[jmcsweeny]

"Randy Treadway":65ec3 said:

But the dinosaurs are still being produced at places like the Milwaukee Zoo- they say Milwaukee Zoo on them- or something like Brookfield Zoo if that's the name.

It's the Milwaukee County Zoo, Randy. The Brookfield Zoo is near Chicago and is a Chicago Zoological Society Zoo.

[worldsfairent]

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They told me a couple of years ago that they retain the "master molds"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Sheesh! Is everything old news to you, Randy?!

[Randy Treadway]

They told me the master mold is made out of something like stainless steel. I'll have to look for that correspondence.

The bad news is that the current owner acquired the business in the 1970's. At the time of the acquisition, they got all the master molds and the remaining machines, but the pre-acquisition records were lost. So they have no information on the number of operating molds made, who they were licensed to, where company-owned machines were placed at the World's Fair, ANY of that kind of stuff.

They DO know all about the formulation change in the 1980's though. All the figures now have a shiny look wich is a result of a more stable formula that results in less cracks and mis-casting. And the machines don't produce quite the same 'melted wax' smell that everybody remembers from the World's Fair.

[Marc Williams]

The Henry Ford here in the Detroit area has several machines. I had a Lincoln head, Edison light bulb and Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. I stored them in a closet and found piles of waxy plastic bits this summer. I guess they got too cold.

[Maverick]

In that link, they clearly list the "Unisphere (globe)" (their exact words) as a mold still available. Does this mean they would have removed any text that would have been on an NYWF Unisphere mold and retained the shape??

[Bill Cotter]

Several months ago Randy started this thread with a shot of his discovery of two Mold-A-Rama machines:



Using a different scanner I was able to pull some additional details out of the slide, especially in the shadows:



I then went in for a closer look of the two machines:



I still can't quite make out what the figure is, but it looks like a standing figure of some kind. Anyone able to narrow down the possible choices?

Also, here's a view of the souvenir stand itself, just to tease my fellow landfill collectors:



This shop is in a building labeled "Stroller Rentals" on the Time-Life map over my desk, and was located on Avenue of the Americas.

Bill

[Randy Treadway]

The only World's Fair "figure" molderama that I'm aware of is a standing Abe Lincoln. But that one says "Land of Lincoln" on the base, which I'd always assumed came from the Illinois Pavilion. That figure is molded with both Abe's hands clutching his collar, as if giving a speech, which I assumed was also a tie to the Disney Abe audioanimatronic exhibit at the Illinois Pavilion.

I've had a white 'albino' version of the Abe figuring for a few years (white resulted when the color pigment ran out in one of these machines). Recently I acquired Abe in the 'normal' blue color.

If you go back to the top of this topic there's a sign hanging up that says mold your own Unisphere. Since the Unisphere is a known molderama subject, I assumed that's what came out of these machines.

[MitchS]

Maybe it's the kewpie

http://64nywf65.20m.com/wf10b.JPG

[Randy Treadway]

I forgot about the kewpie

[Bill Cotter]

Anyone know if these are Mold A Rama figures?

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Randy Treadway]

Yes, I think they are indeed Molderama figures. But the real question is- were they produced in machines at the World's Fair?

The reason the seller thinks these are from the World's Fair is due to an imprint on the bottom that says copyright NYWF, etc etc.
I have the same imprint (sometimes faint) on the bottom of a couple of molderamas (one the John F Kennedy bust) that may or may not be from the NYWF. The subjects are mid'60's so they COULD have been at the Fair, but the subjects are not a peculiar Fair attraction, like a Unisphere or Sinclair dinosaur.

I'm guessing it's possible that each machine might require a base plate which has a hole in it to shoot the hot waxy stuff into the mold- and the machine pushes that base plate up against the mold itself. Maybe after the Fair they reused the base plates from the machines that were at the Fair, and we end up with this NYWF copyright on the bottom of otherwise unrelated figures.

Then again, these Disney cartoon character 'cast members' WERE at the Pepsi Pavilion, so it makes it very hard to completely rule it out. But so far we've never seen any Molderama machines in pictures at the Pepsi Pavilion. (OR the JFK machine, OR the Kewpie machine).

My base plate theory is similar to the NYWF cigarette lighters. They had a lot left over, so after the Fair they used the "guts" of the lighter and put a new decorative sleeve or housing over the guts instead of the colorful NYWF logo shells.
But they forgot (or didn't care) that there was a NYWF copyright on the bottom. So we see lighters on eBay all the time noting the NYWF copyright on the bottom of lighters which are a myriad of other things- like lighters with a Kiwanis club logo, or a corporate logo (and that corporation wasn't at the Fair), etc.

These might just be curiosities produced by re-using parts from the NYWF molderama machines.

[Bill Cotter]

I'm leaning towards these being NYWF, as they haven't show up elsewhere. For example, I have never seen a Mold A Rama at Disneyland, which would be a logical post-Fair use, nor have I seen then show up at Disneyana shows. Might be that I just missed them, but I would bet that one day we'll see a familiar bubble topped machine somewhere around Pepsi - or even in the VIP lounge? That might explain the scarcity.

In any event I wanted to pint these out to the Mold A Rama fans here in case any of you wanted to try for these. One day left.

[lcwalter]

I've been doing a bit of research on mold-a-rama for one of my students that is creating a virtual mold-a-rama machine for our Sinclair Dinoland. I ran across this backglass sign for a Disneyland mold-a-rama at


In addition, an image is provided for Song of the South machines -


Here are a few interesting sites about mold-a-ramas:

http://www.billyseve.../moldarama.html

http://www.moldaramaville.com/
- this site mentions one of the Disney figures may have been available at the US Pavilion at Expo '67

Lori

[Bill Cotter]

According to this page:

http://www.moldarama...iny_Cricket.htm

these figures were sold at the Fair - but at the American Pavilion? I wonder if they were inside the USA Pavilion somewhere.

[Elizabeth Klug]

It's funny... I have this very vague childhood memory of a moldarama Mickey Mouse that I thought might have been from Palisades Park or somewhere. I guess it could have been from the Fair, but I'm not sure.