I bet you can't get through this post without singing to yourself "Dog heads, dog heads, roly-poly dog heads..."

Sure, kids today get a bad rap for all their crazy habits and fads like planking and jowling and hoodying and katnissing and all that, but really, is it any crazier than the obsessions of kids of the immediate post-war period...your parents or grandparents, maybe?

No. No, it is not.


Advertisement for "Listerine Toothpaste Dog Heads" from Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood #2 (May-June 1949)

Yep! Remember when all of America was obsessed with collecting the full set of dog heads that smelled vaguely like Listerine and wearing them around their wrists as a taunt to all their peers that you ain't nobody if you don't have the full set of dog heads? Remember the waves of kid-on-kid violence that erupted across American towns and cities as children refused to trade "Sandy the Scottie" for "Wally the Collie?" Like slap bracelets, jellybands, Japanese erasers and Wacky Packages, all the kids wanted 'em, but parents just didn't understand.

So, next time you're emptying your junk drawer or cleaning out the glove compartment in your Oldsmobile Cutlass, take a closer look...for the Dog Heads of Yesteryear.

In conclusion: they were "beautifully modeled by a famous sculptor." He doesn't like to admit it, but it was Henry Moore.



So. Collect dog heads...won't you?