Birthday Box: The Mad Mad Mad Scientist's Laboratory by Paul A

Hi Woodsy

That Mad Mad Mad Scientist Laboratory chemistry set ad recently seen on MC was amazing!

But I wondered what that box top looked like in full colour – so I went looking.

As you said, the style is pure Aurora Monster kit, right down to the lettering. Compare it to a real Aurora box top of the period.

These sets were produced by the Homelab, Division of Physio-Chem Corp., 101 Frost Street, Westbury, Long Island, New York, 11590. The back of the instruction booklet has a 1965 copyright date.

The Mad Mad Mad Scientist Laboratory was billed as ‘Completely Safe! No Heat or Flame Necessary! Over 100 Experiments!’. Just below this is ‘Note To Parents: This is a very sneaky way for kids to have fun while learning about chemistry’.

The set, Style No. MM 300, sold for $2.98. There were bottles and test tubes of chemicals, along with lab equipment.

Materials provided included Moon Powder, Mummy Crystals, Skeleton Powder, and Leech’s Love Dust. Some of the experiments also involved the use of more everyday items from the kitchen.

The instructions start off by suggesting that you lie down on a bed of nails, as you read through them. There is also a warning ‘Beware as you open each vial, it might be booby-trapped !’.

The ad refers to the experiments having been developed by ‘our ancient scientific colleague chained to the wall in the basement’. 

Is this the Aurora Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Mare?

The above Eight photographs, from Ebay and Worthpoint.

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Taking another look at the set, it looks like the box art is by none other than Mort Kunstler, famous for his Aurora box tops!

 The initials MK are just visible about the letter Y in the word Laboratory, on the right side of the picture.

These Photographs from Worthpoint

Paul A

New Zealand

 

toy tricks and magic sets

Did you do magic tricks as a youngster?

Did you dream of entering the Magic Circle at the age of 10?

My bid to be the Great Humdinger was short lived really. It ended abruptly when I grew up!

Anyway, the sorts of tricks I did as a kid were all the result of two things:

1. reading paperback books of tricks by Piccolo and the like

2. receiving magic sets by the likes of Merit and Spears

Cards were boring for me so they were off the list. I much preferred props to work with.

The props were any of the plastic tricks from my sets and material garnered from the house like hankies, a chair and a broom.

One of my favourite trick gadgets was a sort of egg cup that you could lift the lid off revealing a kind of ping pong ball. I loved that thing!

Another one was a magic box in which coins disappeared and reappeared. It was a plastic rectangle again from a boxed magic set.

My magic has left me now and so have all my tricks. I am a purveyor of reality these days.

Did you proffer Magik readers?