box vox

Skull Bottles

On left: Crystal Head Vodka bottle, designed in 2008 by American landscape painter and portrait artist John Alexander; center & right: a blue “KU-10“ poison bottle and an 1894 advertisement from the Druggist Circular and Chemical Gazette (via: Bottlebooks.com)

In 2008 when Dan Aykroyd was on tour promoting the launch of Crystal Head Vodka—(the vodka that comes in an unlabeled, skull shaped bottle)—I’d read that he would be at a nearby package store, and I was seriously considering making the trip. I was thinking I could maybe do a piece for the dieline or box vox about Crystal Head’s packaging. But I was feeling stingy about my weekend time and I’m shy around celebrities, so I opted out.

Two years later, after having recently posted about alcoholic beverages packaged to resemble rat poison, I happened to run across Dr. Caterson’s 1875 patent for a skull shaped poison bottle (below) and I figured, now’s the time. (I suppose I could wait for Halloween, but I have something else in mind for that...)

According to the company’s web site the skull-shaped bottle is all about certain legendary crystal skull artifacts. (See: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

And yet the real appeal of these bottles is clearly their association with death, danger & poisonous liquids. Just this year, in May, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario banned the sale of Crystal Head Vodka.

“The image of the human skull is the thing that’s really problematic for us,” said LCBO spokesman Chris Layton. “That’s an image that’s commonly associated with death. It’s especially problematic at a time when there are concerns around binge drinking by younger adults, which in some cases unfortunately has resulted in alcohol poisoning.”

(Which, as Aykroyd correctly observes, may serve to make his product even more appealing...)

“I like it, it kind of makes the product more appealing in my view. This is a decision that’s been made reflecting the appeal of the product, because the board is rightly concerned that under-aged drinkers may go to illegitimate means to obtain a bottle of Crystal Head, maybe steal it or whatever.”

Ontario Bans Dan Aykroyd’s Skull-Shaped Vodka
Beppi Crosariol’s Decanter, The Globe and Mail, May. 18, 2010

(More skull-shaped bottle photos, the patent text, the box, and a celebrity video, after the fold...)

Bottlenose Dolphin Bottle

Tiny bottle with dolphin charm from jen4eternity’s Etsy shop

I was in 5th grade living in the suburbs of Tampa Florida, when the Flipper TV show came out. I remember my somewhat sadistic friend/enemy, Michael, from across the street had sort of thing for Luke Halpin. (But I digress before I even begin...)

Saw The Cove on DVD this weekend and was surprised and moved to learn that it was Ric O’Barry—(the man who literally captured and trained the dolphins that played “Flipper” on the TV show)—who is the anti-captivity activist at the heart of this documentary film.

The film raises a lot of issues (the self-cognizance of animals—mercury poisoning...) but one issue that I’ll mention—(since we’ve been lately thinking about rats)—is that dolphins are now considered “pests” in some quarters...

...unlike the expensive whale meat, dolphin meat is not considered a delicacy in Japan, and the real reason the Japanese government issues permits to kill dolphins by the thousands every year has nothing to do with food culture. It has to do with pest control. As shocking as it sounds, some Japanese government officials view dolphins as pests to be eradicated in huge numbers. During a meeting at Taiji City Hall, the fishermen of Taiji admitted this to us. “We don’t kill the dolphins primarily for their meat. We kill them as a form of pest control,” they told us. In other words, killing the competition is their way of preserving the ocean’s fish for themselves.

SaveJapanDolphins.org

Above, left: a 1960s Flipper Thermos from eBay. On right: one of various DVD covers for the film. Some of the covers feature all blue water, other covers feature blood red water. (The cover pictured above strikes the right balance, I think, in having both.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

More Vintage Anthro-Packs

The anthro-pack Campari Soda poster from yesterday’s post reminded me that I had a few other vintage anthro-pack guys waiting in the wings for their big box vox debut...

The Pillsbury Bran Muffin boy is from Captain Geoffrey Spaulding’s Flickr Photostream. (See also: Pre-Op Packaging)

The Canada Dry “half man half bottle lawyer type guy” is from Stuff about Minneapolis’ Flickr Photostream.

The victorious Larvex bottle is from a 1944 Liggett’s Drug Store ad that appeared in “The Red Bank Register” (Red Bank, NJ).

(See the entire Liggett’s Drug Store ad, after the fold...)

Rat-Nip Rebranded?

Following yesterday’s thread about rodenticide manufacturers alluding to pets, I thought “Rat-Nip” an insidiously playful name.

“RAT-NIP is a genuine rat confection, rats love it just the way cats love CAT-NIP. Not a rat can resist it.”

–from an ad in the Journal of The Jamaica Agricultural Society, 1911

In 1908 The Futon Chemical Company registered the trademark for RATNIP on the left.
In 1923 NIP-CO Manufacturing, Inc. registered the trademark for RAT NIP on the right. Both are trademarks for a rat poison, but I can’t tell for sure whether they are the same product rebranded or confusingly similar trademarked product names.

The hand-lettered Ratnip trademark on left (described as a “drawing with words in stylized form”) to my 20th Century eyes, skews to psychedelic. It reminds me now of certain House Industries fonts. (Not surprising, given that a lot of psychedelic typography was indeed based on early, turn-of-the-Century sources.)

I haven’t been able to find any packaging or advertising with this hand-lettered version of the logo, but, given that the back-slanting, sans-serif logo (on right) wasn’t even registered until 1923, I’m guessing there may be some bottles or jars out there with the hand-lettered logo. All of the packaging that I’ve found so far—(like the box on right from ChangoBlanco’s Flickr Photostream)—uses the 1923 trademark.

When I first saw the back-slanting Rat-Nip logo I figured it was from the 1940s or 50s and that the wacky backward leaning type was meant to imply knocking rats over backwards—corresponding to the upside down victim in the illustration with the lighting bolt.

But another name that appears on the back of some Rat-Nip packages is The Liquid Veneer Company. “Liquid Veneer” was a furniture polish and their trademark, registered in 1906, is strikingly similar to the back-slanting Rat-Nip logo.

In fact, if you take a look at early “Liquid Veneer” packaging—also red, yellow & black; also with a back-slanting logo—it starts to look as if Rat-Nip’s packaging was designed in the “house style” of Liquid Veneer.

(More Rat-Nip packaging, after the fold...)

Rough on Rats

“Rough on Rats” was a turn of the Century rat poison brand from Jersey City manufacturer, proprietor—(& sometime music publisher)—E.S. Wells.

Ephraim S. Wells invented a rodent-elimination product in 1872. His wife jokingly called the poison “Rough on Rats.” The name stuck, and the product was a huge success.

The Chicago Tribune)

Promoted as a leading cause of cat unemployment, the inclusion of cats in “Rough on Rats” advertising also highlights our discriminatory hiring practices with regards to animals. (Pets versus pests: the animals that we humans want around, and the animals we don‘t.)

Pets were also featured in the 1882 promotional “Rough on Rats” song, although the lyrics were as rough on pets as they were on rats. The chorus:

“R-r-rats! Rats! Rats! Rough on Rats, Hang your dogs and drown your cats:
We give a plan for every man to clear his house with Rough on Rats”

(Via: The Virtual Dime Museum)

(See the sheet music, after the fold...)

Poisoning & Product Placement

Photo of Ocean Spray Cran-Apple™ bottle from Amazon.com; photo of Cowley’s Cowley’s Rat and Mouse Poison label from AgitpropDevices’ Flickr Photostream

The bottle on the right is the same embossed rat bottle we featured last Thursday—only with its label still attached. Why have I paired it with a bottle of Ocean Spray’s Cran-Apple?

Both products figured into a notorious Texas murder case. Below is an excerpt from Texas Ranger, Bill Gerth’s reminiscences about the investigation of Jerry Sternadel’s murder:

A secretary poisoned her boss over a period of time. And her and the wife were doing it.... It was an arsenic poisoning case... Sheriff Bogard called me one time and ...he said I’ve got something here I really don’t know what I have. I said what do you have? And he said the hospital called me and said there was a man died up here of arsenic poisoning and he’s from Clay County.

...And we went out and talked to the secretary and talked to the wife. ... he had made about three visits to the hospital here and nobody in the world ever snapped on that arsenic poisoning. But we went through the records and they knew about it two or three weeks before he died, you know? And they kept visiting up here and every time they’d visit, he’d have a relapse. He’d get sicker and sicker. I think they were giving it to him in the hospital. So he finally died. He died of acute arsenic poisoning.

Well, we went out one day, this was kind of funny. We went out and talked to the grieving widow and we’re talking… said do you mind if we search out here and see if we can find any arsenic or anything? She said no, you just search to you little heart’s content. We got a consent to search so we went out.

Most of the people living in the country throw all their garbage in a pit. Well, Bogard… [says] since I’m the sheriff of this county and you’re assisting, you need to get in that pit and dig around (laughter). I said yeah, I kind of figured that’s why you brought me along you know. So I jumped in the pit… being like I was. And I found an Ocean Spray Cranapple jug… had the cap on it. And it had about oh… a quarter inch of water in it. I said you know all the cranapple juice I ever saw was kind of a different color. Somebody washed this out. So we just seized that and we sent to forensic. The Institute of Forensic Science in Dallas did the autopsy… And that water in that bottle contained enough arsenic to kill half the people in Jolly. And I said my god, Bogard, do you know what we’ve found? We have found the smoking cranapple jug (laughter). And of course we had a little humor there. And I said by god, this is a bad deal. They, they poisoned him and killed him. He was worth several million dollars.....

And we worked on this case and uh we never could come up with the arsenic and that was one of the key things... we didn’t have enough evidence to indict either one of them.

So it rocked along… we waited two years. And uh Jake got a call one day from a storage locker out there on the Seymour highway. He said I just got a locker out here that hadn’t paid their rent. And uh I opened the door and there’s a bunch of articles in here from a lady in Holiday. And the, the secretary’s name was Debbie Baker. And the lady that rented the locker used a fictitious name but she used her righteous address in Holiday, the real Debbie Baker’s address. That was a clue. I said oh, I smell a rat here, Bogard.

So we got a search warrant. We went back in there and we inventoried everything in that storage locker. And we found a little bottle of Cowley’s Rat and Mouse Poison which contains arsenic. And it had about three quarters of it gone. And I kind of laughed… this will help us. This is a smoking Cowley’s arsenic bottle. And that’s what got her indicted. 

Excerpt from 2008 Oral History Interview with Texas Ranger Bill Gerth
©2009 Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum

More Rat Bottles

On left: Rattankiller packaging by H & K + S; on right: Black Rat Cider

It turns out, there were other rat bottles: not poison, but willing to be mistaken for such.

Rat-poison-style beverage packaging raises certain saftey concerns. (Similar to candy looking like medicine and vice-versa)—(or Skinny n Sweet, for that matter)

For a consumer to briefly mistake a beverage for rat poison is harmless, but to even briefly mistake rat poison for a beverage...

Clearly some consumers like the idea of drinking rat posion—(as in: Name your poison!)—but if that is true, then what do rats like to drink?

Owners of pet rats sometimes like to attribute to their rats, a human-like affinity for bottled spirits—as the 3 photos, above, from Alexey Krasavin’s Flickr Photostream suggest.

And, indeed, stories can be found to suggest that rats have been known to acquire a taste for the stuff:

Rats are gnawing at beer cans and making holes in caps of whisky bottles stored in police storehouses in eastern India and apparently getting drunk, authorities said on Wednesday.

The rodents’ love for liquor has the police department in Bihar state stumped as it tries to store hundreds of bottles seized from illegal sellers from across the state in Patna, the state capital, said Kundan Krishnan, a senior officer.

“We are fed up with these drunk rats and cannot explain why they have suddenly turned to consumption of alcohol,” he said.

...Rats were also attacking people near the police buildings, nibbling at their toes, although it was not clear if they were under the influence, officials and witnesses said.

via Scribal Terror

But not all rat bottles are 100 Proof...

(Another type of rat bottle, after the fold...)

Rat Bottles

Cowley’s embossed rat poison bottle from Ruby Lane

Couldn’t do an entire “animal bottle” week without finding at least one rat bottle: Cowley’s Original Rat & Mouse Poison came in bottles with an embossed rat. (Not super-old, just 1940s old.)

I might have preferred to find some rat-shaped “bitters” bottles similar to yesterday’s pig bottles. But if being partial to rats, means I have to write about rat poison, then so be it...

The active ingredient in Cowley’s rat poison (it should be noted) was arsenic...

Among our cases, liquid rodenticide was the most common source of arsenic for both intentional and unintentional poisonings in Mississippi. Fifteen of the 27 unintentional poisonings... were by ingestion of a liquid rodenticide... One recent Mississippi case of an accidental arsenic poisoning involveding three children occurred when a mother poured arsenic-based rodenticide over crackers and left them on the floor overnight. Three of her children ate the poisoned crackers the next morning. Specifically, Cowley’s Rat and Mouse Poison was named as the brand of arsenic-containing rodenticide in each of the 16 cases where a brand name was recorded. This product is no longer being manufactured, and thus its registration with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industries, has not been renewed since 1988. Previously stocked bottles of this rodenticide, however, remain on Mississippi store shelves, available for open public purchase.

Arsenic Exposures in Mississippi: A Review of Cases
Mary Jane Park, BS, and Mary Currier, MD, MPH, Jackson, Miss
Southern Medical Journal, April 1991

I did find one non-poisonous rat bottle similar to one of Tuesday’s squirrel bottles.

(One last photo, after the fold...)

Packaging and Consumer Confusion

Top photo by Joan Marcus from 9 to 5 The Musical site (Megan Hilty as Doralee, Allison Janney as Violet—holding the boxes—and Stephanie J. Block as Judy); lower photo from Tiny Details dollhouse miniatures site (See also: Dollhouse Packaging)

This weekend I happened to catch some of 9 to 5—(that movie from 1980 starring Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin and Jane Fonda)—on TV. A significant plot point hinges on the issue of consumer confusion between two fictional packaged goods. Violet (played by Lily Tomlin in the movie) inadvertently purchases “Rid O Rat” rat poison, mistaking it for “Skinny n Sweet” artificial sweetener. She puts some in her boss’s coffee before realizing her error, and complications ensue.

Conclusion? While trademark law is generally more concerned with similarly packaged products in the same product category—(unfair competition and all)—clearly, there are also pitfalls to cross-category consumer confusion. (See also: Medicine Cabinet Candy)

Hence, the popular 9 to 5 catch phrase: “It looks just like Skinny ’n Sweet… except for the little skull and crossbones on the label.”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

IlliteRAT with Alpha-bits

IlliteRAT ©1976 David Wilder (starring my pet rat, Lucky)

Not the first time we’ve mentioned rats (or mice) here on box vox and, as previously disclosed, I myself, once had a pet rat. Given to me by another rodent-loving classmate at RISD, “Lucky” played a starring role in my friend, David Wilder’s video, illiteRAT. Hadn’t seen this tape in over 30 years, but I think its conceptual rigor still holds up.

And it was nice for me to see the little feller again, after all this time. (I don’t really remember what the cereal box looked like that Lucky’s Alpha-bits came in. Lets just say, for arguments sake, that it was the one on the left—photo from The Imaginary World—with the mouth-shaped, faux die cut window.)

In my last year at school, I lived in an office building in downtown Providence where I’d let Lucky scamper, dog-like, about the loft. It’s surprising how frisky a rat can be.

I recall eating a lot of ice-cream cones one Summer. (This was before I found out I was diabetic.) I got into a habit of methodically reducing the size of the ice-cream cone—keeping it in classic proportions—until I had formed a miniature, rat-size ice-cream cone. This, I would then present to Lucky and he’d grab it in his hands and eagerly finish it off. (Sort of fractal, now that I think of it...)

Sadly, my free-range policy of giving Lucky the run of the place, ultimately led to his demise. Turned out there were dusty old trays of rat poison under the radiators, that I didn’t know were there.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Mason Jar Mousetraps

I saw this “Mason canning jar with lid converted to make a mousetrap, c. 1865.” on the website for Marilynn Gelfman Karp's book: In Flagrante Collecto, caught in the act of collecting. Similar to the later patent below. (Hope they cited prior art...)

I like these inventions that turn a package or a reusable container into something else entirely. The mason jar (or “fruit jar”) was, for a time, a standard, universal part that inventors could design their special-function lids to fit onto. Almost like computers and software: with the right lid/application, your mason jar could become a mousetrap or a minnow catcher, etc. Mason jars were like open source software. Freeware for imprisoning mice. (More rodent travails: here)

(Lots more mason jar traps, after the fold...)

Clicker Cans

Photos of 1980s Coke and Dr Pepper “Clicker Cans” from USA Soda.com

I must have missed these in the early 80s when they came out. Interesting to note it now, in light of all the recent resealable-can ideas that have garnered attention. (See: Burn Energy Drink and Monster Energy Drink or this Pop Top Ad concept, or this Snap Cap attachment for cans)

The fact that these were put on the market in the 80s, but did not (apparently) catch on, maybe says something about the relative importance of this feature. From T. A. Turner’s book, Canmaking for Can Fillers:

Reclosable (and resealable) ends

A number of reclosable ends have been proposed of varying complexity and made entirely from metal or from a combination of metal and plastic. However, it must be stressed that the successful development of a reclosable end will depend as much on market needs as on technical excellence:

• Does the market actually need a reclosable or a resealable end?
• Do the fillers of beverage cans want either a reclosable or a resealable end; if they do, are they prepared to pay a premium for it, because it will certainly be more expensive?
• Are there special needs?

Under the heading ‘special needs’ would be included cans for outdoor activities (such as picnics and barbecues) where, for example, preventing insects (eg wasps) entering partially consumed drinks is claimed to be an issue... If the need is real, can the additional cost of such devices be justified when a simple plastic overcap, purchased for the occasion, may suffice? It is also true that a slightly larger tab, without the finger hole (which is now no longer functional), rotated through 180 would also keep out all but the smallest ‘intruders’.

Reclosable or partially reclosable features suggested have included screw-on closures (such as crowns), modified tabs, wasp-proof screens and sophisticated plastic button devices such as Continental Can’s clicker cap (see Figure 6.21). A number of novel developments to produce bottle-shaped containers in metal, with long necks of greatly reduced diameter, have appeared during recent years. In addition, a cone-topped beer can (the original beer-can format in the period 1940-50) has been relaunched, on a limited scale, in South Africa. These containers are easier to drink from and also provide the opportunity for alternative closures. The downside is that filling speeds are likely to be slower and that transportation (of empty containers) and presentation in the marketplace may have to be different.

T. A. Turner
Canmaking for Can Fillers

It could also be that the reason the 1980s clicker cans did not “catch on” may be that they look too much like one of these.

(A couple more photos after the fold...)

Greenhead Fly Traps

Like everyone else around here, we’ve outfitted our greenhead fly trap (above) with re-purposed packaging

On the rare occasions that we go away for the weekend, the place we usually go is to the marshlands of south Jersey on the Delaware bay. Reed’s Beach is a nature preserve and a critical stopover for migratory birds en route to arctic breeding grounds. (See Nature.org)

Because it’s a nature preserve, it cannot be developed any further. The houses on stilts and the trailers that were already there can stay, but no new construction is permitted.

For bird watchers this place is some kind of Mecca, and for a few weeks in May while the horseshoe crabs are spawning and the red knots & ruddy turnstones are feeding—(although not so much now as in the past)—the beach is closed to humans.

One regrettable feature of life in Reed’s Beach and similar wetlands communities, are the greenhead flies.

Adult flies mate on the open marsh. Within a few days and without seeking a blood meal, the female lays her first egg mass, consisting of 100 to 200 eggs. To produce additional egg masses, the female needs a blood meal...

Adult female greenheads move from the salt marsh to nearby wooded or open areas along the marsh edge to seek suitable blood sources. There they await and attack wildlife, livestock, and people that venture close enough for them to detect.

Females live for three to four weeks in the uplands before they become too weak to bite. Because of this long life, larger numbers of blood hungry flies build up in areas near salt marshes. The physical removal of large numbers of flies can reduce this buildup and thus decrease the greenhead fly problem locally.

The Greenhead and You
Elton Hansens and Stuart Race, Rutgers University

It was Elton Hansens and Stuart Race (quoted above) who designed the greenhead fly trap that we use. The original plans (below) call for a dark black box, open at the bottom with screen at the top into which a couple of hole with cone shapes guide the flies to the top —(they naturally tend to fly upwards towards-the-light)—where they are invariably imprisoned in packaging.

The original instructions mentions using “transparent shoe boxes” but as a DIY necessity, individuals here will use will just use whatever packaging is at hand: bottles, jars, takeout food containers, etc. One innovation that everyone seems to be onboard with: the neck of a PVC bottle makes a good cone and is easier than fashioning a cone from screening, as the original design stipulated.

(See some more examples, after the fold...)

Packaging as Imprisonment

When I was in 5th grade my mom encouraged me in a small study of spiders. We had discovered a mother spider and her egg sac somewhere in or around our house. We made a jar like the one shown above with air holes hammered into the lid. Mother spider and egg sac were captured and placed in the jar.

Everyday I would check the jar to see whether the blessed event had yet occurred. I don’t remember what was done about food and water. Perhaps my mom was handling that.

One day I picked up the jar to see if the eggs had finally hatched and it took me a few moments to comprehend that the babies had indeed hatched out. They were much more numerous and much smaller than I ever expected. So small, in fact, that they had no trouble fitting through the air holes in the top of the jar and were at that moment crawling all over my hand!  Realizing this, I screamed and dropped the jar. Habitat, smashed to pieces on the kitchen floor.

(After the jump: tiny spiders)

Alternative Exterminating & Graphics

We’re intrigued by this business on Route 47 in Cape May Courthouse, NJ. A heretofore unsuspected connection between pest control and graphic design? (See my post about Victor mouse traps). Or does the existence of such a business only serve to illustrate the importance of diversification?

Also curious about the name. Why “Alternative?” Alternative lifestyle? Alternative rock? (A secret reference to the rat-related lyric in Smashing Pumpkins’ Bullet with Butterfly Wings?)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Victor Mouse Trap 4-Pack

(First, a little background about me & mice...) When I was a kid I used to keep pet mice. It all started when the garbage man in my neighborhood in Sarasota, Fla. (around 1964) handed me a coffee can with a lid. Inside the can was a live, tame mouse. My mother let me keep him. (Later, in college, I graduated to pet rats, but that’s another story.) I mention my first pet mouse only to acknowledge that I have a continuing affection for rodents and to fully disclose my conflicted feelings about pest control products.

At Home Depot last month I lingered for a quite a while in the pest control section thinking about the Victor® mouse traps, their logo and whether or not I wanted to blog about it. At the time I decided that, as a rodent-lover, I would not go there.

Soon afterwards our good friend and neighbor, Jacqueline had a sudden infestation of mice. This was due to some packages of bird seed and cat food that were stored in the basement, but were not mouse-proof. (Bad animals taking food from the mouths of good animals?) She went to Home Depot and purchased the entire Victor mouse trap product line—doubtless the very same mouse traps whose aesthetic properties I had been ruminating over. It was the coincidence of Jacqueline’s use of Victor mouse traps that has led me to write about this, after all.

(A shocking photo and more to read after the jump...)