DRW, please ID this gear!

[nikeajax]

I knew I could get you to fall for that gag David

OK, as a vintage cartoon nerd I love the very early Hanna Barbera cartoons, and there's a site dedicated to them called Yowp:

yowpyowp.blogspot.com/

you can find what I'm talking about here:

yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2017/06/jinks-in-comics.html

Anyway, I saw this and thought of you DRW cuz it has snorkeling gear but is also just fun

JB

[DavidRitchieWilson]

You know me so well, JB! I'll give this my attention some time today or tomorrow. The mask with the built-in snorkel reminds me of the French Squale Cygne mask. "Cygne" is French for swan and the protruding snorkel does resemble a swan's neck in the case of the Squale mask:


I'm not convinced that this is the model in question, though, and it will be a matter of dating the Pixie and Dixie cartoon and then determining which American models of snorkel mask were around at the time. I know it's all in fun, but it's intriguing, particularly because there's more to early masks with built-in snorkels than sticking a snorkel into the top or side of an existing mask. A few were actually patented and later copied... Anyway, more anon I'm sure.

Coincidentally, I've been researching an influential French early diving gear manufacturer, Hurricane. This firm specialised in spearfishing and its publicity material benefited in the late 1940s from the services of Albert Dubout, a cartoonist, painter and graphic artist. This from the Hurricane 1947 catalogue:

and this is a stand-alone Dubout-designed Hurricane ad, done up in the French style as an enamel artefact for display:

[nikeajax]

DRW, thanks for playing along... Oooh my, I really love that art--fun!

So, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say hovering around '63-ish?

You probably don't know the Pixie & Dixie cartoon, but they were part of The Huckleberry Hound Show first aired in 1958. A voice actor named Daws Butler did many of the voices, easily as good as Mel Blank who is best known as the voice of Bugs Bunny and who I know you must have heard. I bring this up because Mr. Jinks, the big orange cat, was voiced by Daws Butler, and the funny part is, legend has it he was doing an imitation of Marlin Brando when he came up with the voice--now that is fuuuuunnnny!

This next one you may no be so interested in but:

www.landlcollectables.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1002623



G.I. Joe's reg is not only backward, but it's a, to use Phil's naming convention, Dait, or a Vocor, Dacor/Voit

JB

[DavidRitchieWilson]

JB:

I've selected two items from one manufacturer to make a good enough match for the cat's snorkel mask and fins:


They're not an exact match, of course, but they'll do. I know that the mask illustrated is a full-face one and the snorkel is at an angle, not vertical, but I don't know of a closer model. The fins illustrated are a closer match, with a heel platform, adjustable heel strap and three reinforcement ribs on the blade.

Both items were made by "Jopen-Match", a French company long gone but then headquartered in Marseilles on the Mediterranean. More can be gleaned by visiting divecollect.jimdo.com/palmes/. The pictures are from a British Lillywhites underwater catalogue published in 1960, so the date is roughly correct.

[DavidRitchieWilson]

I'll play safe and say the fins are real or cloned Cressi Rondines,

while the masks are Cressi Ostricas:


Here are highly collectible miniature versions of these used for advertising purposes:


raretracce.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/gadged.html

[nikeajax]

You have outdone yourself good sir! I had no idea that someone would actually put a heal-platform on fins: I thought it was just a convenient plot device so them meeses could sit.





Now, imagine Mr. Jinks giving Mark Antony's Speech in "Julius Caesar": now that's funny!

JB