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PEANUT WORLD

JULY 2006

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by Kelly

Atlantic City, NJ is one of the most daft places, as a whole, one can visit in the good old US of A. From the cross-eyed glare of the rugs in the casinos to the seagulls attacking everyone on the boardwalk: daft, daft, daft! When we visited in the summer of 2006 the temperature was dangerously close to one hundred degrees, and walking along the boardwalk we were forced to stop every two feet and duck into an air-conditioned souvenir shop in order to breathe. Unless mine eyes deceived me (and with that heat I very well could have been hallucinating) there were several souvenir shops called Peanut World on the boardwalk. Here, we chronicle our favorite.

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Peanut World (where, incidentally, I did not see many actual peanuts) is filled chock full to the brim with knick-knacks and ceramic figurines the likes of which you cannot begin to imagine. For instance, if you're into the larger ladies, they offer the exotic blonde shown above balanced precariously on a mound of sand in either a blue or purple tiger-print bathing suit, matching shoes and pink bow. An orange purse completes her ensemble. Always about to be squashed is her tiny dog, Spot. If you're more into doctors with outrageous pink lipstick, perhaps this would be more "your" knick-knack:

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The following were sort of cute, but I'm still not sure what they're good for...perhaps they were banks...

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We ventured to the toy section, and found Christine, The Doll Who Looks Like She Was Packaged In 1962:

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Except...such wild, wild hair! Hair the same color and consistency of the center of a daisy. Her pink accessories made me shameful with envy (that pink hat would have come in handy to shade me from the sun that day!). I couldn't stand to look at her anymore, so green was I, and so I turned my head....and that's when I saw Him. Ham was out of my immediate area, and I immediately fell in love with...

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Robert! Oh my yes, Robert was a spectacular find, indeed. I should have bought him, I was so taken with him. Robert is such a simple man. All he needs in life is his yellow shorts and he's good to go. So uncluttered, Robert's life. Let's take a closer look at this monument to male perfection, shall we?

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Yes, from his lacquered teeth to his lacquered hair to his lacquered abs, Robert is nothing less than a dream. Robert McDreamy. That deep side part and obvious glue mark on his neck get me every time I look at this photo! The warning label says "CHOKING HAZARD - Small parts" and I can only take this to refer to his head and arms which seem to be detachable. Is his head darker than his body? For those intrigued, Robert also came in African-American and possibly Hispanic versions, the names of which I have since forgotten. Just know that the Robert company is ethnically diverse!
 

Back to the ceramic whatnot, I found this table of shade-wearing dogs. One of them had an obvious problem.

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Peanut World also had the World's Largest Variety Of Things Made Of Seashells To Give To People You Hate:

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Ah, the 99¢ Bins! You know I love these things...such absurd items - always...

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Let's see, we've got, uh, a lot of unidentifiable stuff, some paper fans, plastic fruit, large dice (ashtrays? and I think they weren't a dollar - just more ceramic nonsense), a variety of back-scratchers, plastic slingshots...I should have examined this aisle more closely.


What graduating senior - college or high school - wouldn't want a lovely key chain made of plastic french fries or soda?! Note how the floor was so very clean in Peanut World!

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Just to the left (you can kind of see them in the photo above) - to go along with the Graduating theme - were these enormous baby bottles:

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As you can see, these things were all cleverly and strategically positioned directly in front of the...toothpaste?!
 

In keeping with the rest of the daft ceramics, we here have the masterpieces of Peanut World - ashtrays featuring human anatomy! Some of which I had to blur out to keep this site family-friendly. First up, the Middle Finger Ashtrays...

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And finally, the Magnum Opus of Peanut World, something you'll be sure to run to Atlantic City to buy for your sweetheart this Valentine's Day (you're welcome!)...these heart-shaped ashtrays are certainly the perfect place to store your "butts!":

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As you can see by this tour of just one souvenir shop on the boardwalk, Atlantic City is daftness at its dafty best! I wouldn't recommend going there, as every time I visit Jersey it turns into a living nightmare. But, if for some godforsaken reason it turns out you must be there - forget Trump, forget Borgata, but be sure to check out any one of the Peanut World shops for only the finest in Atlantic City souvenirs!


(Posted 01/2007)

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