Chicago's fake vomit industralists
Link (Thanks, John L!)It's the world capital of fake vomit, where it's still made the old-fashioned American way, ladle by ladle, formed and coagulated for the next generation of pranksters and troublemakers.
Helping put the ick in America since 1941, Fun Inc. is a repository of practical jokes, magic tricks and gag items -- from chattering teeth to hot pepper gum, oversize sunglasses to oversize toothbrushes to oversize anything. The building, near Grand and Major Avenues in the industrial Hansen Park neighborhood, is where springs were once manufactured and, later, Cracker Jack prizes...
The exact blend is a proprietary secret, but this much is revealed: Production of fake vomit begins with 55-gallon drums of natural latex, which resembles thick milk. Colored bits of foam the size of coarse bread crumbs are added: red, yellow, "natural," two shades of brown, but no green. "Too strong a color," Putnam said.
"It's kind of like Grandma's recipe," he observed. "A pinch of this, two shakes of that. You kind of know when it's right."
The slurry is then ladled onto one Teflon sheet.
The vomitmaster smooths the mixture with the back of the spoon, the way a short-order cook does with pancakes on the griddle. Depending on weather, season and humidity, the pools of fake vomit, 500 to a batch, take overnight to a day and a half to dry. Like snowflakes, no two fake vomits are ever alike, which in the world of manufactured practical jokes is a rare trait.
See also: Cheap Laffs: the history of the gag
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The practical-joke industry also has a dark side, as evidenced by the trials and tribulations of Stinky Brumbles:
http://electricstorytime.blogspot.com/2006/09/this-is-no-joke.html
I can still remember 40+ years ago (2nd grade IIRC), we had gone on our summer trip to go see my aunts and uncles in Illinois, and we had just gotten a new teal nylon couch (my mother was big into green), and we still had the plastic on it. Our "friends" who were supposed to be looking after the house were quite the pranksters, they threw our newspapers in the fridge, short sheeted the house, but the worst thing was that my mom found that the cat had puked on her brand new couch. She got a pan and a pancake turner to clean the mess up (I would've just used some paper towels, I clean up cat puke all the time now) and found out that it came off in one piece.
Yep, it was fake puke! And it was the same stuff as you just listed. I haven't a clue as to who made it, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was Fun, Inc. I just checked, and yes, they did exist at that time (early 60's.).
I want to set up a mom and pop homemade novelty business. For real.
My brother studied to be a vomitologist, but they threw him up, er out.
You just can't keep him down.
Yeah, you can tell it's fake. Real puke always has jerrnals of corn in it. Even if you haven't eaten corn in months. It's a mystery of nature.
It's a Minkman!
Who sez nothing is made in the good ol' USA anymore?
The Chinese did not invent this stuff. Highly-crafted artificial vomit is as American as the.. hot dog.
Wow, I never noticed there was an [Ik] in "America".
I'm reminded of the scene in the Robin Williams movie Toys when they're working on new kinds of fake vomit, like the "Wolfgang Chuck" and the "Don Heave Ho."