The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Raymond Scott, Bath Toy


In honor of the centennial of the birth of musical mad scientist Raymond Scott, the toy company Presspop has produced an action figure of the poor unsuspecting man. It's terrifyingly realistic, and includes a CD, a clavivox and a pointing finger to play the clavivox with.


You know Scott's music whether you know it or not. Likely it's permeated your consciousness through its use in old Warner Brother's cartoons via Carl Stalling. And there are a dozen or more CDs of Scott's music, some performed by him and his quintette, others by bands like the Beau Hunks. Scott himself made an appearance in Michael Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, at a party where Salvador Dali wore a deep sea diving suit. And now you can have your very own six inch tall Raymond Scott to fill that Raymond Scott-size space on your shelf.


My thanks to Ted Pratt for pointing this out to me.

5 comments:

Robert Gidley said...

And here's a place where you can go to listen to some Raymond Scott tunes. "Powerhouse," in particular, shows up a lot in Warner Bros cartoons whenever something is being built or machinery is operating.

And the Beau Hunks have a great version of that tune!

mark coale said...

That is so great.

I love the Raymond Scott CDs I have.

Anonymous said...

That is quite a cool item! I have Presspop's figures of The Kaufman Brothes from ADAPTATION they put out a few years back. None of my friends know who they are. )>:

Randy said...

There's a great Amex commercial in a cafeteria where everything's running like an assembly line until some poor schmuck decides to pay with cash instead of his Amex, causing the entire process to implode spectacularly. My co-worker with whom I grab lunch daily is the guy that causes the process to implode spectacularly wherever we go, and when it first started happening, I asked him if he knew the commercial, but I couldn't remember the song. Thanks to your friend and mine, Google, I found that the background music is Raymond Scott's Powerhouse and I take every opportunity I can to hum the tune to him as he's rudely pulling out that wad of bills.

Anonymous said...

The artist behind the packaging is Archer Prewitt who did the great alt comic Sof' Boy which you should definitely check out if you have the chance.