Tank of Gas: Bay Area Museums

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Offbeat Trips for Eggheads

By Janis Dice

Are you in love with someone who values the odd, the offbeat, the eccentric? Are you looking for something to stimulate the mind of your beloved, rather than appealing solely to the romantic, olfactory, erotic or gustatory?     In that case, how about a trip to one of the strange and unique museums that dot the northern California landscape? Not surprisingly for a region that once had the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum housed in the old Sutro Baths building at the north end of Ocean Beach, the Bay Area is home to a group of arcane attractions. Take your inamorata on a day trip, and get your heads together. 

PEZ Power
A few miles south of San Francisco International, the PEZ museum venerates the Austrian-based candy and its kitschy character-topped dispensers. The name is an acronym for the Austrian word for peppermint: pfefferminz. Collector and curator Gary Doss vibrates with enthusiasm as visitors peruse the overstuffed gift shop or tour the back-room museum. The rarest piece in the collection is the create-a-face PEZ. Produced in 1972, and recalled immediately due to choking dangers, the sealed kit is one of only 25 in the world, Doss says, and valued at $5,000.
    Doss and his wife, Nancy, became obsessed after spotting PEZ at an antiques mart 15 years ago.
    “We thought, what a strange thing to collect, but it appealed to our wacky senses of humor.”
    PEZ has been part of the American ethos since 1950, when a handy dispenser first accompanied the candies. The pop-top plastic toys graced a cover of Forbes magazine a few years back, illustrating an article on collectibles. And the “Seinfeld” episode featuring a dancing Tweety Bird dispenser that sent Elaine into hysterical giggles was declared TV Guide’s 42nd-funniest moment in TV history.
    Last year, the Dosses commissioned the world’s largest PEZ dispenser. Nearly 8 feet tall, their 85-pound snowman soon may be included in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Coin-Operated Art
How about crab and craziness? Take your Valentine to Fisherman’s Wharf, and, after buying a sidewalk treat, wander over to the Musee Mecanique, where the art and artistry of coin-operated entertainment is on display. Wedged between Alioto’s, the landmark restaurant, and the pier where the USS Pampanito, a submarine-turned-museum, is permanently docked, this gallery offers 200 mechanical playthings for true hands-on amusement.
    The late Edward Zelinsky started collecting magical, mystical, sometimes macabre machinery at age 11. His son, Dan Zelinsky, continues the legacy, adding to the set and constructing replacement parts for devices such as the Praxinoscope, Zoetrope and Mutoscope, animation apparatuses that were cutting-edge technologies when Grover Cleveland was president.
    There is no admission fee for the Musee Mecanique; donations are the coins tourists feed the contraptions. Pop a quarter in one wooden box, and a risqué scene of a woman disrobing flips past. Fill the plunger in another to witness an execution, complete with last rites. For two bits, the Opium Den reveals the smokers’ hidden stash.
    Laffing Sal, the animated sentry outside the Funhouse at the defunct Playland at the Beach amusement park, now stands encased in glass by the museum entry. The colossal doll’s recorded belly laughs still generate equal amounts of dread and delight.
    There are Love Meters, Gypsy Fortunetellers, hand-cranked horse racers, antique music boxes, photo booths, Skee Bowl alleys and electronic arcade games that reach across the generations to tug at threads of memory.
    Two older gentlemen wrestle with a strength gauge called The Hammer, laughing like little boys. A 20-something dad points out a Pac Man game to his toddler, boasting of his prowess when he was a lad. Even visitors who don’t speak English are visibly enjoying themselves. Laughter translates easily, Zelinsky says. “That’s why working here is just too much fun.”

Cartoon Crazies
Across town, near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Moscone Convention Center, the Cartoon Art Museum demonstrates the evolution of this art form. Interconnected galleries showcase the creations of noted illustrators, cartoonists and animators, with more than 6,000 archived pieces of original graphic art.
“Many of these cartoons and comics are out of print, so you wouldn’t otherwise get the opportunity to see them,” says Summerlea Kashar, assistant director of the gallery.
    San Francisco has a long tradition of cartooning. After all, Charles Schulz, creator of “Peanuts,” had his studio near North Beach for years. The area has hosted a long string of other cartoonists, as well: Alex Anderson and Jay Ward, creators of “Crusader Rabbit” cartoons, had offices in San Francisco in the 1950s. Underground comics and the hippie counterculture converged here in the 1960s, with cartoonists like Robert “R.” Crumb swimming against the mainstream current while encouraging youth to “Keep on Truckin’.” More recently, “Zippie the Pinhead’s” creator, Bill Griffith, lives in San Francisco, and Dale Messick, the creator of “Brenda Starr” and arguably the most successful female cartoonist (certainly the only one whose strip was made into a movie) also lived in Northern California.
    The current exhibit of rejected submissions to The New Yorker magazine reveals modern political, sexual and social mores in single-frame cartoons considered too crude, controversial or unfunny for publication. Another exhibit covers 100 years of illustrations for children’s books; from sweetly whimsical to grossly grotesque. Concept sketches, storyboards and completed cels expose the techniques of animated art, “which is great for other artists,” Kashar says. “Here, they can see the processes behind the finished product.”
    There is a watercolor drawing done in 1904 by Sidney De La Bere for “Gulliver’s Travels”; Walt Kelley’s ink on paper illustration of Alice in Wonderland from 1955; Gil Kane’s cover of Superman #386 from 1983. “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Dennis the Menace,” “Flash Gordon,” “The Little Mermaid” and “The Simpsons” decorate the sleek walls.
    Available for private events, the gallery is a witty locale for hosting a business presentation or company function. 

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More Eccentric Outings

Cowboy Museum: Oakdale; preserves history of rodeo and ranch life; (209) 847-5163

Museum of Quilts and Textiles: San Jose; displays craft and history of textile art; (408) 971-0323

Rosicrucian Museum and Planetarium: San Jose; specializes in Egyptian artifacts; (408) 947-3636

Western Railway Museum: Suisun; has electric trolleycars from San Francisco and Oakland and has trips into the countryside; (707) 374-2978

Museum of Vertebrate Zoology: Berkeley; learn about animals with spines — reptiles, birds, mammals, and amphibians — at the UC Berkeley associated museum; (510) 642-3567

Charles M. Schulz Museum: Santa Rosa; check out highlights of the works and life of the famed “Peanuts” artist; (707) 579-4452
 
Cable Car Museum: San Francisco; in an old cable-car-barn and warehouse on Mason and Washington streets, this gem features original cars from the city’s first cable car company, in addition to information on the 1980s revitalization efforts that brought the city’s icons back into commission; (415) 474-1887 

California State Mining and Mineral Museum: Mariposa; at the site of the famous Mariposa Vein, founded by John Frémont and Kit Carson, this museum is at the first mill used to extract gold from the Sierra Nevada; (209) 742-7625

El Dorado County Historical Museum: Placerville; explore the development of El Dorado County from its original inhabitants — Maidu, Miwok and Washoe Indians — through the Gold Rush and into today; (530) 621-5865

Aerospace Museum of California: McClellan Park, Sacramento; with more than two dozen airplanes and Charlie 7, a retired USAF Search and Rescue Vehicle, this educational museum wows visitors with unique pieces of Air Force history; (916) 643-3192

Copia: American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts: Napa; Copia puts a classic Napa twist on the generic museum experience with daily wine classes, trips through facility gardens, fine cuisine, and food/wine-themed art exhibits; (888) 512-6742

Turtle Bay Exploration Park and Museum: Redding; this 300-acre learning facility includes exhibits on art, history and nature, with sensational river-level aquarium and the Sundial Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in 2004; (800) 887-8532

Empire Mines State Historic Park: Grass Valley; take a tour through the homes, gardens and mines that supported one of California’s oldest and largest gold mines — before ceasing operation in 1956, this mine produced more than 5.6 million ounces of gold; (530) 273-8522

USS Hornet Museum: Alameda; step aboard and onto a piece of naval history — this ship, the eighth since 1775 to carry the name, carried soldiers in the Pacific during WWII and helped rescue returning astronauts of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 moon missions; (510) 521-8448

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