Douglas Martin New York Times Dec. 21, 2003 12:00 AM
Harold von Braunhut, who used comic-book advertisements to sell whimsical mail-order inventions like Amazing Sea Monkeys, tiny shrimp that pop to life when water is added, died on Nov. 28 at his home in Indian Head, Md. He was 77. His wife, Yolanda, said that he died after a fall but that the exact cause was not known. Von Braunhut was to quirky inventions what Barnum was to circuses. His X-Ray Specs, which advertisements said allowed wearers to see through flesh and clothing, are still selling after 50 years of guffaws. Hermit crabs as a pet? Thank von Braunhut for Crazy Crabs. And, yes, perhaps only this verbally snappy holder of 195 patents could have realized that what the world needed was Amazing Hair-Raising Monsters, which allow a child to add water to a card and watch hair grow on the previously bald pate of the monster depicted there. But von Braunhut's piece de resistance was Sea Monkeys, which come from dried-up lake bottoms, not the sea, and are not monkeys but brine shrimp. His extravagant claims for the crustaceans - for example, that they come back from the dead and that they can be trained and hypnotized - are convincing because they are sort of true. (The shrimp do follow light.) Billions of shrimp have been sold, not to mention a Sea Monkey aphrodisiac and a wristwatch filled with swimming shrimp. There are Web sites for Sea Monkey fans; CBS briefly had a Sea Monkeys series on Saturday mornings; 400 million of them went into space with John Glenn in 1998; and, for the lazy, a new Sea Monkey video game allows a player to "virtually" care for a shrimp colony, lest the animals "virtually" die. Von Braunhut gravitated toward life's crazier edge, racing motorcycles as the Green Hornet and managing the career of a man who dived from 40 feet into a kiddie pool filled with 12 inches of water. He sold invisible goldfish by guaranteeing that owners would never see them. In a radically different sphere, von Braunhut's hard right-wing beliefs drew notice. According to a 1996 Anti-Defamation League report, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations. The Washington Post in 1988 published an article on him and his affiliations, adding that his relatives said he was Jewish. He repeatedly refused to discuss his beliefs on race or his own religious background. _______________________________________________ Sndbox mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://a8.mewebdns-a8.com/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
