# # Lurchi Archives - coreyshead

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Brother, I Can See Your Skull. - The Coreyshead Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Lurchi’

Piping the Dwarf

March 20th, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)
Piping the Dwarf

Don’t worry, kids. I’m not going to kill you!

Piping der Zwerg – I can only assume it’s not pronounced “Piping,” as in “who’d like a plate of piping hot dwarf?” but “Pipping.”

Further, though “zwerg” translates roughly to “dwarf” in English, I really think the little bugger is more gnome-like – but who am I to nitpick? Dwarf, Gnome, Brownie, Creepy Little Dude – it’s all the same in the long run.

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Hopps the Frog

March 18th, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)

Hopps the Frog

Hopps the Frog and his hypnotic, acid-eyed stare.

Hopps der Frosch – the frog – is another in a series of often naked-but-for-their-shoes advertising characters from the German shoe-maker, Salamander AG.

Part of a group of six vinyl toys, Hopps is described as leader Lurchi’s best friend, curious, cheeky, and adventurous. Given what I’ve seen from the rest of the group’s sculpts, Hopps is actually *less* cheeky than most of the others … but maybe they weren’t referring to his rump.

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Mäusepiep the … Mouse

June 8th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)

Mäusepiep the Mouse.

Being unfamiliar with German beyond movies and a few chance meetings, I can only assume “Mäusepiep” is pronounced similar to “Mousie peep” which has some disturbing implications if one is, like myself, immature enough to move past the more obvious and palatable thought that the “piep” stands for the sound the little critter might make as opposed to the stain and stench he leaves behind.

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Igelmann the Hedgehog

June 3rd, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)

Igelmann the Hedgehog.

Igelmann the Hedgehog is the third in a series of vinyl toys I’ve been profiling from German shoe company, Salamander AG.

Igelmann – is there any more inauspicious of a name? It even seems short a letter: for weeks I’ve misread it as “Ingelmann.” Having now realized it lacks the letter “n” that my eyes first imagined, my onomatopoeic mind now envisions Igelmann as a rather squirmy, wiggly character … but no matter.

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Lurchi the Salamander

May 29th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)

Lurchi the Fire Salamander.

Allow me to introduce (at least to my blog) Lurchi, the fire salamander and main advertising character for the German shoe company Salamander AG (get it? get it?).

Introduced in 1937 as a way to distract children during their parent’s potentially protracted perusal of the proprieters products (cough), Lurchi is the alpha dog of a motley crew of animal characters whose tales are told in small booklets entitled “Lurchi’s Abenteuer” (Lurchi’s Adventure); humorous, sometimes moralistic tales written in simple rhyming couplets for a target audience of primary-school children.

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Unkerich the Toad

May 24th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards

(part of a series on the advertising character toys of German shoe maker Salamander AG)

Unkerich shows off his maker’s mark

Meet Unkerich, the yellow-bellied toad and shoe shiller for German shoe company Salamander AG.

Part of a cast of six characters introduced in 1937, ostensibly to entertain the children of fussy, adult shoe shoppers, Unkerich is said to be the “strong man” of the group as well as a gastronome and, if Wikipedia can be trusted, also a bit of a maladroit.

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