Today’s Zippy, taking us back into the world of Doggie Diner heads and Muffler Men, roadside fiberglass icons that Zippy engages in conversation with every so often. Today they give him astonishing news about his origins:
Muffler Man figures are all over the place (dressed in various costumes); there’s a 4/23/15 posting on them, with links to earlier postings on the fiberglass figures. The doggie heads are a northern California thing (which is why Hayward CA comes up in the strip); see my Doggie Diner posting of 12/27/13.
The diners are long gone, but some fiberglass dog heads survive as exhibits in these locations (listed on the Weird California site); note the boldfaced entry:
45th and Sloat Boulevard, San Francisco, California 94116
Treasure Island Doggie Diner Heads: Avenue H, Treasure Island, San Francisco, California 94130 (Between 11th and 9th)
Streetlight Records: 980 South Bascom Avenue, San Jose, California 95128
Bell Plastics: 2020 National Ave, Hayward, California 94541
The Dachshund House: 3026 Harper Street, Berkeley, California 94703
Vino Noceto Winery: 11011 Shenandoah Road, Plymouth, California 95669
The Other Place: Boonville, California 95415
Now, some of you are complaining that the strip says that the figures, and Zippy too, are all molded plastic, but I’ve just told you that the figures are fiberglass, and fiberglass is a N + N compound that looks like it refers to a kind of glass, not plastic.
Ah, but fiberglass is not subsective. From NOAD2: the compound denotes
a reinforced plastic material composed of glass fibers embedded in a resin matrix
(much longer discussion in the Wikipedia entry). That is, fiberglass is a kind of plastic containing glass fibers as an especially salient ingredient.
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