File under “my brane works weird”, but I realized the other day that, when it was introduced in the 50s, the Mr Potatohead toy was actually just a kit of attachments and bits you’d shove into an actual potato.

At some point (Wikipedia says it’s the mid-60s), the manufacturers started providing an ersatz tuber with pre-selected holes, and now the whole idea of using plastic bits to make faces in cheap footstuffs probably strikes most people as weird, wasteful, or somehow gross — but, at introduction, it was probably seen as a frugal and inventive toy because the tater provided a sort of tabula rasa that was available in virtually any home.

During the same sequence of years, Americans as a rule have become more and more removed from the sources of their food, and using a plastic potato probably struck folks as upmarket or modern or more appealing by the prosperous mid-60s. The whole thing is emblematic of the rise of brands in American culture (nothing is more generic than a potato, but imagine a kid with a hand-me-down real-potato set being taunted by schoolmates for not having a “real” Mr Potatohead, complete with fake potato), and the acceleration of consumer culture that followed.

Weird.