Didn't Take a Lickin'

A strange memory came back to me when I was emailing someone a corporate logo they couldn't find -- she is a graphic artist I know through my neighbor, Cross-Eyed Julie (who gave herself this politically incorrect nickname). I joked in the email, "...how would you like a big shiny new logo? And that reminded me of "How'd you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?"

Punchy was and is this little guy who sells this fruit punch, mostly to kids. He first appeared in a TV commercial in 1962, the year I was born, punching out a stupid, content guy known as Opie or Oaf, who was dressed like a stereotypical tourist, but with no camera. What this violence had to do with a fruit juice I don't know.

My earliest memory of Punchy was the way he walked along, singing, "Hmmm hmmm hmm, fruit juicy..." He had a shirt on like a psychedelic referee and things on his head that to my kid eyes looked like sticks or antlers (which are actually a straw hat -- remember, he sells Hawaiian Punch). He comes up to Opie, and my little self assumed this fellow had a flowered shirt on because he was visiting Hawaii. Punchy offers his punch and then knocks the guy on his butt. A rather aggressive cartoon, I think now, watching it on YouTube.

And this happened repeatedly, until the late 1970s or early '80s, when someone must have assumed Punchy was too violent to sell soft drinks to little kids. On Yo

uTube there is a rather expensive looking commercial for Hawaiian Punch that is all live action and sailing the South Pacific. Punchy didn't return until the 1990s. The rights to the drink passed through about a half dozen companies, until Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Inc. got it a few years ago.

I drank that stuff a lot, along with way too much Kool-Aid. I thought it was 1970, but it could have been 1971 (when it happened was the year I was in third grade, anyway), that I saw an ad on TV for a Punchy wristwatch and asked my mom to send in for it. She did, and I waited what seemed an eternity before it came in the mail.

I felt so grown up! I had my own wristwatch, just like an adult, or at least a bigger kid. It had this extremely wide vinyl

strap, which was the style in those days. The watch's face was white, with a smirky Punchy upon it, and his arms serving as the hands of the watch, much like the Mickey Mouse watches sold to this day. One hand held his beloved Hawaiian Punch. I duly noted that it had a "Swiss made" movement, but that the watch itself was assembled in Hong Kong, which along with Taiwan, was the place for cheap labor before we restored relations with mainland China.

Never mind that the plastic watch band made my wrist sweat and started to smell after a while, or that it just felt heavy and started to numb my skinny little arm, I had a real watch.

That is, until I dropped it one day, and the glass crystal broke off.

My mother scolded the hell out of me, and though I begged my dad, he refused to glue the crystal back on, claiming there was no way to do so. I continued to wear the watch and wind it, but one day I twisted the stem too far and locked it up. It then completely stopped working. Several months after that, the minute hand fell off.

I remember removing the watch from its ugly plastic band at this point and tying it by some string to my umbrella as a charm. (I think I was kind of a weird kid.) My umbrella at the time was this clear plastic thing with pink edging and drawings of little girls on each panel. I think it was made in Taiwan. Like I said, all the cheap crap parents bought for their kids up until about 1980 came from there or Hong Kong. It was second only to the "bubble" umbrella I got around 9 or 10 as my favorite umbrella. I loved running around in the rain in the summer when I was a kid.

Because I broke the Punchy watch, in the eyes of my mother I paid for this sin for years. My mom flat out refused to get me another watch for something like five years or something. Yes, not until eighth grade or so did I finally get the covenience of time on my wrist. I received some cheap generic Timex thing that I don't even remember anymore. There was never anything like the Punchy watch ever in my life again, except maybe the Mickey Mouse watch I bought myself around age 32 -- which did have his arms as the hands.

Today the Punchy watch sells for about 35 bucks on eBay, and sometimes as high as $85 on other collectibles sites. I also found another version with a yellow face that also dates to the 1970s. I have no desire to buy one today, as I like Punchy about as much as a skin rash, and prefer 100 percent juice products like Ocean Spray, not some sugary nonsense that rugrats drink.

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Rotten Apple of the Day: Today's slice from the Apple Cult comes not too far away from Taiwan or Hong Kong; that is, from Japan.

Some Mac Head farmer in the Land of the Rising Sun got some stickers of an iPod and and the Fruit Co. logo printed up and affixed them to some ripening Fuji apples. The result was these bushels of apples branded -- in the sense of both a marking and the name of a product -- with Apple. And here is the original story in Japanese, if you can read it. Get a load of the literal Apple iPod at the bottom of the page, as well as the "Apple Love" symbols.