https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mortimer-snerd-container.jpgBOOZE! Now that I have your attention, here’s a trio of old-time containers, including one based on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s other dummy, Mortimer Snerd.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

One of the fair’s regular features is the antiques competition, chiefly displayed on the second floor of the Indiana Arts Building. No one’s ever posted the rules, criteria, rankings, or anything expository beyond signage implying, “Here are some antiques not for sale.” Contestants bring in ancient items they unearthed somewhere, a secret council convenes far from inquisitive eyes, prize ribbons are placed next to some of them, yadda yadda yadda, they’re at your Indiana State Fair.

Amid the quilts and ’50s baby dolls and blue-and-white dishware, a few items with historical value and/or pop culture cachet will catch our attention, especially comic books published before I was born. We congratulate the winners of this year’s Antiques We Noticed Most Contest!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/popeye-the-sasquatch.jpgIf you liked the diver-headed alien gorilla from Robot Monster, you’ll love this Popeye-headed Sasquatch!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/nixon-dartboard.jpgLast century, we didn’t have phones that let us scream at famous people. If we were mad at them, we put their faces on dartboards.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/jfk-news.jpgYour grandparents remember when JFK used to be in current headlines that weren’t nostalgia pieces, and he was the only Kennedy anyone had to worry about.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/lenny-bruce-midnight-concert.jpgLenny Bruce’s The Midnight Concert, with self-explanatory cover.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rolling-stones-through-the-past-darkly.jpgBy 1969 the Rolling Stones were already on their third greatest-hits compilation.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/zorro-record-book.jpgOne of those record-and-book combos we could get as kids.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/1934-worlds-fair-book.jpgSouvenir from the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/clue-of-the-tapping-heels.jpgThe 1939 Nancy Drew mystery The Clue of the Tapping Heels was the sixteenth in the series.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/gasoline-alley-book.jpgA 1924 collection of Gasoline Alley, the groundbreaking comic strip that let its characters age in real time over the decades.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/winnie-winkle-comic.jpgAlso making the jump from comic strips: Winnie Winkle #4, circa 1948. Art probably by Martin Branner.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/captain-and-earth.jpgComics on Parade #40 (March 1943) featuring the Captain and the Kids, cover probably by Rudolph Dirks; and Classics Illustrated #105 (March 1953) adapting Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, cover by Alex Blum.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ff-richie-sherlock.jpgFantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963), cover by Jack Kirby, debuting Rama-Tut, who recently appeared in X-Men ’97 voiced by John de Lancie; Richie Rich and Dollar the Dog #3 (March 1988), artist unknown because nobody’s ever bought and opened a copy; and DC’s Sherlock Holmes #1 (Oct. 1975), cover by Walt Simonson.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/spectre-and-the-ducks.jpgThe Spectre #8 (Feb. 1969), cover by Nick Cardy; and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #278 (November 1963), cover by Carl Barks, Tony Strobl and Larry Mayer.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Our “Taste of the Fair” Tour, Worst to Best

Part 2: The Year in VHS

Part 3: The Year of America’s 250th

Part 4: The Year in Cakes

Part 5: The Year in Lego

Part 6: The Year in Art

Part 8: [coming soon]

Part 9: [coming soon]