Roasted by the New Yorker

Three times the magazine's cartoonists aimed their pens at Hammacher Schlemmer

Two longtime New York institutions… Hammacher Schlemmer and the New Yorker. It’s only natural that during the 98 years that we shared a presence in Manhattan, the city’s magazine of record would have taken note of us.

And so they did, as seen in the 1962 piece we quoted in last week’s Beatles story. But what of the New Yorker‘s more mirthsome face: its famously droll single-panel cartoons?

Indeed, the magazine made Hammacher Schlemmer the target of its graphical japery on three occasions that we know of. First came this piece in the March 19, 1966 issue by the legendary Robert Day:

“Only that crazy Hammacher Schlemmer could come up with a way-out invention like this!” seems to be the cartoon’s point. From our vantage some 60 years later, when squirrel-proof bird feeders are standard issue in the most utilitarian exurban hardware emporium, the sense of ridiculousness in this cartoon feels muted to the point of disappearing. It just goes to show you that today’s outlandish innovation is tomorrow’s ho-hum mundanity - like the pop-up toaster and the electric toothbrush, also first popularized under our auspices.

Twenty-seven years later, the New Yorker toted its chuckle-bucket back to our well for this 1993 cartoon by another titan of the form, Roz Chast:

Here Chast does us the honor of putting Hammacher Schlemmer in the same company as two other icons of 20th century catalog retail, L.L.Bean and FAO Schwarz. Three anachronistically garbed Wise Men peruse all our pages in search of the contemporary equivalent of frankincense and myrrh.

Finally, in 2011 came this archivally themed panel from Nick Downes:

A smoking-jacketed eminence shows off his library of Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs in what is either an ironic contrast between the opulence of the leather-bound volumes and the promotional ephemera inside, or a comment on the perceived affluence of the Hammacher audience and the esteem in which they held the catalog. Or maybe just a funny gag.

In any case, we wouldn’t mind such a library of our own. The Hammacher archives have been scattered hither and yon through various management changes, and old catalogs have proven stubbornly hard to find. (If you have any you’d be willing to part with, contact this bureau directly and let’s see if we can’t work out an arrangement.)

Thus far, Downes has had the last laugh in the New Yorker‘s pages. It remains to be seen whether Hammacher Schlemmer can once again rise to the prominence worthy of a skewering by their cartoonists’ pens. We assure you, we’re doing our best. If you happen to know any Magi, send them our way.

Alas, our ties to New York have loosened in recent years. So we fire up the Italian Countertop Pizza Oven every time we long for a taste of home. And yes, we fold every slice to eat it.