Pink Flamingos Turn 40

They stand and deliver - what, we’re not sure. For some, it’s nostalgia. For others, pure kitsch. And for the pranksters among us, unbridled glee.

Pink plastic lawn flamingos turn 40 this month.

“The flamingo isn’t tacky,” says creator Donald Featherstone. “What people do with them is tacky. I think one would look elegant in front of the White House.”

More than 20 million have been sold since 1957, when Featherstone - fresh out of art school - designed the birds (there are two poses) for Union Products in Leominster, Mass.

Having worked there ever since, he bought the lawn ornaments manufacturer from its retiring owners last year.

“The flamingo was one of my first assignments,” says Featherstone, 61, whose signature has been stamped on the birds (“like Calvin Klein”) since 1985.

“I sculpted it out of clay. But turning it into plastic forced me to be an engineer, to work with the strengths and limitations of the plastic.

“My original model had wooden dowel legs, but they cost too much to make, and plastic wasn’t strong enough, so we went with metal rods. We once produced a model called the Flamingo Deluxe that looked quite natural - with wooden yellow legs - but that didn’t sell.”

Featherstone, who insists that “all great art began as tacky,” says he’s fine with folks poking fun at his life’s work, which sells for about $9 a pair at Kmart.

“As long as they keep buying them,” he says with a laugh, “I really don’t care. Remember, people who put out lawn ornaments aren’t doing it for themselves - they’re doing it for you.”

Keep off the grass … or maybe not The first pink flamingo ornaments, sold in 1952, were flat and made of plywood. Manufacturers also tried foam a few years later, but dogs ate them.

Donald Featherstone - guided by photos that accompanied a National Geographic story, “Ballerinas in Pink,” in October 1957 - sculpted two poses out of clay. The clay was used to create a plaster cast, which was used to make aluminum dies to mold plastic.

Union Products began cranking out the birds in an extremely durable material - the same plastic used to make containers to ship glue and acid.

The birds were modified with bracing inside to support the metal rods used for legs.

“That’s the secret of their graceful appearance,” Featherstone says.

Lawn-ornament flamingos date back to the mid-1800s. The oldest one in Donald Featherstone’s personal collection is a cast-iron bird made in 1908.

Gag! Surprise someone with flock of flamingos For between $60 and $100, the Original Flamingo Surprise will cover a yard with pink plastic Donald Featherstone birds. Imagine waking up to that!

The company - with offices in Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Oklahoma City, and Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio - started after Rick Fazio shocked his twin brother, Ralph, with a yard full of the birds at his home in Parma, Ohio.

“People driving by would stop and say, ‘Hey, that’s great! Could you do that for my wife on her birthday?’ ” The Fazios now order flamingos from Union Products in lots of 3,500. Besides those in pink, there are black ones for “over the hill” yard messages, red for Valentine’s Day, combos of red and green for Christmas, yellow for good cheer, and blue, left over from a “protest flock” Rick arranged when one Chicago suburb banned pink.

The gag is guaranteed to be delivered between midnight and 6 a.m. and picked up that evening between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m.

Call folks at the Atlanta office at (770) 466-3034. They’ll fly arrangements elsewhere for an additional fee.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: JOINING A FLOCK Plastic flamingo fans don’t fly solo, it seems. There’s a club and at least two Web sites: The Pink Flamingo Club Organized by Mary-Elizabeth Buckham, who once staged a flamingo nativity scene and who dresses up 45 of the plastic birds each week: 210 S. Commerce St., Centreville, Md. 21617. Flamingo Island “Walk quietly lest you scare our plastic friends” welcomes you to this Web site at http://www. offthedeepend.com/Flamingo.htm. The site - which claims Frederick, Md., is an Official Lawn Flamingo Sanctuary - offers Donald Featherstone flamingos for $12.95 a set and a spinning-wings version for $13.95 each. - On Stagnant Pond - Monty Stanley’s Web site, contains information on flamingo repair, places to order flamingo products and common flamingo insults: http://www.ospsitecrafters.com/homepond.html