Allee Willis’ Museum O’ Kitsch – Felt Coaster Love Type

Submitted by Allee Willis August 9th, 2010
Certifikitsch Winner
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It’s always a good sign of kitsch when right off the bat the packaging describes the product wrong. On the top of the package it very clearly states that I will be getting one Felt Coaster Love Type. But a few inches lower it clearly says that I will be unwrapping two Felt CoasterS Love Type. Perhaps the designer of the label was too excited at the hearts leaping out of the coffee cup to go for accuracy in the product description.

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The back of the package states “Please do not put IT near the fire”. Does that count for both its, as in two coasters, and in that case shouldn’t it be “them”?

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On the back of the package there are several warnings the user of the Felt Coaster Love Type must heed. Especially important is “Please don’t wash it in the hand”. Which of the hands should i not be washing it in?

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The directions also clearly instruct not to use your Love coaster as a hot plate. At least I think that’s what this means:

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Then there’s this somewhat distressing warning:

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Is the Felt Coaster Love Type full of nickle, lead or battery acid or something? I’m not sure I want anything like that in the vicinity of anything hot OR human.

I do love the look of these things. Nice bold letters looking like they would in a nice heavy letter sweater.

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The letters are actually the best feature of the Felt Coaster Love Type though their specialness isn’t even mentioned on the label. All the letters pop out.

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I can’t imagine the purpose of the pop out letters. You certainly can’t balance a glass on one of them though they probably could handle the last bite of toast.

There’s a couple more things that are outstanding about the Felt Coaster Love Type. The leaping heart coffee cup and slice of cake are sitting on two different size coasters yet there are only two 4″ square coasters in the package.

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The red “coaster” that the cake is sitting on isn’t even rectangular, which means that two of the “coasters” couldn’t be stuck together to make one larger “place mat”, not to mention that the package contains two different colored “coasters” so they could never be combined to make the larger one the cake’ sitting on. It’s nutty in the first place that a piece of cake on a plate would have to sit on top of a coaster. And even if this were an optical illusion and this were, in fact, a coaster, the plate that would fit on it could only be 3″ round, which means that the piece of cake is only about a tablespoon big. And even if it’s a little teacake I don’t like eating off of doll dinnerware.

The Felt Coaster Love Type was produced in China for Daiso, Japan. I will faithfully follow the instructions and promise to never use it “for purposes other than originally intended”.

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Thank you, aKitschionado Windupkitty, for your generous contribution to the permanent collection of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch.

4 Responses to “Allee Willis’ Museum O’ Kitsch – Felt Coaster Love Type”

  1. Lisa Rios

    I used to collect vinyl, LPs. My favorite were the Japanese pressings. Their vinyl was a higher caliber and the lyric sheets that were included in the albums provided me with lots of amusement. Occasionally the translations were so far off that the meaning of the song was completely different.

    Sorry I don’t have any examples of this. I got rid of a massive LP collection years ago. Kinda sorry I did.

    • Allee Willis

      So many of my songs were translated into Japanese. Thankfully, I’ve been a kitsch lover almost since I was born. Most songwriters get very upset when their songs are translated wrong. I’m in heaven.

  2. Nessa

    These are really cute! :D

    I think I can shed some light on the “dispose of in accordance with local regulations” etc.

    In Japan, because it is so small, they have pretty strict garbage collection in some places, for example, one day you might only be allowed to throw away stuff that can be incinerated, another day might only be glass, or only plastics, or whatever…. what is allowed to be thrown away on one day in one place may be entirely different someplace else… so you might not be able to throw your felt coaster(s) away properly unless you found out what day you could throw it out on… if that makes any sense, lol.