Novelty Nook Has Its Last Laugh

Dear friends, we gather on this somber occasion to pay tribute to a passing loved one and to pose a couple of questions:

When did the joy fizzle out of the joy buzzer?

Why did the bottom drop out of the whoopie cushion market?

And when did our sides stop splitting at the sight of plastic vomit?

Yes, friends, we have come to mark a sad, sad loss.

After 25 years as Spokane’s mirth mecca, the Novelty Nook, 825 W. Garland, is selling off all the cigarette loads, stink bombs and itching powder for lack of business.

“It’s really unfortunate, but times have changed,” says Kirk Vitulli, owner of the landmark joke store.

“People just don’t want to be funny anymore.”

This isn’t one of those going-out-of-business shams that waterbed stores noisily stage every week. Prices are slashed at the Nook. Nothing will be restocked. Everything goes.

The Nook’s vast supply of dribble glasses dried up last week. Vitulli’s rubber chickens wouldn’t fill half a coop and the very last fly-in-the-ice-cube buzzed out the door as I was paying my last respects.

“I can’t wait to hear the screams from the kitchen when she drops her drink,” says Craig Cannata, 20, who was buying the buggy ice cube to scare his girlfriend, Kelli Davidson.

Where, oh where, will the die-hard jokers go now?

Sure, there are a few stores around town such as the Card Farm at NorthTown or Boo Radley’s downtown. Those places have a smattering of noveltyware, but they are far heavier on legitimate gifts like Lava Lamps, cards and posters.

The Novelty Nook has always been an old-fashioned joke store that dealt strictly in the lowbrow classics:

Cheap magic tricks, garlic gum, rabbit feet, marked playing cards, double-headed coins, hot pepper candy, disappearing ink …

I would be horribly remiss not to reserve a special place of honor for that joke store staple - rubber doggy do.

Real belly laugh material, that doggy do. You wouldn’t believe the riot I once caused at a gathering of friends when I secretly plopped one of the Nook’s “Party Poopers” ($2.98) into a 5-gallon vat of chili.

These babies never look at all like anything you might accidentally step in out in the yard. But let a “Party Pooper” go swimming in an environment of chili beans and sauce and - wow! - the special effects are near-Spielberg quality.

“That’s disguuuuusting!!” screamed my befouled dinner guests.

Maybe Vitulli is right. “People have become humorless,” he says. “Society has worked itself into a frenzy. People are stuck in a rut.”

We do live in far grimmer times.

Lay a rubber doggy do on a co-worker’s desk these days and you’re as likely to get sued for harassment as hear any belly laughs. And pity a youthful prankster who dares take to school one of Vitulli’s retractable-blade plastic knives ($9.98).

“April Fools’ Day used to be a lot of fun,” laments Vitulli. “Not anymore. Last April we may as well have been closed.”

There are still a few practical jokers around, thank God. Actor Johnny Depp spent hundreds on gags at the Nook while he was filming “Benny and Joon” in Spokane a few years ago.

Vitulli is very fond of an 80-year-old woman who stops in every year to buy his filthiest Christmas cards. She sends them unsigned to her closest friends and then waits for their call.

“Someone sent me another perverted card,” they gasp in outrage. “Who would do such a thing?”

The woman, says Vitulli, always plays dumb, roaring with glee when the call ends.

“Today people flip you off at intersections, they talk during movies,” grouses the owner of the nearly departed Nook. “Laughter is supposed to be one of the best medicines. Does this mean we’re all dying?”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CALLING ALL TIES In his weirdly festive way of celebrating Christmas, columnist Doug Clark is again calling for all nightmare neckware. It’s time to enter the 12 Ugly Ties of Xmas contest. The rules have changed slightly this year: Only horrible store-bought ties will be accepted for judging, but all 12 finishers will be in the money. A cash prize of $75 will be given to the pug-ugliest tie. Second place wins $25. Ten runners-up get $10. Drop off or mail your ties that blind to The Spokesman-Review, 999 W. Riverside, Spokane 99210. All entries must be in by Dec. 16. Please include your name, telephone number and whether or not you want your tie returned.