Mr Potato Head...

I heard on the news today that a field of genetically modified potatoes is being planted at a secret location in Norfolk. The aim is to test if genes from two wild varieties of potato can protect cultivated plants from late blight, the disease that caused the Irish potato famine. It got me thinking about that other genetically modified potato - you know the original one, Mr Potato Head.

I have at times been likened to Mr Potato Head and sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go through life with a face that’s well put together and a pleasure to look at in the mirror - but we can’t all be handsome haricots or gorgeous greengages, so Mr Potato Head I remain.

I had one of the original Mr. Potato Heads, the one where you had to use a real potato, these days a plastic one comes with the American invented toy and there’s a much wider range of plastic accessories than there was back then. I used to like finding the ugliest, most misshapen potato that I could and use the plastic ears, eyes, hats, noses and moustaches to make the most deformed Mr. Potato Head I could manage – a kind of Hunchspud of Notre Dame.

Unbelievably Mr. Potato Head is even older than me, invented and developed by George Lerner in 1949 from a series of hand-crafted vegetable dolls that he made for his younger sisters to play with and manufactured and distributed by Hasbro a little later in 1952. It was the first ever toy to be advertised on the television and I think I remember seeing the ad on our black and white telly.

In all honesty though it wasn’t the greatest of toys - after all, just how much fun can you have with a potato, even if he does have Groucho Marx eyebrows and smokes a pipe? I think I tired of mine after about an hour.

Even so, there’s no denying that Mr. Potato Head has had his moments - he’s married Mrs. Potato Head, bought himself a car, a boat, and he’s even had a family - so he’s done pretty well for himself despite not being the greatest looker in the sack. Mr. Potato Head has been around a long time, chipping out a place for himself, crisping up his image, and having a smashing time along the way.

I know how he feels.