Project Absurd - Celebrating The Daft!

JELL-O MUSEUM

AUGUST 12, 2001

by Kelly

In 1897, in a little town called LeRoy in Upstate NY, a carpenter was experimenting with medicines (laxatives, cough medicines) in his home and accidentally came up with a fruit-flavored dessert (!) which his wife (for reasons unknown) decided to name "Jell-O." Not being good with business, he decided to sell his idea to another townsman. Long story shorter, by 1902 Jell-O was profiting like a high-class hookah. The rest is complicated and, well, history. If you want to learn a more correct and complete history of Jell-O, have a look-see at the Official Jell-O Museum Website.

Ham and I visited the Jell-O Museum way back in those innocent days of early August 2001. So yeah, we've gone back six years to bring you this post. This place is just that good. The museum still exists, as you can see by clicking its link, above, but is probably different by now. We do plan to go back as soon as time affords and bring you an updated review. But for now, we are bringing the Jell-O Museum to you as we saw it on August 12, 2001. At the time we had no idea Project Absurd would ever exist. So we didn't take great pictures. We did, however, obtain some sweet video! And from that video we have captured some screen-shots to show in place of photos. As I used to say in a snotty tone in fourth grade - "same difference!"

Here, first, is the flyer that was at every rest area along the thruway between Rochester and Buffalo in the balmy summer of '01:

Pretty nice and very enticing, no...? Arriving at the museum, we realized it was just a little house converted into this monument to gelatin. The entrance to the museum was at the side of the house (near a Jell-O walk-of-fame sort of thing of which we, unfortunately, didn't even get quality video). Those flags in the picture at the top of the page were all over the entrance porch. I don't know if they have re-arranged in the years since then, but at the time that door led into their incredible gift shop, which we will get to later. I want to start with the museum itself.

The museum consisted of several rooms with large doorways so that the rooms sort of flowed into one another. I should mention that the museum only covered the bottom floor of the house. I don't know if anyone lived upstairs. Perhaps the woman running the museum lived there - I have no idea. Anyway, these laser-printed and rubber-cemented "posters" were randomly placed on the walls:

When we saw these we knew we were in "our" kind of place! "Make Jell-O Not War" - if only Prez Bush had been here that summer!

What do you call these things? These stands with holes cut out for your face (making a wonderful photo op) were part of the museum's decor. I have no idea what the first one has to do with Jell-O. I cannot recall what was in the girl's basket. I have a pic of my face in this thing but even in that pic the basket is cut off!

This was some sort of Jell-O fruit basket on display:

Jell-O is apparently made from collagen inside animals' connective tissue. Yummy! I think the purpose of this display was to explain this to the world more delicately:

There's a lot going on in this next photo. I think it was a Jell-O advertising display, showing Jell-O ads from throughout the last 100 years:

One of our favorite parts of the day was seeing this video:

I know you can't see it in the pic, but the video discussed old Jell-O commercials and spokespersons. Of course, Ham engaged the old lady running the museum in a discussion about Bill Cosby right here where we were standing. You can hear their entire discussion on our videotape, though you cannot see either one of them. I should have asked him to capture that part for YouTube because it's actually pretty funny. Oh well. I think their chattering may have annoyed the other people sitting here trying to watch the video, which by the way really was on this tiny television in a small alcove-like corner of the museum. Everyone else got up and left before the video was over. Us? We stayed and sat through it again, without interruption! Ham is totally enamored of Bill Cosby for commercials such as this one for Jell-O Gelatin Pops:

So he was pretty peeved when we found this and saw that Bill Cosby had visited the Jell-O Museum in 1999 and we missed it!

He's gonna be super-pizzed to find out we missed Bill Cosby again!

Moving on...ya know, I don't even know what this was...? Oopsy.

Now here's a premium I wouldn't mind having. The card reads, "When Watermelon Jell-O was introduced, a Watermelon dish and spoon and a box of Watermelon Jell-O were a special premium." That watermelon (should I have capitalized that? They keep capitalizing "Watermelon") Jell-O mold just kick all kinds of azz!

These Team Canada hockey Jell-O spoons were also some sort of premium. I see them being sold on eBay in their natural state - in a plastic package with plain red spoons and a sheet of Team Canada stickers. No one seems to mention where exactly they came from, though. Blame Canada!

An old, creepy Jell-O ad blown up to gigantageous size for effect:

I know these were supposed to be kewpie dolls, but BARF! How creepy is the naked boy wearing only a gun-holster? I won't even discuss the girl's nasty skirt. WTF? WTF??? I'll give you a moment to rinse your eyes...

Is it coffee? Is it Jell-O? Coffee-flavored Jell-O? Jell-O-flavored coffee? Sadly, I can't remember.

Scattered throughout the museum were toys like this to keep the children amused. And us.

Jell-O is very proud of the following fact (taken from the Jell-O Museum website):

"March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia test a bowl of lime Jell-O with an EEG machine and confirm the earlier testing by Dr. Adrian Upton that a bowl of wiggly Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women."

Here is their display related to this fact: a for-no-reason clear electrical brain with a green light inside it, presumably to make it look like lime Jell-O. We will revisit this theme in the gift shop, later.

There are several ways to prepare Jell-O! Pick one!

A children's play area - a makeshift kitchen in a bizarre world where one can only eat Jell-O:

In case you are concerned, the boxes didn't actually contain Jell-O powder, they were gutted and contained bricks of wood instead.

This is a woman's Jell-O factory uniform dress circa - I think - WWII. Cuz, god-forbid you make Jell-O wearing pants!

This next display was hot news when we visited in 2001: Utah has made Jell-O their Official State Snack! That article, by the way, is hilarious! Be sure to read it!

Now on to the gift shop. This is by-far one of the best, if not THE best gift shop we have found thus-far. I never knew such an array of Jell-O-related items existed in the world. I got my sister a Jell-O themed picture frame (which, yeah, she uses!). They had a wall full of several versions of the following T-shirt, in every conceivable color, not just the ones shown. It took Ham several hours to pick one out. He ultimately went with purple.

Six years later, I am still thinking about these welcome mats. I heart them deeply. I guess I should have bought one:

They had other T-shirts, too. One type had different old Jell-O ads consisting of The World's Worst Poetry. For example:

Remember I said we'd revisit the brain thing? Here in the gift shop you can buy your very own brain-shaped Jell-O mold! Rock. On.

I believe there is a newer version of that in the gift shop section of the Jell-O Museum website. The gift shop could not be beat and was just chock full of fun Jell-O-goodness!

Our visit was six years ago. I can only imagine how the Museum has grown and become more awesome in the years since. I cannot wait to go back and find out!

(Posted 08/2007)