Welcome To The Plus Up

Kelly 0:14

Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Hey Pete. Hello.

Kelly 0:57

What are we talking about today?

Meet The Randotti Skulls

Tiki Chalkware Enters Disneyland

Pete 1:01

Well, we're going to do this little shorty short on uh a piece of merchandise at Disneyland that I have a very strong affinity to. Uh-huh. It's what it is, I still own every single one of these things that I ever bought at Disneyland. Some people think of like merchandise, they think of, oh, these this plastic collectible or this particular thing. But there was a time at Disneyland where you would have outside vendors providing merchandise. And this included the Davy Crockett hat, the infamous Davy Crockett Coonskin hat. Yeah. You had uh the cap guns also in from Frontierland, the rifle and the little they were flint locks, they weren't really Western, but they also sold like hop along Cassidy cap guns to fit in with the more Frontierland look. Yeah. But this particular piece of merchandise was probably the closest thing that anybody ever had at Disneyland for a bludgeoning weapon. I'm talking about Randotti skulls. Randotti skulls. Randotti skulls. So they do not sell them anymore. Yeah. More is the pity. Yeah. The family that used to produce them because it was a family-run operation. Right. It was a husband and wife team, Randy and Dottie Smith. And you combine their first names and you get Randotti. Yeah. So the Randotti uh were originally uh introduced to Disneyland in the 1950s, late 50s. Yeah. They were uh experimenters of what's called chalkware. And chalkware is a special type of plaster casting that you paint on top of. Yeah. So you have it's almost like a stone, but it's just plaster with an enamel coating on the outside of it. Right. So it's not quite like a tiki mug where it's ceramic, but it's been fired in a kiln. It is a kilnless form, uh, so you can mass produce these things. Yeah. And when they first started, it was to capitalize on Adventureland. Yeah. And what they did originally was little tiki necklaces. Yeah. That's how it started because it was kicking in with the tiki motif. Uh-huh. So uh originally they did tiki idols. Yeah. Because they had gone to Hawaii. They were like, we got to bring this to Disneyland, we can mass produce them. And so they would paint them kind of with a brown enamel, and then they did kind of what's called a wash, which brings out all the little finer details on them. And they sent these off to Walt, who was still in charge of, you know, getting the marketing and the concessions set up for Disneyland. Yeah. And he loved it. And he started selling Randatti tiki necklaces and idols at Disneyland. So what what year would this been have been? Probably 58. Okay. Something like that. All right. So it I mean the park had been around for a while already, but like the they came in right near the end of it.

Kelly 3:51

Yeah, so like like they'd kicked C V Wood out, and at that point Walt was probably more directly involved with that sort of thing coming in.

Hot Rod Culture And Shrunken Heads

Pete 3:59

Yeah. Yeah. Um they were all of these skulls would mostly be sold in only three places. You could find them only three places in Disneyland. One was at Adventureland, obviously. Usually at Trader Sam's, sometimes uh there used to be a Trader Sam's, it's now like a snack bar. It's in this, it's right in front of the jungle crews, and it's got like this overhang. And they usually, this is where you could buy pickles, yeah, yeah, yeah. There, the uh the infamous glass elephant is right above it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but there used to be a cart that was an old an old truck, uh-huh. And they would, you know, sell these things. They would also sell rubber snakes and rubber gorillas and things like that, and you would be able to buy all these tiki idols. And then somebody said well, the the the main thing that had happened was the hot rod industry had kicked in. Oh, okay. The hot rod industry kicked in, and everybody was interested in the darker side of and frankly, the more anglicized and wilder side of tiki culture. Yeah, yeah. Shrunken heads. Right. And so this was also the monster kid craze was kicking in of the 50s and 60s. Right. And so people wanted shrunken heads, and so uh Randy and Dottie made a mold of a small skull, yeah, and they found a way how to glue hair onto it. You could get it in white, uh-huh, bright neon green, yeah, or black. Yeah. And they would string a piece of hemp cord through the top of it, and you could hang it off of your uh dashboard window, uh, your mirror, yeah, and and have that swinging in your hot rod. Uh and eventually people said, Well, I don't like that, but do you have any other skulls for like Halloween? So they made another small one. There was one that was just smooth, it had normal skull-like feature. Another one had a tarantula on the top of his head. Yeah. And they were they were handmade, yeah. They were hand sculpted, hand molded, yeah, and painted by the family in Orange County. Yeah. And eventually the kids took on the business as well. Did they sell them anywhere else? They sold them also, uh, along with Adventureland, you could also get them at uh the Pirates of the Caribbean area, pieces of eight.

Kelly 6:12

Yeah, but did they sell them anywhere outside of Disneyland?

Pete 6:15

You could order them through catalog. There were some other theme parks, most notably Knott's Berry Farm. Mm-hmm. Also, they would sell them. Yeah. Mostly the Western, and in order to keep with the Western theme, they were mostly selling standard skulls because they have the rotted skull where the teeth are all grody and it was kind of a medium size. And then they had the full-on, beautiful, um, well-crafted skull. Yeah. And um they also made one with an eye patch. Yeah. Uh, and they also made teeny weeny, they all call them teeny peats, these tiny little, these tiny little skulls you can wear as a necklace, too. Yeah. So skulls were the thing, Randatti skulls. Right. The thing that made them so unique is the fact that they were all hand-dipped and painted in glow in the dark paint. Oh, huh. Okay. And boy, howdy, did these things glow in the dark. Yeah. I mean, wow. If you took your Randotti skull into the haunted mansion, and you've got all the black lights in there.

Kelly 7:20

Right. Oh, they must have gone crazy.

Why They Glow So Bright

Pete 7:21

Oh, they were, and they would, they would last. That glow would last. Yeah. You know, and it would absorb the sunlight and it would just be glowing in any dark area. And it was super bright. Yeah. I own a collection of Randotti skulls. Uh-huh. Um, I've got one of I've got two, two or three duplicates, but I own a lot of these things. Yeah. Um, and they still glow like crazy. And I bought them in the early late 70s, early 80s. Yeah. So they sold them for a while. Oh, for a long period of time. Yeah. And uh they were anytime my parents or my grandparents would take me to Disneyland, I didn't want it, I didn't want a Mickey hat. I didn't want I I really didn't. I never wanted a Mickey hat. Yeah. I wanted a Donald Duck hat with five. Cool, because they would they would squeak. Yeah. But they never lasted. Yeah. But I wanted Randotti skulls. Yeah. So I would always walk out with this big heavy bag down Main Street with my Randy, and I was happy as a clam. This was the only place that I knew of where you could get them. Yeah. So I call them Disney skulls when I was, it wasn't until later I learned the the Randotti secret. Yeah. So do you know how far back, speaking of the glow in the dark thing, do you know how far back glow in the dark paint goes? No. The earliest investigations into glow in the dark paint go as far back as 1603 with an Italian alchemist named Vincenzo Cascarillo. And he discovered that heating barium sulfate created a so, first off, barium. Right, yeah. Doesn't sound great for you. No, it's really not good for you. But if you heat it, it creates a material that exhibited a bluish glow after exposure to sunlight. That's called radiation. Yeah, yeah. Just so you know. Yes, it is. Um not all radiation is harmful. Yeah, no, but you gotta be careful. Yeah. And and this particular experimentation lasted until the 1890s. Yeah. Where glow-in-the-dark paints were were being produced using barium. Huh. So original glow-in-the-dark paint was actually blue, not the classic green that we know. Yeah. It was much more concentrated, and so it was a much brighter glow. Right. Then around this time, 1908, Dr. Sabine Arnold von Schotchke invented radioluminescent paint, aka radium paint. Oh dear. Radium 226 zinc sulfide. It's a permanent self-luminescent green glow. Yeah. This is also the hazards of the women who would paint clock faces and clock dials who became known as radium girls because they would glow in the dark because they were exposed to so much radium dust and paint. Yeah. This went into, especially in the 1970s, 1920s, this is when it really came to fruition.

Kelly 10:09

There's some friends of ours that are in a band in New York, uh, Charming Disaster, just did an entire album about Mary Curie called Our Lady of Radium.

Pete 10:18

Nice. Yeah, that's really cool.

Kelly 10:20

Good record.

Haunted Mansion Tombstones And More

Pete 10:21

And uh we talked m much earlier, I think it was for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. We talked about the brothers Robert and Joseph Switzer, who created Day Glow Paint. Yeah. Um, which also glows under black light, but not in the dark. You know, that's that's in the 1930s. Yeah. And there was a shift in safety procedures. So due to the health risks, radium was phased out of most glow-in-the-dark paints, yeah, with safety regulations tightening, um, and they would use a lot different. So they used photoluminescent paints, uh, they used doped strontium illuminate, which is what we use now for glow-in-the-dark paints, which is much safer. That being said, yeah, parents who were giving their kids Randatti skulls before 1968 are probably irradiating their little boomer, baby boomer kids. Oh no, because they still glow. I have one from 1962. I know because it had the price tag still on it. Oh, wow. A whopping$1.50 for a full-size Randotti skull. That's cool. And it glows like an MFR. Yeah. And uh I keep it in the garage. Yeah. Because I don't want it in my house. Because it's probably got radium paint on it. Indeed. And these uh there was another thing that the Randottis produce. Oh, and the third place, by the way, I should mention where you could get it, is the magic shop. Oh, yeah, okay. They used to there's great photographs in which uh with Steve Martin performing magic in the magic shop on Main Street, right, and you can see a whole row of Randotti skulls right behind him. Yeah. Along with Don Po studio monster masks. Oh, neat. That they would sell at the park. Yeah. So anyway, um, there was another product that they made, which was actually very, very clever, and this was to capitalize on the opening of the haunted mansion. They produced blank tombstones. Oh, okay. And they glowed in the dark, obviously. And you would go into either pieces of eight or there was another shop nearby. Yeah. Uh that was around the car. It was, it was pretty, I think it was pretty much where uh Le Bet en Rouge is now. And you could walk in and a cast member, you would buy, they have like I think they had seven or eight designs. Yeah. You'd pick one, and then the cast member say, What name do you want on your tombstone? And they would hand paint your tombstone. Oh, neat. So you could go and give somebody their tombstone after visiting the haunted mansion.

Kelly 12:58

Like I can see how that might be threatening.

Disappearance And Collector Lore

Pete 13:01

A little bit, you know. But the the the implication it was you're you that you were the thousandth ghost. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You were the nine one thousandth happy haunt. So um, so these were very, very clever. Yeah. And they kept producing them, even though uh they produced them well into the mid-80s. Right. And roughly about the time uh with our recent episode about Indiana Jones, yeah, the Indiana Jones ride, roughly about the time when they start revitalizing Adventureland, that's pretty much when the Randatti skull disappears, is the early, early 90s. Uh-like 919. Did they just go out of business? They were just getting old. They had been doing it for so long. Um, and they just and they weren't selling as well. They were kind of an oddity item. Right. The tiki culture had gone away, the pirate culture wasn't really what we knew it today. Yeah. I mean, if they were selling them now, they would be all over. Oh, yeah, it would have come back strong. Yeah. Yeah. And plus, I'm sure the park had had enough complaints of parents going, Yeah, so I bought this for my son and he hit his little sister with it. Oh, yeah.

Kelly 14:05

You know, because like I said, you're gonna say I bought this for my son, now he has a second head.

Pete 14:09

Yeah, I said, yeah, it's a blunction tool. Yeah. You know, so the Randatti Corporation eventually went out in the in the late 80s. Uh their son continued the legacy of it, but he was he had other, you know, he was maintaining the legacy, but he wasn't really doing much else. Yeah. Uh he would do reenactment as a snake oil salesman, uh, Civil War reenactments and that kind of stuff. And he maintained a website for a while and then everything vanished. He just vanished off the face of the earth. Okay. And there are YouTube videos that talk about the history ad nauseum about Randatti skulls. Yeah. Um, but they are very, very collectible. Oh. The main reason is because they're very fragile. Yeah. Chalkware doesn't survive a lot of jostling or falling off of shelves. They crack, they break, the uh glow-in-the-dark paint fragments and falls off. Right. The hair gets on the shrunken heads, gets tangled. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, they don't they don't last for too long. And so the Randatti skull has become more of a legend than a piece of merchandise that is still out there. There are some people who have made molds of them and have sold them at at Disney nostalgia cons. But it's not the same thing. It's not the same because they're usually resin. Yeah. And they might add glow and the dark paint into the resin. Yeah. But there's nothing like holding that big, substantial just chunk. The Randotti, the full-size Randotti skull is like three pounds. Wow. It's hefty. Yeah. Because you know, and the shrunken head was massive. I mean, it was just this I mean, for a shrunken head. Right. This but this long tangle of black hair, you know, sticking out of it. And it wasn't like a normal shrunken head with the sewn lips. It was just a regular Randotti skull with hair glued on it. Right. And for a while they were also, they they wound up with a supplier of fake gemstones that they would glue into the eye sockets and stuff. Oh, that's awesome. They were okay. But yeah, the Randotti skull is is a legendary piece that uh I I thought deserved a little bit of a mention.

Kelly 16:15

Yeah.

Pete 16:16

But uh isn't it?

Kelly 16:18

That's so cool. I I gotta next time I'm over your place, you gotta show me some of them.

Pete 16:21

I'll I'll I'll I'll grab my uh my skull uh coffin and I'll bring them out for you. I mean, that's the only piece of merchandise I don't really have. And like the most collectible items are the the name tombstones. Yeah. Because they were very, very fragile. Yeah. Most people didn't really keep them or didn't think to keep them. Yeah. But they are out there. Uh but they they tend to be the most expensive of the Randotti staple, especially ones without a name on them. Yeah. You know, blank tombstones are very hard to find, but they're worth it. And uh, if you are a fan of Adventureland or Friend of Pirates of the Caribbean, yeah, and you want to show off, if you're a Disney adult and you really want to do this, yeah, go on eBay and get your hands on a Randotti skull. It's it's worth every penny because these things are so, so cool. Just be aware, they really do glow a lot. Yeah. Like you turn off the light, they are a night light. Yay, radium.

Kelly 17:16

Well, Randottis, we salute you.

Where To Find Them Now

Pete 17:18

We salute you. Anyway, that's our shorty short for today. I'm Peter Overstreet. I'm Kelly McGovern. And you're listening to The Lowdown on the Plus Up.

Kelly 17:31

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I on our Lowdown on the Plus Up Facebook group or send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

And there be plundering pirates lurking in every cold, waiting to board. Set closer together, and keep your ruddy hands in board. That'd be the best way to repel order. And mark well me words, lady. Dead men tell no day.