects USA, this early redwood sculpture was influenced by Haun's experience with pregnancy. Whether that means months of grueling effort, or the ability to pop the abstract...
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June 25, 2010
Dean Jones Made My Baby Cry
A week with the cousins forced me to realize the kid is severely under-movied. So I decided that summer school would be home school film school, and in exchange for getting to watch more than 22-minutes of TV, plus or...
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International K2 Blue
My father-in-law was visiting us this week, and we went to see the Yves Klein retrospective at the Hirshhorn. It's a pretty great show, and with large paintings divided between bright monochromes and the occasional human form, a shorty...
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June 24, 2010
Buffalo Holder
In 1965, Buffalo had a Festival of the Arts the likes of which Buffalo had never seen. It was wall-to-wall avant-garde art, theatre, music, dance, and film--and it was packed. Among the 150,000+ people who attended the John Cage...
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Cribocalypse Now Redux: CPSC Recalls TWO MILLION Cheap Cribs
Wow, does this mean the CPSC has finally cleared their Bush-era Cribs Of Death cold case file? The CPSC issued recalls for over two million cribs, mostly dropside but also fixed-side models, from seven manufacturers. The recalls are based on...
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June 23, 2010
Procter & Gamble Totally Crumble In The Face Of Rebel Dad's Pampers Boycott
It's been several weeks since Rebel Dad announced his boycott of Pampers for their four-years-and-counting insistence on calling him a mom in all their mailings and marketing campaigns. And guess what, P&G has utterly caved in the face of this...
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In Competition Blue & Yellow: Ikea Sniglar Co-Sleeper
As someone who made his kid's own sleeping situation, I will remind everyone that the first, middle, and last step of any crib hacking project is studying the CPSC's safety and testing requirements, and then assuring that your design...
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June 22, 2010
My Name Is Clek Oobr, And I. Am. An Awesome Canadian Booster Seat.
I've often wondered why more car companies don't get into the car seat business. Recaro is a rare example. And as auto hyper-expert and longtime DT reader David Traver Adolphus explains in an exclusive guest review, Clek is another. David...
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Cutting Through The Static On Isamu Noguchi's Radio Nurse Baby Monitor
What was the real story of the 1937 Zenith Radio Nurse & Guardian Ear? I've been looking at this thing, the first baby monitor, for close to 20 years now, and it's about time I found out. How did...
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June 21, 2010
Hi, Koo!
Spring furniture fair Industrial designers hype their prototypes Time flies, work piles up, Browser tabs linger for weeks... Will I ever post? Bassinet/rocker?? Co-sleep-tivist contraption? It's Koo by Lunar. Auto-rocking, lights, LED motion sensors? Gizmo overkill "Genius maneuver!" "Minimize[d]...
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The Top 10 319 Ways Living With A Toddler Is Like Being At A Frat Party
289. "Your one goal is to get someone in bed and, when you're finally successful, you're so tired all you want to do is go to sleep." 10 Reasons Having A Toddler Is Like Being At A Frat Party [suburbansnapshots.com...
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Like-A-Crotch-Rocket: The Glodos Bit
The Glodos Bit is a tip-resistant walking bike for toddlers designed by the Spanish duo Marc Castelló and Sergi Teixidó. It's made from molded ply, aluminum, and Big Wheel plastic. It's an incredible combination of an Eames splint, a...
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June 20, 2010
It Was A Happy Father's Day
Whoops, had such a good time enjoying Father's Day, and eating custom-mixed cereal out of my new, oversized cereal mug, I forgot to post anything. I hope all your Father's Days were equally as great. It's not easy, and...
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June 19, 2010
DT Friday Freakout: Juicebox Edition
A compendium of alarming science, health, safety, and parenting headlines to ruin your weekend [emphasis added for dramatic effect]: Holy crap, that juicebox is full of lead! That straw might as well be hooked up to the tail pipe of...
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June 18, 2010
George Mendoza, Children's Book Industry 'Phenomenon'
Alright, the mime's not talking, so we'll have to dig into this George Mendoza Children's Book Industrial Complex on our own. George Mendoza is listed as the author of both of Marcel Marceau's children's books. At the same time, he...
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June 17, 2010
Mime Reading: Marcel Marceau's Children's Books
K2 and I enter a used book store. I scan the children's book shelves. What's this? I spy a curious book, I pick it up, open it. Flip the pages. A look of surprise, then bewilderment, then incredulous amusement,...
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No Evians Were Marketed In The Making Of This Brazilian Dancing Baby Video
The Internet began with a dancing baby, so I guess it's fitting that it ends with one. Good night, everybody! Drive home safely!...
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June 16, 2010
Das Gibbenbaum?
Very interesting, and possibly only half as annoying as the English Silverstein: A German Shel Silverstein? [dadwagon]...
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Give Me Genesis!
Here's the thing: Bertone created this Lamborghini 455hp V12-powered, Chrysler-automatic-transmissioned, gullwing minivan concept car for the Turin Auto Show in 1988, the year the legendary Lamborghini LM002 SUV went into production. Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, starring Chrysler...
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June 15, 2010
Blackameleon
[Cue passionate, Vivaldi-esque violin music] Hitting the market just in time for Father's Day, the special edition black-on-black-on-matte-black Bugaboo Cameleon says you'd impregnate her all over again. It also says there were some chassis left over from the Marc...
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June 14, 2010
Awesome OG Playgrounds In Reston, VA
The kid recently had a birthday party nearby, so I took K2 with me to visit Lake Anne Plaza, the original center of Reston, Virginia, a novelty of mid-century modernist urban planning. Reston was founded in 1963, a white...
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EU've Got To Be Kidding
I'd meant to post about this since Christmas, when Lufthansa's luggage-losing shenanigans forced us to rebuy the kids' entire suitcases in France. But the wife just got back from a work trip to Spain, where she picked up some...
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Publicity Coming And Going
Collector extraordinaire Jim Linderman posted a 1939 publicity photo of a campaign to cover up a publicity poster of another campaign. Fortunately, Loew's had several thousand paper diapers on hand just in case their naked baby butt posters caused...
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June 11, 2010
High, Higher, Highest Chairs
While looking at something else in their inventory, I realized Modern One may just have the high-designiest high chairs in all of Los Angeles, with vintage high chairs for every budget [that includes at least $1,100 for a high chair]:...
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DT Friday Freakout: iPhone Edition
Here are some headlines of late, all primed to ruin your weekend with freakoutery: The quantity of new parents' sleep is more important to their relationship satisfaction than how well they thought they slept. Of course, the study was conducted...
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June 10, 2010
Maclaren Now Chopping Prices!
Watch your fingers, Maclaren's throwing a giant warehouse tent sale this Saturday at the mothership in Connecticut. There are strollers and accessories up to 70% off. And maybe the MacNetto nursery concept is heading in a different direction, because...
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Your Search For Million-Dollar Pseudo-Art Playgrounds Returned 1 Result
Tom Otterness, Playground, 2007, bronze, edition of 6 [tomostudio.com] Previously: Or is it WePo now? (West of Port Authority) there's one in Hell's Kitchen South...
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Feeling Good, Louis!
The modern baroque Louis crib is out from David Netto, the guy who gave us white lacquered modernist nursery furniture in the first place. Not sure which is more surprising: how well it works, or that they managed to bring...
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June 9, 2010
People Of Walmart Are People Of America
God Bless the USA, is all I can say. Click through for the full sized images--and so many more--at People of Walmart [peopleofwalmart.com via dt reader rolf]...
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Awesome Vintage Movie Posters
DT reader Jordi spotted some great vintage Disney movie posters coming up for sale this month at Christie's South Kensington location in London. In the proper UV plexi frame, they'd make great additions to a nursery--and you could re-auction...
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A Hairy Home Companion
In what's best described as "dirty NPR," nerd musician and new dad Mike Phirman performed and rapped a few weeks ago at Nerdist Live @ Largo! . mathowie">@mathowie flagged one of, if not the funniest line: "during a baby's first...
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Forget It Jake, It's Stroller Town
The NY Times looks at the Hot New Trend in fine dining, no-reservations:But what plays downtown may not be a successful adaptation to other urban microclimates. Three miles north, the Upper West Side Fatty Crab, at Broadway near West 76th...
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June 8, 2010
Chic Storm
I don't know which is worse: every single thing about this Huggies denim commercial, the fact that ABC rejected it for featuring the word "pooping," the fact that I learned about it from Alex Kuczynski's blog post on The...
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[Item?] Happy Fathers Day!
Are there some PR scientists somewhere who decide that sending out press releases on Tuesday gives enough time to make it on the editorial calendar for The Sunday Papers or whatever for the next two weeks, which is when you...
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June 7, 2010
The Future Is Here, And It's Riding A Retro Saab
Wow, I was on a hairy deadline, so I only just watched Apples's video for the new iPhone 4 [wipes tears away from eyes]. It almost makes me want to be a road warrior again, just so I can...
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OG Shepard Pooh Poster
Sweet. The Wary Meyerses just garage saled this poster from the V&A for a 1969 exhibit of E.H. Shepard's original illustrations for Winnie the Pooh. EH Shepard at V&A [warymeyers] Previously and completely unrelated: Deep in the Hundred Acre...
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June 5, 2010
Regrouping After Unicorn Robot Attack
Adult Swim's classic Flash game, Unicorn Robot Attack has been released for the iPhone and iPad, and--flying unicorns pooping rainbows, right?--I thought the kid'd like it. I thought wrong. She's not into it at. all. I don't think the...
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David Miller Made A Robot Costume In The 1950s
It's not just bloggers' or hipster authors' kids whose lives get turned into fodder for their parents work projects. If your dad was, say, a Naval photographer with Edward Steichen, goes onto co-curate historic photo exhibitions after the War...
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June 4, 2010
Mini Bugawho?
Ohdeeoh posted a handy roundup of toy strollers, complete with links to their earlier posts on each one. Front and center is this awesome-looking, homemade mini Bugaboo, hacked together from an aluminum picnic basket; the extendible feet from two...
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DT Friday Freakout: Helicopter Parent Edition
Personally, my own weekends have been full of comment spam-related freakouts. But just in case you haven't hand Ukrainian spambots take down your server lately, here are some recent, overwrought headlines from the worlds of science, safety, and parenting to...
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June 3, 2010
Your Moment Of WTF: Tauntin' Ain't Just A Town In Massachusetts
Whatever the results of the trial, Luke Kishpaugh, 33, has been banned from public parks in Salem, Oregon:The children started to cry and [Luke] Kishpaugh called the dog off, then once again told the dog "get it." This time, the...
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Your Moment Of Slot-Together Zen: Builder Boards
The post yesterday about Richard Dattner's awesome, slot-together, plywood panels from his 1966 Adventure Playground has unleashed a mini-wave of similar, if not quite as super-graphic designs. First up: Builder Boards, a playhouse construction set made of marine ply...
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June 2, 2010
NY Nannies May Get Basic Benefits
Never underestimate the New York State government's ability to completely screw up even the most obvious things, but it looks like the hapless Senate, Assembly, and governor are going to get it together and pass a law giving nannies the...
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FOUND: Richard Dattner Made This Mystery, Slot-Together Playground Equipment
It might take some time, but we here at Daddy Types aim to leave no loops unclosed. At least when it comes to awesome-but-obscure playground equipment. Three and a half years ago now, the NY Times ran the photo...
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Wakefield: Vaccines Cause...Something! Autism!
Yeah, autism, that's the ticket! Slate covers a lot of old ground in their recap of the Dr. Andrew Wakefield MMR-causes-autism debacle: the unethical study methods, the unfounded conclusions, the study's retraction by the Lancet, the revocation of Wakefield's medical...
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June 1, 2010
It Is Killing Me To Miss Kidscreen's Transmedia Boot Camp Tomorrow
Kidscreen, the trade magazine for the kids IP industry, is holding the world's first ever, how-to confab for transmedia tomorrow in Santa Monica. It'll be led by Jeff Gomez, the high-powered, transmedia producer behind Starlight Runner Entertainment. The registration...
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Is This Ezra Jack Keats?
This was hanging on a friend's childhood bedroom wall for as long as he could remember; I suggested he take it while we were moving some other stuff. I swear, that profile reminds me of Ezra Jack Keats. I've...
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Your Sippy Cups Are Probably Gnarlier Than You Think
Ours sure were. Fortunately, we have someone who not only noticed how chewed up and beat up they were, she did something about it. The new cups sparkle like jewels. And now they have some tricky silicon cover, which...
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