For those of us old enough to remember, a souvenir from “Hollywood” (which to out-of-towners is all of L.A.) used to mean one of those mini-orange crates. It didn’t mean wooden plaque clocks laminated with portraits of Dodger pitcher Chan Ho Park, or for that matter, novelty contact lenses your choice of spirals, bloodshot, or cat’s-eye designs.
The world has changed a lot in the last 30 years, so it should be expected that souvenirs would change with it. And what better place to get a gauge of the good, the bad and the tacky (make that very tacky) than the tourist shops along Hollywood Boulevard?
After a walk down the boulevard, I quickly conclude that souvenirs these days fall into three categories: actual representations of celebrities, items that allow us to imagine personal popularity for ourselves or our loved ones, and those that permit us to remake our image.
Of course, anything connected in even the most tangential way with show business becomes a big deal. For example, instant glamour is yours with a brown or blue cap emblazoned with “Hollywood,” attached to a mane of blond hair loose or ponytail. There’s also a “Rasta Man” cap of yellow green and red stripes, with a choice of braids or dreadlocks ($19 to $28).
“Hollywood tourists are crazy about these,” says store manager Ben Zahavi. “Tourists take pictures with them on and bald men put them on and have hair.”
Shoppers also can snag “Superstar Trophies” with labels like “Hollywood’s Best Father” ($9.99), a statuette of a winged goddess labeled “Lover of the Millennium” (14.99), or a do-it-yourself trophy complete with yellow tape for scrawling the category ($9.99).
‘Friends’ bottles, ‘Titanic’ posters
Sanwar, a clerk at Hollywood T-Shirts & Gifts, said winter is the slow season because there are fewer tourists around. At Hollywood Sports & Gifts, an employee urging passersby to come in wasn’t having much luck despite the display of cheap T-shirts and dance music thumping from nearby speakers.
At Souvenirs of Hollywood, a young Asian couple admired the soft-drink bottles blown into grotesque shapes, and mugs with the “Friends” TV show logo printed on them. But after oohing and aahing, they placed them back on the shelves.
Posters and memorabilia from classic movies now including “Titanic” achieve eternal popularity here, although farther down the street at Eureka Hollywood, “Star Wars: Episode One The Phantom Menace” merchandise is marked half-off. And the lure of keeping company with a life-sized cutout of Zena the Warrior Princess, Princess Diana or wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin ($26) proves irresistible to many. But there are few takers for aspiring cardboard Senator Hillary Clinton.
For $6.99 at Souvenirs of Hollywood ($5.99 at Hollywood Music & Movies), you can buy a $1 bill with a celebrity mug replacing George Washington’s. There’s Dennis Rodman, menacing in shades and various piercings, Marilyn Monroe puckering up, Harrison Ford striking a presidential pose and President Clinton stealing a sideways glance, seeming to wonder, “What am I doing here?”
Most of the shops along the boulevard display their discounted T-shirts emblazoned with Hollywood or Beverly Hills emblems as many as five for $10 serving as enticements for shoppers. “That’s the marketing strategy,” confirms a friendly clerk at Eureka Hollywood, rolling up cash-register tape.
Across the street, a woman behind the register at Best of Hollywood regards me with suspicion. I admire a do-it-yourself “Hollywood Walk of Fame” kit for $11. The directions conclude, “you’re done and you’re famous.”
Confusion over price
For $6, you could get a star laminated in plastic with the ready-made “Best Mother” or “Best Performer” designation. I notice the $25 ties emblazoned with such icons as Betty Boop and the Three Stooges similar ties are $17.99 at Souvenirs of Hollywood and the wooden plaque clocks. I turn one over and peer behind a shelf to search for a price tag. The clerk rushes down the aisle.
“No inside. No no!” she scolds.
“I just wanted to see the price,” I protest.
She’ll have none of it, and repeating herself, she chases me out of the store.
I quickly compose myself and saunter over to T-Island at Hollywood Boulevard and Cherokee Avenue, which sells miniature surfboards imprinted with dolphins and pink sunsets on wooden stands for $9.99 ($12.99 at Hollywood Sports & Gifts). I linger over the commemorative plates with 3-D depictions of such Hollywood Boulevard landmarks as the Chinese Theatre and Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium’s dinosaur hovering over a clock ($14.99).
Nearby at Hollywood Sports & Gifts, paperweights including glass slippers and pyramids filled with gold coins stoke fantasies of being rich and famous ($7.99).
If one wanted, er, to make love like a movie star, one could pick up a package of “Hollywood Condoms” that try to be personalized by using women’s or men’s names. They sold for $4.99 at this shop (and $3.99 at Hollywood Music and Movies, where the clerk was using Windex to remove fingerprints from the packages).
And at The Jewelry Shop, which sells pipes, bongs and jewelry, east of the Best of Hollywood shop, a few locals with spiked hair stopped by to ask about the price of those novelty contact lenses. When told they cost $150, one guy begged off, saying they were too expensive. The clerk, who identified himself as John, lamented that most of his customers are locals, and unable to afford that item although the pipes, which go for as little as $10 are brisk sellers.
My feet are aching, and I see by the marbled frame clocks with portraits of Madonna, Elvis or the Duke ($19.99) that the hour is growing late. It’s even later on timepieces that resemble California license plates ($32.99).
I decide to visit Hollywood Music & Movies, where I spy an Elvis pendulum clock for $9.99. I watch his hips swivel back and forth until I’m almost hypnotized into opening my wallet. But I hesitate on buying this Hunka Burning Love, concluding I have little room left for dust collectors.
Instead, I settle on a $3.49 dish wiper nearby that complains, “My friends went to Hollywood and all I got was this crummy towel.”
