Posted on 12/22/2003 2:37:58 PM PST by PJ-Comix
Harold von Braunhut, who used comic-book advertisements to sell whimsical mail-order inventions like Amazing Sea Monkeys, tiny shrimp that pop to life when water is added, died Nov. 28 at his home in Indian Head, Md. He was 77. His wife, Yolanda, said he died after a fall but the exact cause was not known. Von Braunhut was to quirky inventions what Barnum was to circuses. His X-Ray Specs, which advertisements said allowed wearers to see through flesh and clothing, are still selling after 50 years of guffaws. Hermit crabs as a pet? Thank von Braunhut for Crazy Crabs. And yes, perhaps only this verbally snappy holder of 195 patents could have realized that what the world needed was Amazing Hair-Raising Monsters, which allow a child to add water to a card and watch hair grow on the previously bald pate of the monster depicted there. HIS BIG INVENTION But von Braunhut's piece de resistance was Sea Monkeys -- which come from dried-up lake bottoms, not the sea, and are not monkeys but brine shrimp. His extravagant claims for the crustaceans -- for example, that they come back from the dead and that they can be trained and hypnotized -- are convincing because they are sort of true. (The shrimp do follow light.) Billions of shrimp have been sold, not to mention a Sea Monkey aphrodisiac and a wristwatch filled with swimming shrimp. There are websites for Sea Monkey fans; CBS briefly had a Sea Monkeys series on Saturday mornings; 400 million of them went into space with John Glenn in 1998; and, for the lazy, a new Sea Monkey video game allows a player to ''virtually'' care for a shrimp colony, lest the animals ''virtually'' die. Von Braunhut gravitated toward life's crazier edge, racing motorcycles as the Green Hornet and managing the career of a man who dived from 40 feet into a kiddie pool filled with 12 inches of water. He sold invisible goldfish by guaranteeing that owners would never see them. STRONG BELIEFS In a radically different sphere, von Braunhut's hard right-wing beliefs drew notice. According to a 1996 Anti-Defamation League report, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations. The Washington Post in 1988 published an article on him and his affiliations, adding that his relatives said he was Jewish. He repeatedly refused to discuss his beliefs on race or his own religious background with journalists, and in an interview Thursday his wife declined to comment on the subject. Harold Nathan Braunhut was born in Memphis on March 31, 1926, and grew up in New York City, where he lived until the mid-1980s, when he moved to Maryland and set up a wildlife conservation area. He may have first noticed brine shrimp being sold in a pet store as fish food, or perhaps in a fisherman's bucket of live bait. In either case, the event occurred in 1957, by which time he had changed his name. QUIRK OF NATURE He learned that brine shrimp were a quirk of nature, surviving for years in suspended animation. In this state, they are powderlike and easily packaged. In 1960, he began advertising ''Instant Life'' in comic books. In 1964, the animals became Sea Monkeys because of their long tails. There were breeding improvements, and an ABC News commentator suggested in 1968 that the larger shrimp, now guaranteed to live two years, might be called sea apes. Von Braunhut was formerly married to Charlotte Braunhut of New York. He is survived by his wife, Yolanda Signorelli-von Braunhut; a son, Jonathan; a daughter, Jeanette LaMothe; and a brother, Gene.
And THEN, just when you think this obit can't get any weirder, we read THIS:
The Washington Post in 1988 published an article on him and his affiliations, adding that his relatives said he was Jewish. He repeatedly refused to discuss his beliefs on race or his own religious background with journalists, and in an interview Thursday his wife declined to comment on the subject.
So? What are you waiting for? Toss them in water and report back if they come back to life.
X-Ray Spex never really let you see through women's clothing. Dammit. :)
Oh well, at least it was cheaper than sending John Glenn and 400,000,000 sea monkeys into space. (I just can't figure out how the sea monkeys helped whitewash Clinton's crimes too.)
LOL!
ABC was even spinning the news back in 1968..
Now that, by-the-Jesus, is a Name!
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