JANUARY 2023 UPDATE--  JUST FINISHED:  HUEY'S HUT ROD!  PICTURES BELOW!

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PAGES ON OUR WEBSITE.  THANKS FOR VISITING!  BASED ON TRAFFIC HERE, WE CAN SAY THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF INTEREST IN WEIRD-OHS, ROTH FINKS, FLYPOGGERS AND MORE!  WE'RE ADDING NEW MATERIAL TO THIS PAGE AND WILL PROVIDE ADDITIONAL UPDATES AS MORE OF THESE CLASSIC KITS ARE RE-RELEASED!

By Dick Engar

​I decided that I had enough of Aurora monster models once my finished "The Mummy" model scared me sufficiently--without paint!  Not even a drop of Testors "blood red" was needed and I was plenty petrified by the model immediately upon its completion.  It didn't stay on my shelf long.  As my modeling skills improved, I had a greater desire to paint more of my plastic subjects, which began to include airplanes and cars.  However, I was ready for something different on my bedroom shelf.  "Scary" was definitely out!

WEIRD OHS

​In 1963, a different type of model kit arrived on the scene, which immediately struck my fancy.  These were more humorous than scary.  Issued by the Hawk Model Company, they were called "Weird-ohs."  They came with names such as “Davey,” “Daddy,” and “Digger” and boy, did they look cool; at least the box art did.  The subtitle to these Weird-ohs listed on each box promised “Car-icky-tures.”

A promotional photo of the entire traditional Weird-Ohs model lineup, built and painted.

California Dreaming circa 1964:  The Silly Surfers

Current boxes include the same titles and fonts of the originals

​The initial Weird-oh kits featured strange and unusually oversized and over-the-top parodies of sorry-looking humanoid creatures driving and shifting gears on an incredible hot rod type vehicle.   The Weird-ohs were molded in plain white plastic and when finished ended up being about six inches tall and eight or nine inches long.
 
What about Hawk Models?  I had to dig to find some history since historian Tom Graham has yet to write a book about that company.  But I did discover through various online sources that the Hawk Model Company was founded in 1928 and was one of the first American manufacturers to produce injection molded polystyrene kits.  The company was started by the Mates brothers in Chicago, Illinois and molded various aircraft and vehicles.  

​How did Hawk come up with the Weird-ohs concept?  The genesis lies with a talented artist responsible for much of their box art, Bill Campbell.  According to the artist himself, he thought model builders were becoming weary of having “just another car or plane kit.”  So he designed and built five hand-made prototypes, including Davey, Daddy and Digger.

​He showed his unique sculptures to the Mates brothers who told him, “These are interesting, Bill.  We’ll think about them.”  He assumed this reaction indicated the customary “friendly kiss of death” for his idea, according to Campbell, but later that same week a group of distributors happened to meet in the Mates’ conference room after a plant tour.  They raved over the “crazy, funky little models” serendipitously left there and encouraged Hawk to produce kits. 

Drag Hag box art

​So the Hawk Model Company took a chance and rushed these “Weird-ohs,” based on an offhand remark made by Campbell as to what they should be called, into production.  Because Hawk wanted the initial Weird-ohs models to be produced before the next Chicago Hobby Convention in 1963, Campbell refined the box art while the dies were being finished up which means the dies were not cut by referencing the final box art.  This explains why Davey, Daddy and Digger look a bit different from their pictures on the boxes. 
 
Of course this little quirk did not matter to the convention folks who, after their initial disbelief, talked these models up as the next big thing and overwhelmed the Hawk salespeople with a virtual plethora of orders.  The numbers reached hundreds of thousands and the factory had to go into overtime to produce enough kits!

Hot Dogger and Surf Bunny Riding Tandem.  Surf music was at its peak of popularity when these models appeared in 1964.

The first Weird-oh kit I got in 1963 or ‘64 was not one of the three aforementioned Big-D kits but it was “Drag Hag” - a sleek, buxom mama with a baby in a buggy/dragster set-up.  The box described her as “The Bonny, Blastin Babe.”  She came with a witch hat and gearshift knob molded like a baby bottle on an impossibly long shift lever.

​The plain-white styrene plastic was like a 3D canvas.  I remember I painted Drag Hag with glossy purple paint and had a lot of fun doing it.  The next entry in the fray was a Silly Surfer model, the “Hot Dogger and Surf Bunny Riding Tandem,” which might have been a birthday present.  I remember painting them a gloss orange-brown to mimic tanned skin.  I had not yet figured out that you could get Matt (flat) or Gloss (shiny) paint.  It was the luck of the draw or whichever one I grabbed that went on a model.  I think I got some matt paint one time and thought it was defective or something!  The things you learn!

Endsville Eddie:  Is he gonna lay off that brake?

Bill Campbell was also involved in doing the box art for the Silly Surfers, although they were designed by a Californian named Rueben Klamer who also invented the old Milton Bradley game of “Life.”  Klamer matched up an excellent artist whose name escapes Campbell and sculptor Bob Allen who produced the prototypes.  The rights to these Silly Surfers were rapidly bought up by Hawk.  
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Campbell was proud to note that in the case of the Surfers, his box art very accurately matched the actual model kits.  The Surfers were more elaborate than the Weird-ohs and were thus more of a challenge to assemble.  Surf culture was at its peak of popularity (with the non-surfing crowd) as these kits hit the stores and the Silly Surfers were white-hot circa 1964-65.

Campbell also did work on a series Hawk produced called the “Frantics.”  This series of four kits depicted a beatnik-style band with a pair of dancers all in raucous poses suggesting that lively rock music was being played.  I never bought nor built one of these kits and don’t recollect that the Frantics caught on like the others even though Beatlemania was the next giant wave in as the Surf Culture wave was peaking out.

​Hawk did capitalize on the whole craze by approving Weird-ohs jigsaw puzzles, trading cards, a board game, and an album was even released called “The Sounds of the Weird-ohs” with the flip side being the “The Sounds of the Silly Surfers."  Included were a number of catchy tunes, some of which still sound pretty good today and it’s a wonder they haven’t been officially re-released in recent years.  Ironically, no songs about the “Frantics” were included.  The group Pearl Jam recorded and sold one of the Silly Surfer songs, ”Gremmie Out of Control” just a few years ago

Weird-ohs:  The Game.   Note that Ideal Toys made this game!  Model company ITC was a division of Ideal, so Ideal sold a product with a license created by competitor Hawk Models.

​Brudder Bill recalls the popularity of the Weird-ohs/Silly Surfers album even though he was little more than a toddler.  He still remembers getting in trouble for singing a few lines of "Huey's Hut Rod" loudly in Sunday School one week without being asked.   

Bill tries on his new Weird-oh helmet for the first time just after receiving it on his 4th birthday.  Sister Kristin inspects the bright purple header-style exhaust pipes on the sides.  These were also featured on the Digger figure's crash helmet. 

Receiving a Weird-oh helmet for his fourth birthday probably did not help his antisocial behavior.  Our sister Kristin was very jealous of this prized gift at the time, but Bill allowed her to wear it on occasion as she cruised the neighborhood on her customized chopper-style Sting-Ray bike.  In fact, she still has the Weird-oh helmet to this day thanks to Bill’s generosity.

​The last foray into the Weird-oh model kit line for me anyway, back in the sixties, was “Endsville Eddie.” He met his demise along with Drag Hag and the Tandem Riders when I invited most of the 6th grade boys over to the backyard to witness the destruction of my Weird-oh and Fink models via firecrackers.  My mother was more interested in the social nature of the gathering than any risks of damage to my life or limb so she was actually encouraged by the large turnout and even provided refreshments!

After everyone left, I gathered up the pieces and for some reason decided to rally to the challenge of reassembling Drag Hag.

I had my very first instance of scratch-building; since I could not find her lower face I made a new lip for her out of Scotch clear tape and painted it light purple to match the rest of her complexion!  I kept the “Endsville:  That’s All Buster!” simulated brick wall and sign from the Eddie model which lasts to this day.
 
The Weird-ohs line expanded beyond the first six “hot rod” characters with such upstanding luminaries as Leaky Boat Louie and Freddy Flameout.  Drag strip personalities such as “Wade A. Minut The Wild Starter” and “Sling Rave Curvette The Way Out Specatator” joined two sports figures.  Super-lanky "Francis the Foul" and determined “Killer McBash" had a basketball and football theme respectively. 

The front cover of the Weird-ohs vinyl album.  Note pictures of the original six vehicular Weird-ohs model kit box art.  Dem Brudders recall that these must have been very popular as a number of other kids in the neighborhood also had this 1964 album.

Clever layout for the Silly Surfers meant the album really didn't have a backside.  So whichever was your favorite could be on the front of the album.  NEW:  CLICK ON EITHER RECORD COVER ABOVE TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL SILLY SURFERS/WEIRD OHS ALBUM!

LISTEN TO THE SILLY SURFERS/WEIRD OHS NOW ON YOUTUBE!  THANKS TO EVANLEWIS1836 FOR POSTING "MUSIC TO MAKE MODELS BY!"

ANATOMY OF A WEIRD-OH

For our birthdays in 2022, sister Kristin gave us both a Weird-Ohs model!  I got Huey's Hut Rod, and Brudder Bill got Davey.  Bill has photographed his Davey kit and provides the results here:

This boxtop is from the 2006 re-release of Davy.  Lindberg Models actually took ownership of the Hawk name, but the logo is not featured on the box!

The original 1963 release of the kit has a sketch inset and the Hawk logo present.  Is it just me, or does the Hawk logo look like Charlie Brown's shirt?

Davey kit contents!  Some of the 2006 re-releases have decals; there were none in this Davey kit!

Davey's bike is a very simple affair with just a handful of parts, but we were surprised at the good fit of the bike halves.  Wheels are intended to roll (see the instructions) but wobble is a better description of the movement since they're an oblong-shape.  Super construction hint:  if you shorten the wheel posts on the bike halves a little, you can easily slip the wheels in place after you've built and painted the bike!

Format of the instructions differs between kits.  In this one, they were written in a comic-style.  Others are reprints of the originals with photographs showing strangely silver-painted parts indicating how they go together.

Circa Halloween 1970 or so, Brudder Bill dressed up as a Davey-like Weird Oh character complete with the Weird Oh helmet, which more or less survived our childhood.  Note the taped visor; somebody took a face-plant while wearing it at some point.  We found out the hard way that this was not actually an ANSI-approved protective helmet.  The A2 leather bomber jacket also used, however, is the authentic article.  In our house, it was just an old coat.  In actuality, it was used for a number of top-secret missions in WWII!  Photos taken by Dick Engar.

In my later years I decided I should build Freddy Flameout to go with my increasing collection of model aircraft.  A modeling friend picked up the newly re-issued kit for me in January 1994, but I did not get around to finishing him until 2001.  I found out really fast that these are rather simple kits that indeed did not look exactly like the box art and don’t turn out to be good additions to your collection unless you put a bunch of work into them.  It took a while to figure out what to do but I ended up scratch-building a mouth and tongue for Freddy using dental lead foil and dental acrylic, simulated a clear green wind screen for his jet, and had fun experimenting with various paint schemes and decals since none came with the reissued kit. 

Dick builds Freddy Flameout for the second time

Freddy even won a third place award at the IPMS Nationals in July 2003.  Freddy remains the only contest-quality Weird-Oh that I have finished to date (at time of original posting), although I have been able to easily acquire all that I ever desired to build.  
 
Testors bought Hawk Model Company in the early 1970s and has re-released all Weird-oh and Silly Surfer kits.  J. Lloyd International was another purchaser; they're known for resurrecting the Lindberg name and they re-released the whole Weird Ohs/Silly Surfers/Frantics line circa 2006 with boxes closely resembling the originals.  As of the early 2020's, many of these are still easy to find at reasonable prices.
 
Around the same time the Weird-ohs hit full stride originally, Revell came out with their own entries into the strange figure realm.  They started with a crazy looking guy in a cartoon-y ‘57 Chevrolet called “Mr. Gasser,” first released in 1963.  I got him at age ten as a gift from my parents after having to undergo a traumatic tooth extraction and bleeding ordeal in preparation for orthodontic treatment.  I enjoyed painting Mr. Gasser a glossy, queasy-green color.  

2023 UPDATE:  HUEY'S HUT ROD -- THE WAY-OUT OUTHOUSE ON WHEELS

In January of 2023, I completed the Huey's Hut Rod model kit given to me as a birthday gift in 2022.  Below are a few pictures of this fun build!  This was an unusual model; you typically don't see cars on the road built on a 2X4 lumber frame and front wheels that appear to be cut from a wood cable spool.

In January 2023, Dick finished a Huey's Hut Rod given to him as a gift by one of our sisters.  A career in the dental profession couldn't stop Dick from modifying the figure's teeth with all the horrendous maladies one would expect to see in a backwoods Car-Crazy.

Dick airbrushed Alcad II metal finish over glossy black to get that engine to look like it gets better care than Huey's teeth.  The fuel line from that moonshine bottle is a piece of wire that did not come with the kit.

Dick drilled out the exhaust pipes but other than that, they're kit parts.  He did a bit of weathering on the wood parts, painting the knotholes a lighter color.

The bottle was painted with a dark-brown glossy enamel to provide the appearance of glass.

Dick airbrushes his models with Testors enamels.  He began custom-spraying his models over 40 years ago with a simple Badger 350 single-action airbrush that he still uses to this day!  If you've never done any airbrushing, the Badger 350 is an easy and economical place to start!

ROTH FINKS

Don't miss our kit review of the 2019 release of Mr Gasser by Atlantis Models.  At the conclusion of that article, there is MORE information and pictures of Ed Roth's crazy Monsters-and-Cars kits.

I followed Mr. Gasser with “Rat Fink” and then “Angel Fink.” However, not long after finishing “Angel Fink” I decided that she looked too scary with her black cloak and crazy expression so she was not on my shelf long before she met a similar fate to my Aurora Monster models.  In fact, in summer 1965, I created a big plastic blob by burning up several models and simply adding them to the mess.  I noted that plastic molded in color seemed to lose the color pretty quickly when you burned it! 

Dick finished this Rat Fink figure not long after Ed Roth died in 2001.

Dick's second iteration of Angel Fink features the psychedelic color scheme  of an aging, burned-out hippie-like creature.  Like the Rat Fink figure, Revell re-released this kit and other Roth models in the late 1990's and early 2000's.  Stay tuned; you can still buy this model at a killer-low price!

Of course, the remaining survivors to Angel Fink met their demise at the 6th Grade Backyard Mix for Mayhem and what was left of them were added to the plastic blob. 
 
Now Ed Roth, the Mastermind behind the Revell Fink Monsters, as they have been called, might have been delighted had he seen my big plastic blob.  Ed “Big Daddy” Roth had been associated with Revell since auto model development guru Jim Keeler brought him on board to help produce models of his wild show cars in 1961.  It did not take Roth long to work with sculptor Harry Plummer to design “monsters beyond my worst nightmares” as quoted in Thomas Graham’s book Remembering Revell Kits available through Schiffer Books

Brother Rat Fink has not been re-released like most of the other Revell Ed Roth Rat Fink kits.  This model was purchased off eBay for a healthy sum.

Adding a hat, cape, and motorized skateboard transforms Rat Fink into Super Rat Fink.

​Of course, twelve Roth Monsters were ultimately produced and all but “Brother Rat Fink” and “Tweedy Pie with Boss Fink” have been re-released and are available for purchase from various sources.  I have built four of these re-releases over the last number of years; “Rat Fink,” and “Super Rat Fink” in straight-up gray colors with red outfits and “Angel Fink” as an aging, burned-out colorful hippie-like creature stirring up some nitro.  All three have been popular additions at contests and other modeling events.  When not on tour they reside in a special case honoring “Big Daddy” Ed Roth at the International Model Car Builder’s Museum in Sandy, Utah

Mr Gasser was Ed Roth's first crazy-figure model debuting about the same time as the Weird-Ohs in 1963.  Dick removed the trunk lid from this example and added a set of cartoon-golf clubs as if Mr Gasser is tearing up the golf links in his crazy 1957 Chevy golf cart.  This kit is a Revell re-release from circa 2000.  Not long after, It was getting hard to find but has been available again!  Speaking of links, you might even be able to find a purchase link for the kit elsewhere on this page!

Recently, I finished "Brother Rat Fink."  It's Rat Fink's brother on a motorcycle!  Whereabouts of the tooling for this kit aren't currently known with certainty.  It has not been re-released.  Brudder Bill helped me secure a decent example of an unbuilt kit complete-in-box from eBay.  It cost a pretty penny.  If you'd say I was crazy for building a high-dollar collector-kit,  well--I built it.  We'll add more pictures soon!

A face only a mother could barely tolerate.

Apparently, Ed Roth wasn't happy that the hands don't really grip the bike's handlebars on the finished model.

Gotta love the high-rise handlebars on this bike.

The kit was molded in all-white plastic.  No chrome or rubber tires were included.

ATLANTIS MODELS KEEPS THE FINK ALIVE

In the year 2018, the original Revell company, which owned all the tooling for the Ed Roth models, suddenly went out of business when its poorly managed parent company, Hobbico, imploded.  Revell itself was doing just fine but Hobbico suddenly couldn't make payroll and all Revell employees had to be dismissed.  Revell of Germany was purchased intact in Europe and it was decided to relocate part of Revell USA's tooling there.  The sheer volume of these heavy molds made this relocation a pricey proposition which meant that a large portion had to be sold or disposed.  The new European division had to decide what to take and what to leave behind and they considered less desirable the mostly vintage tooling, including a number of Ed Roth subjects!  There were no interested parties immediately available to take what they rejected.  It came very close to being sold as scrap metal!

A trio of early kits by Atlantis Models!  Was there any doubt that Atlantis could revive the Finks???

Enter Peter Vetri and Rick DelFavero of Atlantis Models.  Atlantis was a small company known for producing a handful of new and unique UFO subjects.  A partnership with Revell where several vintage Revell-owned subjects were released under the Atlantis name allowed Atlantis to be considered as a purchaser of the vintage tooling at a fire sale price.  The situation was such that the tooling was very nearly scrapped!  Even though Atlantis was a very small company, a deal was worked out and the Fink tooling and hundreds of other modeling classics were literally saved from permanent oblivion thanks to their efforts!

Ed Roth went to the beach and the result was Surfink, his response to the Silly Surfers.  In addition to Mr. Gasser, Both Surfink and Angel Fink are now available from Atlantis Models!

At this juncture, Brudder Bill had a number of Atlantis Models' kits in his stash and we were delighted when in 2018, Atlantis announced that they had acquired HUNDREDS of vintage molds that had been created by the likes of Revell, Monogram, Aurora, Renwal--and others!  Some of the crazy-monster figure classics have been re-released with more on the way!  In just a few short years, Atlantis Models has become a major player in the model kit world with new kit releases announced all the time!  Atlantis produces its kits in the USA at crazy-low prices!
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FREDDY FLYPOGGER

​Now, back in the 1960s, Monogram Models could not simply sit back and watch the Revell and Hawk bottom lines rise as the cash registers continued to ring up “Huey’s Hut Rod” or “Mother’s Worry,” so they came up with their own entries into the fray by using a fellow named Stanley Miller, 23 years old, and nicknamed “The Mouse,” to design their own creations to compete.

According to Thomas Graham in his history Monogram Models,  also available from Schiffer Books, The Mouse was an artist who spray-painted his hot rod art on sweatshirts and wore crazy pointed hats that he formed by stretching old fedoras over a baseball bat!  Monogram top brass flew him to Morton Grove, Illinois and introduced him to a sculptor, Tad Lukancic, to see if the two could come up with some modeling clay sculptures that might work as models. ​​ 

​Of course The Mouse’s best selling design was a character called “Fuzz Destroyer,” which morphed into  “Super Fuzz" during the product development process.  Monogram came up with a group name,  “Fred Flypogger Happy Monsters” (try Googling that one!!) and Super Fuzz was joined by “Flip Out the Surfer,” (Flypogger meets the Silly Surfers) and “Speed Shift,” all of which debuted in 1965.

The best of these Flypogger kits as far as I was concerned was Super Fuzz. I was twelve years old by the time I put him together which meant that I was capable of doing a pretty decent job on him and of course he was built well after the Mid-Afternoon Mayhem described earlier and survives to this day in my pot-pourri museum display case.   

Dick's only surviving monster figure kit from the 1960's--Super Fuzz!  See another photo of Super Fuzz and Dick's other car models on his Car Model Gallery page!

Now Super Fuzz was supposed to be a bad-A cop with an attitude and came with a crate to ride in, smoke with a hand-cuffed set of fingers protruding out and a clear blue cherry-light for his helmet.  He also came complete with a fly, clear plastic drool issuing from his mouth and to show his roots, a small Mouse figure in a running pose that you could glue to the base or molded smoke or wherever you wanted.  I suppose Monogram used this little mouse to rival the small Rat Fink available with one or two of the Roth custom auto models.  While the Mouse figure seemed newer to us than Rat Fink since he appeared a couple years later in the Monogram kits, sources tell us that Roth's iconic Rat Fink character was actually inspired by Stanley "Mouse" Miller's mini-rodent trademark that skittered about in the margins of his artwork from its early days.  "The Mouse" got his nickname during his junior high school years when he delighted his classmates and tormented his teachers with his doodling.  So The Mouse has been around a while!

Stanley "The Mouse" Miller and his Fred Flypogger creation as seen on the Super Fuzz kit box.

Super Fuzz box art has an Ed Roth-esque look and it might be easy to confuse this with the Revell Rat Fink kits.  That's definitely NOT Rat Fink running around.

Stanley Mouse with some of his artwork.  He's still painting!

By 1965, I had apparently still not figured out the difference between matt and gloss paint as Super Fuzz was painted with gloss skin and gloss denim jeans.  Oh, well, as a youth I didn’t care.  Yet I used flat black paint to handle the tires, etc. so some of it was painted semi-appropriately.

The way-out custom car world of Tom Daniel ramped up as the crazy car-and-figure fad was waning.  We'll explore the Tom Daniel phenomenon in a future article.

Alas, Stanley Miller did not stay around to do a bigger series of kits at Monogram like Ed Roth did for Revell.  Enticed away to the groovy art scene around San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Stanley relocated there where he helped pioneer American psychedelic art.  Advancements in color printing during the period allowed such work to be mass-produced in print media and the aesthetic came to define the late 60's and early 70's.  The Mouse lived near some Grateful Dead band members and they enjoyed his artwork.  Mouse and collaborator Alton Kelley created the first-ever album cover for The Grateful Dead using a skeleton-and-roses theme that became a trademark of the iconic touring band.  Miller went on to create artwork for many "Dead" albums and other cover art for multi-platinum albums of rock-and-roll phenomena such as Steve Miller Band and Journey.  From the niche of "Kustom Kar Kulture" and a few Monogram model kits, "Mouse" artwork morphed into a major influence and effect on the "look" of pop culture media and music album cover iconography still beloved by millions even as a half-century has passed.

The departure of "The Mouse" left a void at Monogram, but Roger Harney, a supervisor, helped bring Tom Daniel on board.  While Tom's forte was not crazy figures, that wave eventually crested and "TD" custom cars (Beer Wagon being the first example) soon ruled the roost at Monogram.  That'll be another story for another time.

Of course the monster hot rodder craze had peaked before 1966 and Monogram quit after producing the three kits described so of course they became collector’s items for a time, demanding $180-220 per kit if you could find one.  That price inflation ended when at least one of them, good ol’ Super Fuzz, was re-released by May 2002 and I bought him then at the “Best of the West” model contest in Las Vegas for only $15.00. 

Again, Super Fuzz faded into model kit obscurity and rarity for a few years.  But for 2021, Atlantis Models announced his return!  Licensing negotiations with Mr. Stanley The Mouse were lengthy, however, and the original announcement was withdrawn temporarily.  Recently, everything has been ironed out to the satisfaction of Mr. Mouse and Atlantis and Fred Flypogger as SUPERFUZZ would subsequently grace the shelves of your favorite hobby store!  We'll post more soon!

This snapshot of SUPERFUZZ was freshly ripped from Atlantis Models' 2022-2023 catalog.

According to Scalemates.com, this is the artwork on the first edition of Super Fuzz dating back to 1965.  It reminds us of original T-shirt art that would have been seen circa early 1960's.

Today's Atlantis Super Fuzz kit utilizes artwork we recall first seeing in the year 2000 when Revell/Monogram had previously released Super Fuzz.

Atlantis Models' Fred Flypogger as Super Fuzz is re-released in 2023!  Check out our kit review.

(STAY TUNED AS WE ADD MATERIAL TO THIS WEBPAGE)

LINDY LOONIES

​Lindberg Models was not to miss their piece of the far-out figure craze.  Four kits known as “Lindy Loonies” were released a year or two after the Hawk Weird-oh’s.  I don’t recall that these were as popular as the original Weird-ohs, Roth kits, or Flypoggers even though the kits nicely resembled artist Ray Gaedke’s box art.  These models were not on my radar at the time and I never built any of them.
 
Satan’s Crate was re-released by Lindberg in a numbered limited release in the early 2000’s.  Ironically, the others showed up later, marketed as Weird-oh’s while J. Lloyd International owned both the Hawk and Lindberg model kit brands.  The most recent versions of the classic Hawk Weird-ohs were produced under this ownership prior to the sale of the Lindberg and Hawk trademarks to Round2 models in 2013.  It is unknown if Round2 will continue production of Weird-ohs models.  Atlantis actually bought a large lot of Lindberg tooling from Round2 and we'll leave it as a mystery whether or not they got the Weird-Ohs or Lindy Looneys.  But at time of posting, some of the classic kits from the 2006 Weird-Ohs re-release can be still be found at reasonable prices on eBay.

Stay tuned to 2modeler.com. Add us to your Favorites! We will take a look at models that thrilled us from the 1950s onward along with the companies that produced them including Frog, Airfix, Revell, Aurora, and others.  Until then, we suggest that you keep your own nostalgia alive by rebuilding one of your favorite Weird-oh, Roth Fink or Mouse kits from the 1960's.  That way, I won't feel so weird when I am the only one crazy enough to place one of these creations on the contest table!

Lindy Loonies were smaller than their Hawk counterparts.  But at fifty cents U.S. a pop, they were a monster bargain.  If Satan's Crate looks a little familiar, the same coffin-car concept is driven by Daddy, the Swingin' Suburbanite, a Hawk Weird Oh.  I suppose they both shop at the same car dealership.  It's next door to the Buick dealership where Darth Vader bought his car.

Bill Campbell has published a book featuring the art of Weird-Ohs!  This inside look will provide a great perspective on the Weird-Ohs phenomenon.
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