BABY GRUENWALD: Forever is a Long Time

“Fasten your diaper. It's going to be a leaky night.”

[babygruenwald]

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk beside me; I may swing my arms back and forth wildly. Maybe it’s best we just cancel all future walks?”

[babygruenwald]

Following the success of Universal’s Frankenstein in 1931 and its welcome follow-up Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, the series achieved true greatness with Nephew of Frankenstein (1937), in which adorable Baby Gruenwald  joined the cast.

When the fussy baby refused to sign on for a fourth picture, a chocolate lab named Atta Boy went on to star in Dog House of Frankenstein (1939), a beloved film which delivered the biggest box office of the entire series.

[babygruenwald]

“Baby Gruenwald and I had a complex relationship. He was many things to me - playpen confidant, life coach, co-owner of our Napa Valley winery. But he couldn’t be the one thing I needed most - a sassy black step-sister.”

- Strawberry Finch, former child star, excerpted from her autobiography, ‘Backlot Baby: Growing Up Crazy In The Warner Bros. Studio Nursery.’

[babygruenwald]

Directed by Michael Curtiz, Bucaneer Baby (1940) was a well-received remake of The Captain Was A Wee Tiny Baby (1933), which itself was a remake of the silent picture Pint-Sized Pirate of Tortuga (1913).

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Constructed out of old oatmeal boxes, chicken wire, and hamster bedding, this rather convincing replica of a type UE II mine-laying German submarine was built in 1919 by Famous Players-Lasky for their production of Hellbabies of the Navy, staring Baby Gruenwald as infamous U-boat commander Otto Steinbrinck.

A big success, Baby Gruenwald would go on to play Steinbrinck in two more motion pictures - Das Baby and Up Periscope, Down Comforter.

After production ended on the third film, the giant hulk was left to languish on the warm sands of Huntington Beach, where it remained, in an ever advancing state of decay, until 1978.

[babygruenwald]

“A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by the shapeliness of its aortic trunk,” said Baby Gruenwald in his address before the Heart Valve Society at its Annual Meeting ‘Cardiology at Cancun’  (February 22, 2017 - February 26, 2017).

[babygruenwald]

Vintage photo from 1924 of a boy paying his respects at the Baby Gruenwald Death Museum several years after its opening in Washington, D.C.’s historic Dupont Circle district.

There seems to be some debate as to whether Baby Gruenwald died or not in a suite of rooms in D.C.’s Mundeem Building on May 15, 1922.

If he in fact did die, he didn’t stay dead for long, appearing later that week at the release party for Babe Ruth’s signature candy bar: Choco Bambino Ball Yard Clusters.

Fun Fact: The phrase “Roaring Twenties” is a misnomer, as the popular era continued well into the 1930s.

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Postcard from the 1920s of Keggard “Keg” Hodd posed defiantly in the foam of the turbulent waters exiting the spillway of the Reynolds Dam in Mankato, Minnesota.

Hodd held the respected position of Senior Chief Froth Mawk Geen at the Reynolds Dam (previously known as the Rapidan Dam) from the dam’s completion in 1910 until Hodd’s forced retirement in 1986, when all froth demons punching the clock at dams controlled by the Albannach Water Authority were made redundant.

[babygruenwald]

An enthusiastic Baby Gruenwald in a magazine ad touting the Times Square ball drop welcoming 1956, hosted by the CBS television network and bandleader Guy Lombardo.

Gruenwald was the official Times Square New Year’s Baby for 30 years, having replaced Baby Bibsey after he was hurt in a mysterious on-set pyrotechnics mishap.

Baby Gruenwald loved portraying the symbol of hope, renewal, and rebirth, but was forced to resign in 1958, as people were starting to get “creeped out,” not getting the whole “forever baby” thing.

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Rare American postcard from 1926 utilizing special Chinese inks which never fully dry, producing a tacky feeling on one’s fingertips while giving off a faint odor which has been compared to the smell of Carmelite nuns on holiday.

Besides the marvelous view down Merrimac Ave. toward Winslow Park, an observant “postcarder” may notice the famous Crater Bay pterodactylus, Bernadette, as she stalks her prey - usually a momentarily unattended infant or a club-footed, underfed newsie.

[babygruenwald]

As there were not enough jobs picking cherries for every itinerant spiny-headed demon flocking into town for picking season, the Dewey, Michigan Chamber of Commerce ran a lottery before issuing employment permits to the lucky few, which explains the sign directed at spiny-headed demons in this photo from 1934.

Seventy-five percent of the tart cherries and 20 percent of the sweet cherries grown annually in the United States come from Michigan, and of that, eighty-five percent are picked by spiny-headed or duck-billed demons.

In order to ensure the outcome of the Hen’s Tooth Prophecy, Baby Gruenwald always employs at least one spiny-headed demon among the laundry staff at Gruenfair (the Gruenwald mansion) in Southern California.

[babygruenwald]

Photograph from 1934 of Owen’s Bar & Shvitz in Cider Grove, Washington, a sign in the window reading: NO BEER SOLD TO BABIES.

Though Prohibition ended in 1933 with the ratification of the  Twenty-first Amendment, through a quirk in the amendment’s abstruse wording, babies were still prohibited from drinking beer, though hard liquor and wine were allowed in moderation.

After intense pressure on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, a special session of Congress was called and the wording of the amendment fiddled into adjustment.

FUN FACT: Though Baby Gruenwald has never purposefully consumed alcoholic libations, he was once plied with a thimbleful of mulled wine by kidnappers to make him more compliant.

[babygruenwald]

Photo from 1963 of Lockheed Martin’s top secret two-man rocket propulsion platform dubbed POGO (after the pogo stick), taken surreptitiously during a test run at the Sonoran Desert advanced development facility known as the Funk Works because of the extreme funkiness of the old, dated and notoriously smelly facility.

So taken was Baby Gruenwald by a demonstration of the device that he approached key members of the design team and had them build him his own version on weekends, a device he dubbed the Jolly Jumper (after the popular infant exercise apparatus).

Sadly, the iconic baby crashed the vehicle catastrophically in 1965 during its first untethered test flight, at the same time destroying the giant geodesic dome being built for the American Pavilion of the 1967 World’s Fair.

[babygruenwald]

Poster for MGM’s Big Parade of Old Clips (1964), with a roster of over 50 MGM stars of the silver screen, only a small percentage of whom were dead at the time of release. Later, many more would die.

[babygruenwald]

Starting in the mid-1950s, the decorporealized spirit of Mexican hero Emiliano Zapata Salazar (1879 to 1919) has haunted this Sherman Oaks home in the San Fernando Valley.

Recent owners of the charming Corona Blvd. house report that appearances of the Mexican Revolutionary hero are preceded by a sudden gust of menthol and eucalyptus scented air likened to that of a Fisherman’s Friend throat and chest lozenge.

Additionally, small, brown, crumpled, paper packets unique to that lozenge brand have been found discarded randomly about the Sherman Oaks property.

FUN FACT: Baby Gruenwald used to foolishly say that Emiliano Zapata Salazar was his third favorite Mexican Revolutionary hero, after Francisco “Pancho” Villa and the Frito Bandito, but has since learned to keep such thoughts to himself.

[babygruenwald]

Vintage postcard of the Tudor Revival style, West Hollywood cottage of Thomas Honeyeater, the last of Baby Gruenwald’s court appointed nannies, and so far his only male kindermädchen.

Often confused for an ademonium demon, Thomas Honeyeater is a rare red warrent who has undergone both an ear clipping and a tail docking.

Having sold this half-timbered and high-peaked cottage to heavy metal “shock rocker” Alice Cooper in the 1970s, Honeyeater has recently returned to the west coast, where he is currently inhabiting a haunted wishing well in the Napa Valley until the remodeling on his Rancho Santa Fe, California home is completed in the spring.

[babygruenwald]

Typical home, Bourbon Caves, Kentucky, complete with threat to itinerant kittens.

Though largely cherished and cuddled in nearby Sour Mash, Tennessee and Bowling Shoe, Kentucky, kittens didn’t get much love in Bourbon Caves, where children learned from an early age that kittens fed from Satan’s table, danced to the tune of Baphomet’s fiddle, and sharpened their claws on the legs of Moloch‘s wall-proximity Barcalounger.