Pink Flamingo Passes Away
October 20th, 2006 at 4:37 am by Mark
Tags: death, history, humor, kitsch, parody, pink-flamingo, video
It’s time to bid a fond farewell to a favorite, formerly famous, front-yard fowl. Alas, the Pink Flamingo is no more, dead at a mere forty-nine years of age.
Union Products, of Leominster, Mass., has finally given up production of these unsightly eyesores due to financial problems.
According to the original article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, paid tribute to the infamous bird that has been immortalized everywhere — from the John Waters’ movie Pink Flamingos, to bachelor parties and lawns across America.
“Let’s face it,” he said. “As iconic emblems of kitsch, there are two pillars of cheesy, campyness in the American pantheon. One is the velvet Elvis. The other is the pink flamingo.”
The birth of the plastic pink flamingo in 1957 coincided with the booming interest in Florida, Thompson said, making it possible for those in other parts of the country to have a little piece of the Sunshine State’s mystique in their yard.
By the late ’70s, according to Thompson, the pink flamingo became a symbol of bad taste. It was considered trash culture and embraced by folks with a wise-guy attitude. They knew better (wink, wink) but embraced the iconic symbol anyway.
By the late ’80s and early ’90s, he said we learned to make fun of pop culture items such as the pink flamingo as well as appreciate them.
“The pink flamingo has gone from a piece of the Florida boom and Florida exotica to being a symbol of trash culture to now becoming a combination of all we know — kitsch, history, simplicity and elegance,” Thompson said.
Until recently, Mike Smollon was one of the folks who put the pink flamingo in the kitsch category.
But during a recent trip to Massachusetts, the Boynton Beach firefighter and battalion chief had an epiphany.
After reading a story in the Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Mass.) about the closing of the factory, he bought 12 pairs of flamingos.
“I never owned a pink flamingo before,” Smollon said. “To be honest, I used to think this was the kind of a thing only a girl would put in her yard. But when I found out the factory was closing, I thought this is something historical happening.”
Smollon went to the factory and bought 11 sets of pink flamingos and one set of the commemorative gold flamingos that were made for 2007, which would have been the bird’s 50th birthday. He plans to keep a few and give the rest to flamingo-loving friends.
Flamingo fever hit and he searched the Internet for Don Featherstone, the kitchy bird’s creator. When he learned that Featherstone lived only about five minutes from his hotel, he called him and asked if he could come over and get his photograph taken with him.
Not only did Featherstone and his wife, Nancy, come out of the house wearing matching pink shirts adored with green flamingos, the artist autographed two sets of flamingos. Smollon also bought a copy of Featherstone’s book, The Original Pink Flamingos: Splendor on the Grass (Schiffer Publishing, 1999), which he autographed for an extra $5.
After Smollon returned home, he bought a set of pink flamingos from the 1950s for $39 on eBay.
“Now I have one of the first sets made and one of the last sets made,” he said. “I have my own private collection.”
Of course, it’s lived a full life at only 49, growing from an Annoying Adornment to the King of Kitsch.
Don’t forget to check out the Mockumentary, “The Pink Flamingo: Ambassador of the American Lawn.”
