The essential fashion item if you are going to the Beijing Olympics to watch people compete in air made of Jello - a gas mask.

Gas masks are all more or less terrifying to look at, which is why some people get a kick out of them, creating artsy fetish masks, or artists create ironically cute masks such as Bill Barminsky’s Mickey Mouse mask.

The irony is on the artists, however, since genuine Mickey Mouse inspired gas masks were given to children in both the UK and the US, during wartime, to appear less scary.

From the archive:

On January 7th, 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, T.W. Smith, Jr., the owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and his designer, Dietrich Rempel, with Walt Disney’s approval introduced a protective mask for children. This design of the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask for children was presented to Major General William N. Porter, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. After approval of the CWS, Sun Rubber Products Company produced sample masks for review. Other comic book character designs were to follow, depending on the success of the Mickey Mouse mask.

People say to me, "Whatever it takes."

I tell them, It's going to take everything.

And still I see a woman in row four, cutting an apple. With a four-inch knife.

Between the 5% tint on the windows, the gas masks and wires blocking my front view, the highly questionable steering, and the 35 pounds of liquid propane on the roof, I pretty much have my bases covered in the "constant rolling threat to all things living" department. The IV drip bag is real, although the blood is actually Mountain Dew and cherry pie filling.

... Here are the controls for Alexi. A lot of people ask what all the backlit switches do. "Well, most of them turn on other switches, which are also backlit" I tell them.

"You mean they don't actually DO anything?" They always ask me.

The truth is that I like how light up toggle switches look. So most of them just sit there, glowing away, looking cool, doing nothing.

unusual gas masks