Mission San Juan Capistrano to loan artifacts to science center
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Discovery Science Center and Mission San Juan Capistrano have partnered to bring the "Adventure of Archaeology" a little closer to home for Southern California residents and visitors. (Flickr: clairity)
Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776 by Father Junipero Serra as part of the Catholic Church’s early efforts to convert Native Americans in the area. In its 236 years of existence, the Mission has served as church, private residence, school, and museum, and helped define an integral part of California’s founding history.
Currently, the Mission is the oldest operating church in California and Mass is still held daily in the world renowned Serra Chapel just as it had in Father Serra’s time.
The Mission is also the site of the ruins of the Great Stone Church, sometimes called the American Acropolis. This once massive edifice featured seven domes and its own bell tower, but was destroyed in an 1812 earthquake that killed 40 worshippers.
In the mid-20th century, Mission San Juan Capistrano began to carry out archaeological excavations as part of its investigative research. Many more excavations have been needed over the years as the Mission has undertaken preservation efforts and performed building maintenance, and several key discoveries have been made including the original building foundations, ceramics, animal bones, stone implements, weapons, tools, original ovens, underground walls, and a crypt.
To help increase the public’s knowledge of archaeological sciences, Mission San Juan Capistrano is lending some of its new and exciting finds to Discovery Science Center’s upcoming exhibit.
Visitors to Discovery Science Center can expect to see a statue of St. Francis dating from the late 1700s, a silver ciborium (see-bawr-ee-um | a religious vessel for holding sacramental bread), limestone blocks from the Great Stone Church, ceramic and glass bottle shards dating from the 1850s, and a 19th Century horse bit.
These artifacts represent the historical significance of the religious, architectural, and every-day existence of Mission San Juan Capistrano’s varied history, and are sure to capture the imagination of any aspiring Indiana Jones.
Mission San Juan Capistrano is located at 26801 Ortega Highway, San Juan Capistrano.
To learn more, visit www.missionsjc.com.
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The toy world is full of epic miscalculations. There are so many squicky, inappropriate action figures and other toys, after a while you start to wonder if the toy industry is some sort of bizarre joke. Who signed off on the masturbating Batman doll, or the Wolverine toy with the blow-up nozzle in Logan's crotch?
According to Mozart, these squirt guns (and some other similar ones) were made by a company called Elvin Toys, and they thought it was funny to be as obscene as possible. "I talked to one of the designers from that company," says Mozart. "I heard he was alive and living in New York... He bragged that they knew these toys were inappropriate." In fact, they considered that "part of the charm" of these toys.
This designer was your stereotypical old-school New Yorker, full of "dese" and "dems," and very much an old-school sexist pig — and the designer told Mozart the licensing department at Warner Bros. at the time was "a bunch of dames" who had no sense of humor. So the toy company reps would go out of their way to make sure the toys were as wrong as possible, and then tell the "dames" at Warner Bros. they were just imagining things. Maybe that's also how the infamous Wonder Woman scissors happened. At any rate, for the past few decades, Warner Bros. has had the least amount of inappropriate toys of any company — with one or two notable exceptions. (See below.)
What is up with Disney?
Why are there so many masturbating toys?
Possibly a similar explanation applies to this weird Happy Meal Batman Toy, where the Caped Crusader appears a little too happy? There's also pictures of a similarly odd Robin toy floating around, and a few other gripping, stroking toys on the internet.
And then there's Disney's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse toy, where Pluto and Mickey can talk to each other. With Talkin' Bobbin' action! And Pluto's paw is bent at a weird angle, so that Pluto's paw is pointing to his crotch and moving up and down. Originally, his front leg was bent at the elbow — as depicted on the back of the box — but Mozart says the people at Disney felt that it looked like he was making a stereotypically gay hand motion, so they straightened out his front leg to make it look more heterosexual.
What's with the Dora the Explorer Aqua Pet thing? Another famous "fail toy" is the Dora the Explorer "Aquapet" toy, where it basically looks like a giant dildo. Mozart says that the toy company was used to seeing these things in different colors, including wild purple and green — they never thought about what it looked like when the base was a fleshy pink color. "That problem never presented itself until the toy came on the market."
Who thought inflating a hammer by blowing on Wolverine's crotch was a good idea?
Why are there so many Spider-Man fail toys, in particular?
Also, there are just a ton of Spider-Man knockoffs out there — he's "one of the most knocked-off characters in history," says Mozart. So toymakers in other parts of the world create unapproved Spidey toys, many of which end up being just wrong. Possibly the dildo knife was one of those. See also, at left, Mozart's tribute to a Spider-Man bow and arrow, where the arrow goes through Spidey's midsection.
The most inappropriate toy franchise
In the second season finale of Game of Thrones, we came face to icy face with the fearsome White Walkers that live beyond the Wall. These concept designs by artist 
