Post #660270 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Dec 1, 2012 1:33 AM

Aaaah, very good, gentlemen! I am glad I stirred up some responses!

On 2012-11-30 15:49, Tattoo wrote:
Those three mugs are an evolution of the Fog Cutter. Which separates the Tiki Bob Maori and Los Angeles Islander Husband Killer mugs as being a real departure because those mugs are meant to resemble a real Tiki.

Interesting point about the Fog Cutter mugs and their shape. Perhaps, indeed, the Hawaiian Room owners said (to ....?) "Make us a Fog Cutter mug, but with a Hawaiian idol on it !" and Voila! And only then did designers notice that the carved Tiki log already comes in the basic shape of a glass/mug which makes it a given to apply the image to the utensil, here is the clearest (later) example of that fact:

But Tatoo, what else than a "feeling" makes you think the Tiki Bob Maori mug would be the first? According to oral testimony from Bob and Leroy, the first TIKI mugs they believe to have seen appear are Stella Bodie's (spelling?) Spurlin mugs for the Islander LA restaurant. So your pegging of the "husband killer" mug (only named so for the photo with the old lady) is on the money. But, while I do not doubt the O.A. elders, there is still no dated, printed proof. Do we have the actual opening date of that place? The famous LIFE photos were taken in the early 60s.

Re the Maori mug, I cannot concur with your view...

On 2012-11-27 22:35, Tattoo wrote:
And then there's the Tiki Bob Maori mug with the early Otagiri design of the Lei around the Tiki Bob name on the back. With absolutely no evidence and based on zero research, I always presumed that this was Tiki Bob's first mug before they got their own signature mug. And thus I would date this as pre-1959.

Could it be possible that you are not in the possession of the Book of Tiki? :wink: In it, I clearly show the genesis of the Tiki Bob mug as stemming from the 1955 menu cover that Alec Yuil-Thornton designed for Bob Bryant, whom he must have known from both of the gentlemen working for Trader Vic. That Thornton based his modernist cartoonish Tiki design on an African Ngil mask is another story (which I related in Tiki Modern)

The Tiki Bob mug is a good guess as the first, not only because it is likely to have been there early after the opening of the place in 1955, but Tiki Bob's was the first place to use the TIKI moniker in its name, and the Tiki figure as a logo, for the entrance Tiki, the menu, matchbooks, mugs and S&P shakers. Which marks the emergence of TIKI STYLE, being born OUT OF Polynesian pop. (I credit Don The Beachcomber in the 1930s as the great originator of Polynesian Pop)

On 2012-11-28 09:40, Tattoo wrote:
I definitely don't want to get into a discussion of what is a "Tiki mug", but in fact try to answer Sven's main question of what was the first mug in the shape of a Tiki. It is purely a technical (i.e. Tiki nerd) question and one that on some level defines the start of the Polynesian Pop movement.

And, last not least, it is debatable that the birth of Tiki style (defined as using the Tiki as a graphic logo, a utensil, and an architectural feature) can be tied to the Tiki mug. While the mug best symbolizes the style, before there were Tiki mugs, not only Tiki Bob's and Steve Crane's Luau, but also the Beverly Hilton "The Traders" used a Tiki (as opposed to a Hula girl or any other Polynesian icon) as the central logo on their menus for the first time (in 1955).

A related side question: Did the Luau and the Trader Vic Tiki S&P shakers appear before the Tiki mug did? :)

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2012-12-01 01:48 ]