By Mack Williams
For the Salisbury Post
The other day, I was walking past the toy section of a local department store and spotted a toy that brought back some good memories of when I was a child: Mr. Potato Head.
Sometimes, children take a more literal, simpler approach to toys than that of the manufacturer’s intention or instruction (such instruction always included in a small booklet). This was the case with me when it came to that iconic toy of childhood. The same could also be said for my approach to the old children’s television show, “Winky Dink.”
My parents presented me with a Mr. Potato Head, but with a child’s creativity, variations upon the toy manufacturer’s guidelines for the product were liable to occur. The openings for the attachments on the plastic, purchased Mr. Potato Head are static, unchanging. The places for the affixing of facial parts, arms and feet are always in the same relation to each other. Even though these alloted places never change, a casting-of-chance-to-the-wind assembly of the small pile of mixed-up attachments could end up with strange results i.e., an eye for an ear, an ear for an eye, etc.
Desiring to remove all authoritarian constraints from the assembly of my Mr. Potato Head, I took it to heart that his very nature should equal that of his name. Instead of using the factory-produced “mannequin” (or should I say “potatoquin” since a “mannequin” is the faux representation of a species of two-legged fauna, rather than that of a tuber), I decided to create my Mr. Potato Head from the contents of a burlap sack in our pantry.
On a factory-produced Mr. Potato Head, and with chance, some unconventional placings of nose, eyes, ears, eyebrows, etc. are possible. With my use of the actual thing, however, some of my chosen specimens were already growing a few “eyes” of their own, and in unconventional places.
When I tired of my potato, I returned the spud to the burlap sack from which it had come. After several repetitions of my creativity with a number of potatoes, I received a definitely negative response from my parents. That response was inspired by an earthy, rotten smell (as only damaged potatoes and time can produce) effusing from our curtained pantry. Such a response put an end to my own particular variety of “potato play.”
Concerning “Winky Dink,” it was a popular children’s television cartoon from 1953-57. It differed from all of the others in that it possessed an “interactive” nature. When parents ordered the Winky Dink Kit through the mail, the child could feel like he had a part in the program (even though he really didn’t).
Winky Dink often found himself getting into situations of being trapped, in which the children at home were called upon to construct an exit from his predicament. The “voice” of the program would implore the child to draw many things. At this late date, and to the best of my memory, I seem to remember drawing an elevator (a square), a balloon (a circle), or connecting a series of dots, either of which would carry Winky Dink away from danger.
I made an earlier parenthetical statement a couple of paragraphs back about the viewing child not really having a part in the “Winky Dink” program, despite his feeling to the contrary. The reason for this was that no matter how poorly home-drawn Winky Dink’s elevator or balloon were (or if they were even drawn at all), the producers of the show were not about to let him perish from any of the dangerous situations in which he became involved.
Imagine a different scenario for a young viewer of “Winky Dink” back then. Consider the possibility of your drawing of Winky Dink’s means of escape not being up to par artistically, even quite poorly done. Then, imagine the screen’s instant fading to black upon the completion of your incompetent scribble, after which a list of proper nouns began to scroll upon the screen, prefaced by the statement: “Due to the poorly drawn, inadequate means for Winky Dink’s rescue, he plunged to his death,” or “was squashed” (as Mr. Bill would be on many future occasions, but alas, there would be no one coming to his aid ). Continuing: “The following is a list of children who, by their gross inattention to detail, brought about the disastrous event which led to Winky Dink’s untimely demise.” After that, imagine that you spot your name in that spelled-out, rogues gallery of personal pronouns. This would have been true interactiveness, but possibly more than desired.
In my similarly “more direct” approach to things, (as with Mr. Potato Head) I didn’t wait for the Winky Dink Kit (in fact, I don’t believe that it was ever even ordered). If it had been ordered, and received, I would have had a clear plastic shield to place over the television screen, upon which to draw my crayon-crafted squares and circles to effect Winky Dink’s rescue from peril. Instead, I picked up my crayons and wrote on the actual TV tube itself (as did thousands of other children back then), to the admonishment of my mother (an admonishment, I am sure, made similarly by the mothers of those thousands, as well). Afterwards, she got out the bottle of Windex and rubbed away my crayoned blueprint for Winky Dink’s temporal salvation.
Looking back on my recreation with the potato, as well as my cathode-ray inspired drawings of squares, circles, etc., I realize that Mr. Potato Head was pure play, but I suspect that in the case of Winky Dink, the ulterior, educational motive of “geometry” may have been present.