Post #629073 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Mar 17, 2012 12:47 PM

Mo, the cone shaped tribal masks are based on the Duk Duk (or similar) masks...

...a favorite object of study in the old German PNG colonies - and of mine :D :

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=29418&forum=2&vpost=470058

On 2005-05-19 12:22, exotica59 wrote:
....I think they were trying for some sort of tropical theme over all as later in the show on a different set they have a steel drum group playing and Stead asks, " why all the jungle music?"...

I believe the decor was to suggest the rich financier as an aficionado of primitive art, contrasting it Tiki Modern-style with a high tech office.
Of course the garish colors worked against that (...but it helped with the Americanization of the series changing from B&W to color in 1967)

On 2005-05-20 10:40, atomictonytiki wrote:
the carving remind me of the totem pole "carvings" they used to have in the butlins beachcomber bars.

I totally agree: If we retrace the origin of the Butlin's Beachcombers, we will find that they were inspired by the Mayfair Hotel Beachcomber. The same architecture firm built both. And who designed the Mayfair Beachcomber for them: Erik Blakemore, a film designer at the Elstree Studios near London. Where was "The Avengers" shot? At Elstree, of course. When I look at the "Beachcomber nightclub" set of the Elstree Studio production "The Cracksman", the conceptual style of the Tikis is very much like the ones on the Avengers set. Here is the close up of the big Maori Tiki on the Avengers:

And one on The Cracksman Beachcomber set:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=31059&forum=1&vpost=429905

Unfortunately, as far as I could see, we never get a full-size shot of the Avengers Maori, which is quite tall:

So from this point on, I will call all these British Butlin and other Tikis "Elstree Tikis", because to me they form their own genre. :)

One more comparison between the Avengers and The Cracksman Maori poles: