Klutz Books

Have you ever longed to fashion your hair in a complicated four-strand fishtail braid? How about learning to juggle beanbags? Perhaps a strong desire to master the game of jacks? Or maybe you were just looking to learn some impressive cat's cradle party tricks? Whatever the highly esoteric interest, it seemed the ever-creative Klutz Press had a book for you. I'm not sure what level of mind-readers they employed throughout the 90s, but it seemed the moment I developed an interest in anything there they were were with a full-color how-to guide. Pretty good.

There was something that felt devilishly forbidden about selecting a book with toys, games, or tricks attached. It felt sort of like cheating. Our parents brought us to the bookstore in hopes of us developing a strong and complex love affair with classical literature, only to leave with a how-to book on cootie catchers complete with step-by-step instructions and origami paper.

The purchase wasn't a total loss--these interactive and highly durable books had the power to entertain us for hours. Some of them even managed to sneak in some science or math learned, though many of books are blissfully unrelated to anything remotely academic. Our parents were usually more than happy to sacrifice our potential intellectual growth for some much-needed quiet time. The pure level of focus and intensity with which these books consumed us were probably worth several times their $14.95 price tag. $14.95 is, after all, a small price to pay for an afternoon of activity fixation. It was by no means a permanent solution to our perpetual juvenile boredom, but the series developed enough kid-friendly titles to keep us sufficiently occupied for long stretches of time.

It's still tough for me to walk by a Klutz display in the children's section at Barnes and Noble without some tug of biblical-level covetousness. Maybe it's just the kid in me, but it feels like even my external adult wants some part in learning to wrap my hair in colorful embroidery floss patterns or cracking road trip boredom-curing brain teasers. Klutz Press has a little something for everyone; their how-to books have the power to convince us we can conquer any task or learn any skill...until we actually sit down and try, of course. It's often far too complicated. Regardless, at least they gave us the license to try. That's got to count for something, somewhere.

Klutz released dozens of interactive children's books throughout our childhood period, so it's nearly impossible to categorize all of the most memorable. We can look at a few examples here, but feel free to share your own favorites in the comments. Just because I never owned Klutz's Most Amazing Thumb Doodles Book doesn't mean it didn't have a disproportionately profound impact on your growth and development.

Jacks
Some of these were just masquerading as books; they hadn't truly earned their spot on bookstore shelves, they were simply granted it by size default. In reality, books like the Jacks guide were nothing more than a set of game pieces paired with an oversized instruction manual. Nevertheless, it was an easy-to-read introduction to onesies, twosies, the whole shebang. I've yet to conquer sixsies.

The Klutz Book of Magic

I'm still determined to master these tricks. I never really had the patience for them when I was in the book's intended 9-12 age range, but if I had I like to imagine I'd be onstage somewhere freeing someone from an Aztec Tomb as The Final Countdown dramatically plays me out. The Amazon reviewers swear it has given them a career in birthday party and nursing home performance, so I feel pretty inadequate over my post-book lack of magical marketability.

Hairstyles
Mock if you must, but I once took a hairstyling class at a children's creative gift shop that came with this book. It was something of a dream come true. This book taught me everything I know about securing my hair into an element-proof braid to disguise its listlessness after a long night of weekday drinking. Thanks, Klutz Press!

The Official Koosh Book: Kooshy Games and Activities


If you've got the word Kooshy as a major descriptor in your title, you've got to know it's going to be nonstop rubber filament-filled fun. From "Koosh the Koosh" to "Where the Koosh at?" it's pretty much a non-stop thrill ride.

Card Games

The guys at Klutz had a seemingly never-ending supply of card games, tricks, and handy attached decks with which to learn some serious skills. I'm sure our parents were so proud when we started referring to ourselves as the book's cover did as "Card Sharks."

Cootie Catcher
Most of us didn't need a book to learn this, but it certainly didn't hurt as a useful guide for variety and style choice. It even came with some preprinted cards that only required folding. Brilliant.

Explorabook
Touted by Klutz as "A Kids' Science Museum in a Book," Explorabook was the perfect solution to a nerdy kid's abundance of spare time. All you needed was a magnet, a mirror, and a few other goodies and you were well on your way to independent science project mastery.

Stop! The Watch: A Book of Everyday, Ordinary, Anybody Olympics


Further proof that children are incredibly easily amused. All we need is a stopwatch and we're set. We're also ready and going, possibly on our marks. Are you feeling any of these stopwatch jokes? I'm laying them on pretty thick.

Boondoggle
Who says lanyard is just for summer camp? Klutz encouraged us to engage in plastic lacing year round, leaving our parents to wonder what exactly they were going to do with a twelfth neon keychain.

Devil Sticks

These were a pretty popular pastime in the 90s, but the maneuvers could be pretty tricky. I never managed to master it, but I also never owned the book. Or the sticks. A girl can dream, though.

Kid Travel

We had this one in my family, and it truly was a lifesaver. In the days before portable DVD players, we needed something to keep our attention deficit prone brains occupied. This book more than fit the bill with its puzzles, games, and activities. Parents everywhere rejoiced wildly.

Cat's Cradle
This book taught us the ultimate distraction with the simplest of tools: a single unending round piece of string that we could arrange into various tangles and finger-squishing configurations. It may not have been rocket science, but it was challenging in a mind-numbing kind of way.


These books are just the tip of the Klutz Press iceberg. The company released dozens of books throughout the 90s, most of which provoked our creative spirit and entertained our hard-to-focus minds. And if they gave our parents a few minutes of much-needed sanity, well, that was just icing on the how-to book cake.

Dumb and Dumber

Sometimes, the title says it all. Name subtlety is for art house films and froufrou documentaries; if the Farrelly Brothers are masterminding the film, you can bet the title will be straightforward enough to describe the premise exactly without throwing in any frilly metaphors or double entendres. In the case of Dumb and Dumber, the title referred not only to the movie's main characters but also to the level of humor likely to be present throughout. Don't say they didn't warn you--it's exactly what it says on the label.

The movie's premise and content was, as it claimed, pretty dumb. My mother continues to use Dumb and Dumber as a reference point for all other slapstick films she is unlikely to enjoy based on their juvenile humor and lack of Lifetime movie tearjerking circumstances. Her use of the movie as a scale of stupidity isn't without its merits, though the rest of us did enjoy Dumb and Dumber. Nevertheless, she grumbled through the theatrical showing in 1994 and at every subsequent slapstick comedy trailer in the interim years. I don't believe I can count the number of times I've had to respond to "Is this going to be like Dumb and Dumber?" Apparently its dumbness was memorable enough to build the movie its own dreaded comedic category in our household movie selection process.



Dumb and Dumber is a quintessential example of a gross-out comedy, playing everything for laughs. It's not without its heartfelt and sincere moments, but for the most part the movie sacrifices all else in the name of the almighty punchline. Based on the movie's immense popularity, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Dumb and Dumber reiterates the notion that sometimes a comedy can just be a comedy: pure, unadulterated fun punctuated with near-incessant jokes and broad stroke concepts that boil down to nothing weightier than an audience guffaw or two. It's not high art, certainly, but its humor proved enough of a draw to pull in major box office numbers.

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels costar as Lloyd and Harry, a limousine driver and pet washer respectively who live together in an apartment that can flatteringly be referred to as a dump. Lloyd has a gig driving the beautiful Mary (Carrey's now ex-wife Lauren Holly) to the airport and becomes highly distraught to find that she left her fancy briefcase on the floor of the crowded airport terminal. Determined to reunite his attractive client with her misplaced luggage, Lloyd retrieves the case. Lloyd is unsurprisingly unaware of the money-filled briefcase's role as ransom to appease Mary's husband's kidnappers and thus bungles the entire scheme, blissfully ignorant of his misdoings the full way through.



In typical 90s comedy fashion, the whole set-up is a spiraling mess of misunderstandings and bumbling interventions, leading to generically villainous bad guys in hot pursuit of our generally oblivious lead characters. The good guys are good only in the sense that they are painstakingly trusting and bafflingly innocent; Harry and Lloyd are by no means heroic. They're just a couple of guys who managed to get themselves into the wrong place at the wrong time, but their buffoonish lack of reason protects them from realizing potential danger and harm.



Through a series of unfortunate and probably foreseeable circumstances, Harry and Lloyd find themselves unemployed and out of luck. The comedic premise may be formulaic, but it effectively gets us from point A to point B. The intended thug recipients of the briefcase mistakenly suspect Lloyd and Harry to be some sort of secret agents, break into their apartment, and commit some very unfortunate parakeetacide. Lloyd comes up with the brilliant plan to track down Mary in Aspen--the destination of the flight to which he drove her by limo and collected her apparently forgotten briefcase. They hop into the grooming site Sheepdog van and embark on a quest of misadventures.



All sorts of humorous elements go awry, and our eponymously dumb protagonists end up slumming it to Aspen on a crappy motorbike. They have a run-in at a diner with the bad guys, but as expected they manage to subvert their advances through total lack of awareness. The duo opens the briefcase and quickly begins the process of replacing the cold hard cash with warm soft IOUs.



Lloyd and Harry do miraculouly manage to track down Mary, and hilarity predictably ensues. They vie for Mary's nonexistent affection, both mistakenly interpreting her kindness as romantic advances. It all culminates in a final hotel room showdown in which our famously dumb friends somehow manage to outsmart the bad guy goons and play an active role in reuniting Mary with her captive husband. All's not totally well that ends well, though: Harry and Lloyd reiterate their stupidity by misinterpreting and declining a once-in-a-dumb-lifetime opportunity to work as oil boys for the Hawaiian Tropic model tour bus. Tough break.



The entire movie seems rooted in the comedic tradition of rapid succession jokes and gags. They may be hit or miss, but they come skyrocketing toward the audience with such transitionless speed that we quickly forget the flops and focus on the winners. The plot is almost peripheral to the thrust of the film: the major focus is on rapid-fire punchlines. That's okay, though; unlike my mother with her intense hatred of this film, most of go to see comedies with the expectation that they will make us laugh. We don't need character development and profound conflict resolution. All it takes is a slew of jokes funny of us to distract us from the film's glaring flaws and we're happy to roll with it. If you're the type who finds plot holes and inconsistency hair-tearingly bothersome, slapstick comedy in this vein is probably not for you. For the rest of us, though, Dumb and Dumber is a great exercise in learning to just laugh it off.

Memorable 80s and 90s PSA Campaigns

I wish I could take credit for this picture, but I just found it on Amazon. Funny, though, right?

No matter how hip and focus group-tested you aim to make your public service announcement campaign, it faces pretty dire odds of coming off as incredibly, mockably cheesy. It's just the nature of the medium. There's no cool way to say something totally buzzkillish and square, so you may as well shoot for saying it memorably.

This was the strategy these campaigns took, capitalizing deftly on their 30-second moment of influence over impressionable young people. Through the power of incessant repetition and catchy songs or phrasing, these publicly serving commercials took up residence in our malleable juvenile minds. Whether we were young enough to buy into their message or old enough to snark on their relentless harping, they undoubtedly held enough intrigue to be worth remembering fifteen-odd years down the road.


The Incredible Crash Test Dummies



The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had a message for us: don't be a dummy. The clearest way to transmit that message? Actual crash test dummies. Sure, their crash-induced injuries were played for laughs, but we soon learned that driving without a seat belt was no joke. Thanks, Vince and Larry. We owe you one.


Mr Yuk



What easier way to warn non-literate small children of the danger of hazardous noxious household chemicals than with a giant, disgusted neon green grimacing face? I certainly can't think of any. Wikipedia helpfully points out that children may associate the traditional poison emblem of a skull and crossbones with pirates rather than poison, so we definitely need an alternative symbol. Right. I know when I'm trying to break into the yummy candy vials in the medicine cabinet, I'm pretty sure that one with the Jolly Roger on it is full of pirates. It all adds up so perfectly.


McGruff



I'm still waiting for my opportunity to take a real bite out of crime. I imagine it would be tasty, meaty and substantial, just as McGruff sold it to me in the 80s and 90s. McGruff empowered us to stand up to bullies and engage in healthy behaviors. Plus, we could write him for some free safety-themed comic books and pamphlets. It just doesn't get any better than that.


Smokey the Bear



Smokey's been around for years, so it always surprises me a little that we still have forest fires. I mean, don't these mischievous match-wielding kids ever watch TV? If they had, they would know that they were the only hands on deck capable of preventing forest fires.


The More You Know



NBC really knew how to cut to the PSA core: short, to the point, and featuring celebrity spokespeople. They also threw in a fun shooting star-type logo with a memorable series of tones that I'm pretty sure are supposed to be the instrumental track of the words "the more you know." I've yet to verify this with actual research, but it's the way I've always interpreted it.


This is Your Brain on Drugs



Ah, the classics. Talk about to the point--"This is your brain on drugs" practically invented to-the-pointness in public service messages. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? Nope, think I can take it from here. Thanks, ominously sizzling frying pan.


I Learned it by Watching you



"Who taught you to do this stuff?" "You, alright? I learned it from watching you!" Yikes. Talk about a major buzzkill for recreationally drug-using parents. Guess what? Smoke one joint and your kids will turn into hardcore crack addicts. That's just basic science. They learned it from you, alright? They learned it from watching you.


Dontcha Put it in Your Mouth



This one is sort of terrifying. What exactly are those furry things supposed to be? If anyone has any insights, please enlighten me. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when the ad guys were hawking this one to the Concerned Children's Advertisers. What do you think that studio recording session was like? It just leaves me with so many hilarious mental images about the possibilities.


Don't Copy that Floppy



This one truly speaks for itself, though today it would probably need a spokesperson to explain to kids what a floppy was. You know, the archaic giant computer disks from days of yore? Nowadays you can pirate anything online, but in the 80s and 90s your best bet was copying a game you borrowed from the primitive computer lab. If you did, someone would probably rap about it.


Check Yourself



In this FOX Kids series of PSAs, the network taught us to check ourselves before we wrecked ourselves while cleverly avoiding copyright infringement on the Ice Cube song. These ads taught us to imagine rewinding our unsportsmanlike actions and replacing them with good old fashioned polite conduct. At the time, we may have thought they were pretty helpful, but watching them now it's clear that they were among the cheesiest of public service ads.


Nickelodeon Orange Apeel



Until I just typed the words now, I'd completely forgotten Orange Apeel ever existed. Now that I've brought the memory to the forefront, though, it's clear as slime. Nickelodeon put its own slant on PSAs, producing a series of brief bumper-like spots teaching us a succinct but nevertheless valuable lesson. If it hadn't been for Omar from Wild and Crazy Kids' plea, I may never have become physically fit. I'm still meaning to do that, by the way.


Saved by the Bell: There's no Hope with Dope


Saved by the Bell - No Hope With Dope
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In one word, would I use dope? Nope. These kids are right! I appreciate Brandon Tarnikoff's hit idea for the new season. I'm not sure how much more of this I can paraphrase of this for laughs without generating any of my own original content, but truly I don't need any. It mocks for itself. From the moment these good looking teens uttered a single word each into the camera with deliberate seriousness, this was pure PSA gold.


Gopher Cakes



How fat did you feel at that moment you realized Gopher Cakes were fictional? Undoubtedly, to many of us they looked legitimately deliciousness, so it was a major let down to find that they were actually just poking fun at our tendency to consume foods that paved the path for our eventual morbid obesity. I still occasionally have dreams of covering one with whipped cream and swallowing it in a single gulp, like a python with a field mouse. Delicious.



These PSAs are certainly corny, but they do for the most part manage to get their point across. Into our teenage years many PSA agencies changed strategies and opted for cold, seriously threatening public service ads in lieu of the beloved lighthearted fare of our childhoods. Scare tactics work sometimes, sure, but we'll never be reminiscing about them in 2024. Stick to what you know, PSA people. Corny cartoons, puppets, and jingles are clearly the way to our still-impressionable hearts.



PS If you're looking for a drug-related PSA that's not on here, check out the full post here. In it I promise to do a part two about something hilarious I must have thought of at the time but have since forgotten, so here's my best shot at it. Not here, really; above. You know. Press Page Up. There you go.