Ben, Joe & the Kiddies

To the hundreds of companies that make a living out of novelty hats, the fashion whims of the U.S. moppet mean the difference between feast & famine. Success in this fast-moving, heads-up business is often a fluke. But last week Ben Molin and Joe Rosenbaum, owners of Brooklyn's Benay-Albee Novelty Co., thought they had it down to a pseudoscience, something like phrenology.

In Manhattan, Macy's put on sale the latest samples of Ben & Joe's scientific endeavor, a combination felt hat and ballpoint pen. There was a beanie for girls (the Pen 'n Dink, 69-c-), a Robin Hood hat for boys (the Alpen, 59-c-) and even a beret-style (with better felt) for adults ($1.69). All were rakishly decorated with a long feather tipped with a ballpoint pen. Benay-Albee has stepped up production to 180,000 feather hats a week.

Ben & Joe first hit the novelty big time last year with their Atomic Whirler hats --beanies with two or three pinwheels fastened on top. They sold about 3,000,000 whirlers and grossed about $700,000. Onetime employees of a Manhattan hatmaker, Ben & Joe set up shop for themselves twelve years ago. After losing money making standard boys' hats, they converted to novelties and in rapid order produced such nifties as Charmies (beanies dangling 24 small plastic animals), Easy Money Beanies (with five shiny new pennies attached), and hats with faces on the crowns. All were "pretested" on Ben's eight-year-old twins.

Last week Ben & Joe were also turning out a new version of the Atomic Whirler --a beanie shaped like a plane with a propeller that spins when the child runs. Soon they will get to work on a brand-new idea--"a hat that stays still while the kid whirls around."

Zanier hats were also ready for market last week. Brooklyn's American Merrilei Corp. (which also makes Hawaiian leis and paper party hats) brought out a pith helmet containing a tiny, concealed radio set with a single earphone. But the Buck Rogers buffs might prefer a football type helmet, which the American Junior Aircraft Co. of Portland, Ore. displayed at the 46th annual American Toy Fair. It carried a tone transmitter (see cut) which controls the steering of a glider airplane by sonic vibrations. A steady sound tone makes it fly straight, interruptions turn it alternately right and left (price: $25). The 10,000 U.S. retail buyers attending the toy fair did so much early Christmas shopping that the Toy Manufacturers of the U.S.A. reported that 1949's business would be just as good, if not better, than last year's estimated $400 million.

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