I love finding those bits of trivia that kind of change the way you see things. It's never big things, just little facts that you really wouldn't expect. For example, the reason the Count from Sesame Street is a vampire who loves to count things is because a good portion of classic vampire lore states that to get away from your attacker you just need to throw grains on the floor. Vampires would have the compulsive need to count the individual fallen grains, giving you the chance to escape. Kind of blew my mind when I put that together, although at the same time I was rather embarrassed that it took me as long as it did. Or upon rewatching the live action 101 Dalmatians years later the realization that the actors known for House and Mr. Weasley were the bungling villains Jasper and Horace respectively. Just those little moments of discovery that you really aren't expecting.
The Mr. Yuk sticker is one of those weird things I grew up with that I rather vividly recall. I can't tell you exactly how old I was when I was first introduced to the sticker but it was while I was still at my local Catholic elementary school, so some time before fourth grade. I remember that there was a class assembly in the gym where we watched a short video and had a presentation from the guest speaker. I'm sure they covered a variety of subjects and did their best to instill in us the wide collection of items that could potentially kill us if we weren't careful. Now granted this isn't a terribly descriptive story, I was fairly young at the time though and it wasn't the presentation that was memorable. This may sound a little odd for me to admit, given my apathetic nature that most people see, but I was a fairly enthusiastic child. You told me something and I had the tendency to dive head first. So after a presenter gave me a list of dangerous household items and a sheet of stickers I went a little nuts. I peppered our kitchen with stickers and pretty much demanded that my dad help me label all of the dangerous things in our house. He was a good sport about it though and up until we moved from that house I would occasionally come across one of the faded stickers on items that we never used under the sink. While I really remember Mr. Yuk, it was definitely one of those things that started to fall to the wayside. Talking with my sister about it she admits that while she knows the sticker, she doesn't recall doing anything with it in school. So I was a little surprised when I came out to Pittsburgh for college and started to see the sticker on the streets. When I researched the sticker for the post tonight I realized that a good reason for this prevalence here is the fact that it originated here. I feel like I had heard this before, but I was still a little surprised to learn it again. Mr. Yuk was created by the Pittsburgh Poison Center, a department of UPMC's Children's Hospital back in the 70s. The creator Dr. Richard Moriarty felt that the standard skull and cross bones was no longer effective given it's prevalence in popular culture as an association to pirates. So they came up with the grossed out angry face of Mr. Yuk. Over the years there have been some doubts cast over the effectiveness of this image as well and it does seem to have fallen out of favor. But Mr. Yuk does remain a big symbol in the efforts to reduce the amount of poisoning around the country and world. You can actually still request stickers from Children's if you provide them with a self-addressed envelope. The more you know, right.
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Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
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