WORLD OF MONSTERS: WEIRD-OHS!

Saturday, February 3, 2024

WEIRD-OHS!

In the early 1960's custom cars and surfing were a big deal all over the country, but especially in Southern California. For kids that were too young to drive or not close enough to the beach, they were eager to snap up hobby kits of hot rods with the Aurora monsters lurking right around the corner. One model company decided to try combining the two and it was a smash hit.

The Hawk Model Company Logo.

The Hawk Model Company was founded way back in 1928 in Chicago by brothers Dick and Phil Mates and they produced a ton of kits, ranging from cars, planes and ships. An artist by the name of Bill Campbell free-lanced for Hawk when their regular artist fell ill and he subsequently illustrated many of the box covers for them from then on. When the car/surf culture hit, Campbell caught wind of Ed "Big Daddy Roth" and his custom rods with T-shirt and decal designs as accessories, he thought it might be a good idea to try wild hot rod kits with even wilder monster characters driving them. He built a few prototypes out of spare car kit parts, wire, wood and artist's putty.

In-store ad card.

Campbell recollected:

“I brought my little monsters into Hawk one day. Dick and Phil said, ‘They are interesting Bill. We’ll think about it.’ I had been around operations long enough to know that this is the friendly kiss of death. So I left my models with them and went back to illustrating the next box art. Somehow these models ended up on the conference room table where Hawk would host distributors. On that day they were courting a group through the workings of the plant. Upon arrival in the conference room, they saw my little monsters lined up on the table and they went nuts over them. That is how the Weird-Ohs were given the nod for production.”

Weird-ohs window card.

Weird-ohs hanger promo.

The first model kit prototypes went on display in 1963 at the Sherman House Hotel Hobby Convention in Chicago and vendor's couldn't wait to get their hands on them. Not long after, the first three kits came off the line: Daddy, Davey and Digger. They became so popular that hobby shops and other retailers couldn't keep them on the shelves. Hawk couldn't produce them fast enough, even with their factory working long hours.

Weird-ohs helmet (Ideal, 1964).

A couple of years later, two more model kit lines were introduced, The Silly Surfers and Frantics, followed by decals, an LP record, masks, a helmet, bubble gum trading cards (Fleer, 1966), Marx injection molded figures (along with their "Nutty Mads" line) and much more.

Weird-ohs board game (Ideal, 1964).

Hawk models never really went out of business -- they were first bought out by Testors, then later to J. Lloyd and Lindberg, then finally to Round 2. Along the way, the Weird-Ohs model kits were re-issued here and there and kits can still be acquired for reasonable prices (the originals go for higher dollars, of course).

Here's a list of Hawk's "way out" model kits:

WEIRD-OHS