Tick-tock, tick-tock.
The cat's eyes beat back and forth and its tail keeps time, but it is the wide smile that might be the most recognizable part of the Kit-Cat clock.
And that's just the way its creators intended it.
Their mission to evoke a smile has built an icon that has endured 80 years. For about 50 of those years, Kit-Cat Clocks have made their home in Orange County.
The clocks were introduced during the Great Depression but became popular in the 1950s. Technology changes in the 1980s created a problem for the company, but it found a way to modernize the clocks and remain a U.S. mainstay. According to company officials, a Kit-Cat clock has been purchased every three minutes for the last 70 years.
To celebrate that history, the company will debut its first Rose Parade float, "Timeless Fun for Everyone," on Jan. 2. A black and white Kit-Cat will serve as the centerpiece for the float, which is made with all locally grown flowers.
The float will also feature a group of skateboarders from Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach riding FIZZ boards, modeled after the classic 1970s banana boards. "Rock Around the Clock" will be playing as the skaters ride a ramp on the float and young swing dancers perform.
"It's all things retro," said Woody Young, president of California Clock Co. and also an investor in Street Surfing, the company that invented the FIZZ board. "It doesn't matter what decade it is, (Kit-Cat clocks) are in."
About two decades after they were introduced, the Kit-Cat Clocks became a must-have piece in 1950s households, Young said.
Today, the Kit-Cat drums up images of chocolate malts, saddle shoes, and jukeboxes. It is not uncommon to find someone who had an aunt or a grandmother who proudly displayed a Kit-Cat in her kitchen.
Young said the company's solid history can be attributed to keeping the Kit-Cat's mission intact.
"We're selling smiles," he said. "That's what it's all about."
A simple black and white version of the Kit-Cat was the first introduced in 1932 in Portland, Ore. by the California Clock Co.
After World War II, Young said the mission of the Kit-Cat resonated in American pop culture and the clocks became an icon.
"People were tired of war," he said. "It became the most popular in the 1950s."
Hollywood even gravitated to the classic cat clock.
Celebrity owners include Lucille Ball and Whoopi Goldberg and the clock has also been featured in films such as "Back to the Future" and "Honey I Shrunk the Kids".
In the late '80s, the survival of Kit-Cats as an American-made novelty was threatened.
The clock was powered by the electric motors found in many stoves during the '50s and '60s. As stove manufacturers abandoned the technology, California Clock Co. became the only company to still use the motor, Young said.
"The technology changed," he said. "We were either going to have to go out of business or take the business overseas."
Instead, the company came up with its own engineering ideas. Young said their clocks are the only timepieces in the nation to use a United States-made battery movement to make the clock tick.
"We literally transformed these clocks and kept it alive in the States," he said.
The Kit-Cat has evolved to include a spectrum of colors and other characters including Kitty-Cat, the female version of the clock that has big eyelashes and a pearl necklace.
Young said Kit-Cat also releases a limited-edition clock every year for those who collect the pieces.
For 2012, the limited-edition Kit-Cat will be "Rose Float" and it will be the color of the Rose Parade roses in honor of the company's parade debut.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7953 or jfletcher@ocregister.com
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45767864/ns/local_news-orange_county_ca/
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