Just sit right back, for surf & turf

I am not much of a matchbook collector.  If you've been reading you won't be surprised to know I have a few from Carrols restaurant, and a few other restaurants from when I was a kid.  But when I saw this on Ebay in a small group of matchbooks, going cheap, I had to get it.  It just arrived this morning.

I liked Gilligan's Island as a kid.  I watched it all the time, and even drew my own comic of it once.  (It was on a huge piece of stiff paper, so I'm sure it was destroyed long, long ago.  I only remember it involved the Professor inching his way along a ledge, probably because he was the only one I thought might get them off the island.

I'm not really a Gilligan collector, though.  I never got the floating island toy, with a little Gilligan, Skipper and Mary Ann (you can buy Mary Ann here), or any of the later dolls you can also see at that link.  But something about this matchbook spoke to both my childhood love of that silly show, and my current interest in long gone eateries.

Alan Hale Jr, famously, loved his role as the Skipper on Gilligan's island, and wore his trademark hat often after the show - as the illustration clearly attests to.  826 N. La Cienega is now the very swanky looking "Mark's Restaurant" - I wonder if they know about the history of the location?  I'm going to be on the lookout for a menu or photos from the place.

I do have a few other Gilligan things I've "collected: in my Itunes are audio files I pulled off of TV of all the songs from Gilligan's Island's version of "Hamlet."  They put the play on to convince  producer Harold Heckuba (Phil Silvers) to leave the island sooner, but guess what?  It was so good he stole it & left without them.  (Did you ever wonder if they ratted out all those people after Rescue From Gilligan's Island?)  I can never, ever hear Bizet's Toreador, En Garde from "Carmen" without hearing Hale belting out "Neither a Borrower or a Lender Be" in my head.

And last but not least, the pride of my animation collection is a cel of the walk cycle from "The New Adventures of Gilligan" with an original background painting.  

It's framed in bamboo.  What else?

You'll Come Back to Carrols

So far, of everything I've shared on this site, all the stuff I've collected, I still feel like I haven't shown you much of the stuff I consider my "major" collections - things I'm actively collecting, in a fairly completist way, and enjoying very much.  One such collection is animated cels, which I've shared a couple of examples of.  Another is Big Bang Theory, of which there's very little to actually collect right now.  So, it's time to talk about one of the really big ones, which I suppose I've been putting off because it's a little hard to explain:  Carrols restaurant memorabilia.

When I was a kid in Syracuse, NY, we used to go to a fast food place called Carrols.  It was only a few blocks away from our house, and I remember very little about it except that it was decorated mostly in orange.  (This photo looks very little like that restaurant, though it represents that era).  I do remember, though, when in 1975 all the Carrols restaurants became Burger Kings.  In fact, the Carrols Corporation still exists today, still headquartered in Syracuse, NY, and is the largest franchisee of Burger King, with over 300 restaurants.

So fairly recently, almost entirely with the help of Ebay, I've started collecting Carrols memorabilia.  Some dates back to before my time, like this take out box shaped like a restaurant.  It's just big enough to hold a hamburger, french fries, and maybe some napkins and ketchup.  I never saw a restaurant like this myself, the one in my neighborhood was sort in a strip of shops, not a stand alone.

Other items seem to be more recent corporate items, like this pin with 3 stones in it.  I'm assuming it's a service pin of some sort, for 3 or 30 years with the company, or something like that.  

Still other items I've come across surprise me that they still exist anywhere.  One guy had worked at a Carrols for years, and on his last day, took home one clean piece of every paper item they had, like this french fries envelope.  (Servings were much smaller back then!  Insert social / health comment here).

The funny thing is, I can't remember the food at all.  The menu was pretty much the same as McDonalds, with their specialty burger called "the Club Burger."  So I'm not sure why I started collecting it.  

I think part of it is a tie to my family - I was only 9 in 1975, so I never went to Carrols without my parents or at least older sisters.  (Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I ever went to any Carrols other than the one in walking distance on Marshall Street in Syracuse).  I'm sure my interest is partially spurred on by the fact I could find very little about Carrols on the web, though nostalgia sites for other restaurants abound.  

In any case, I've learned an awful lot about the restaurant, what became of it, and oddly, why it's not completely extinct today.  (If you like spoilers, read up on wikipedia.  If not, I'll be continuing the story soon).  The Carrols memorabilia is displayed on a shelf in my living room (part of which is visible in the banner for this blog!)

Now if only I could find someone who knows about Carrols cinemas, which were still around years after the Burger King conversion.  Or...anyone out there got a ticket from one they want to auction off?

I'd like to invite anyone reading this who has any recollection of Carrols at all to please, comment here.  I'm really interested in compiling your impressions of the place.