Muffler Man II

I had to revisit the "Muffler Man" blog entry because two readers, "BeemerGirl" and my friend Wayne mentioned that he looked like "Alfred E. Neuman", the fictional mascot and cover boy of Mad Magazine. Wiki here.   After a little research, here's the background of Muffler Man. Wiki here.

According to Roadside America website, they're big. they're scary and there are hundreds of them.  The site has a page on the "origin of the species" that you can read more here.
Apparently, in 1999, Steve Dashew stumbled onto the site, he was the owner of International Fiberglass, the company that turned out thousands of commercial statues in the 1960s and 70s.  International Fiberglass took a single statue mold created for a cafe and parlayed it into a roadside industry.  Roadside America interviewed Steve which you can read here.
The first figure was a Paul Bunyan, done for the PB Cafe on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona in about 1962. Most of the statues were derivatives of that one mold. You can find more info on this site

There was Miss Uniroyal, in bikini and dressed version.

The Alfred E. Neumans, "Happy Half-wits", which apparently one is/was in Seaside Heights and held the Paul Bunyan axe, I have to take a ride there to see if he's still standing, and the one I saw in Jackson.

They were also made for various other establishments.  Here's two common ones, the "Indian Brave" in Bemidji, MN and "Salsa Muffler Man", Malibu, CA.

During my research I ran into Roadside Architecture website which has lots of information on Paul Bunyan Muffler Man and on giants of the road including the huge gorilla at Mighty Joe's Gas Grill & Deli in Shamong, NJ which I have run into a few times. I don't have a picture of my bike in front of him.
Visit Roadside Architecture website here if you interested in getting pictures of your bike in front of a giant, they are found all over across the country.

Mighty Joe's

Now it's time for you to go out and post a picture of your bike in front of a giant, leave a comment here with a link to your post.

List of sites mentioned:
Wikipedia - Alfred E. Neuman link
Wikipedia - Muffler Man link
Wikipedia - Paul Bunyan link
Roadside America - Origins of the species link
Roadside Architecture - list of giants of the road link
Ratrun - You will find a pretty big list of Muffler Man on this link

Muffler Man

A few months ago I was reading Fuzzygalore's blog when I saw a post about a Muffler Man she had found in California.  "Fuzzygalore's blog entry"
It wasn't the first time she had mentioned Muffler Man and in another post she had mentioned Paul Bunyan. The guy looked familiar and it piqued my interest to find out more.  I knew I had run into a Paul Bunyan on my cross country trip but had no idea what he represented.  I wasn't born in the US but always had great interest in American history, it was time to find out, you can read more here: "Paul Bunyan Wiki"
After looking through my trip archive I found out I had run into Paul Bunyan and his animal companion, Babe the Blue Ox, in Trees of Mystery, a roadside attraction in Klamath, California.  "Map location"
"My blog entry"

Paul Bunyan in Klamath

According to Wikipedia "the first figure was a Paul Bunyan character designed to hold his axe and then derivatives of that figure were widely used to hold full-sized car mufflers, tires, or other items promoting various roadside businesses"

Fuzzygalore had also mentioned there used to be one close to where I live near the Six Flags Great Adventure park in Jackson, New Jersey.

Well, it's Friday, a balmy 55 degrees, time for a road trip and find out if the "Muffler Man" is still there.  Turns out he is there but no longer holds anything, I'm not even sure why he's there or what he advertised in the past.  He is located a block away from the entrance to the Great Adventure park in a fenced in area all by himself.  He is all alone but still showed a smile.

Since the gate was open I rode my bike in and parked in front of the 20 foot Muffler Man just for perspective, the fella is pretty big.

And then for fun I put him on my bike, he was looking at my bike with interest and that's the least I could do to help the lonely Muffler Man.

I left the place and headed to my mom's home a few miles down the road for some coffee and cookies, she's always happy to see me and always has a bag of Milano cookies waiting for me, today she had the Mint Milano's, if you haven't tried them you should, they are super delicious.
Here's an artistic view of the Muffler Man taken with my phone and created with "Camera360", a camera application for Android.

"Muffler Man on Wikipedia"