Let’s be honest, America has been getting a bad rap around the world lately. Whether it’s the war on terror or the fact we are the only industrialized nation that hasn’t signed the Kyoto Protocol. So when I come across a story like this it reminds me why our country is great and why I am proud to be an American.
The secret is this: 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 of Chicago, is where springs were once manufactured and, later, Cracker Jack prizes.
Especially at a time when the American fake vomit business is not what it used to be: In the 1960s, upward of 60,000 fake vomits were produced annually. These days, Fun Inc. brews up the recipe only a few times a year, making around 7,000 latex barfs annually, as tourist gift shops and joke stores look overseas for cheaper versions (though for $15 a dozen wholesale, Fun Inc.’s prank puke is still a heck of a deal).
Still, Putnam proudly pointed out, “It’s the best vomit on the market.”
That’s right bitches, we have got the best fake vomit in the world. Sure the market might have fallen off a little since the fake vomit heyday of the 60’s but I am glad to hear that quality hasn’t suffered.
