They may look like cheap plastic to you, but to Angel Maria Pasquinucci, the little toys you get from fast-food restaurants are art.
By BILL DURYEA
Published October 25, 2003
[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
Angel Maria Pasquinucci collects toys from fast-food restaurants. She has devoted the Florida room of her Gulfport house to the collection, which numbers in the hundreds.
What is it you find particularly engaging about Happy Meal toys?
They're not specifically Happy Meal toys. I've got Taco Bell, Burger King. You buy the toy, the food's free, I guess. They're really cute, just really well made. They've got screws in the bottom. It's a nice weighted toy. It looks like it's going to last. Look at this guy.
That looks like Heimlich from A Bug's Life.
And this, it's a cricket. It actually makes a cricket sound. It's from the (Disney) film about the woman warrior from Japan. I just thought it was really cool. And these are from Chik-fil-A. They're little cows with signs.
"Eat chikin. Cuddle cowze."
Sometimes the toys are really big. Like this guy. (Pushes button.) "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue." I keep the boxes when they're really cool. Sometimes they serve them to you in bags. It depends on which McDonald's you go to. Do each of these represent a meal consumed?
Not all of them. Sometimes I miss the week of some cool toy, so I end up going down to the corner thrift store and getting them for a dime. I go to garage sales. I've got a friend down the street who's got two little kids and when they get tired of the toys, she brings them to me.
How long have you been collecting?
Pretty much since I've been living here, about nine and a half years. I got here and everything's so relaxed. California's very hectic.
What brought you here?
We were on our way to Miami; a friend of mine is an artist there. I was doing art, sculpture. Anyway, a rock had hit the windshield of the moving van and by the time we made it to Seminole the crack had gone all the way from the corner. We decided we'd hang out Finally, one day there was a gallery exhibition: We went in, and the guy was on the phone freaking out about how one of his artists from California was backing out on him. I said, "I have all my stuff in a storage locker. I can run and get it." He was totally jazzed about it. That's when I met my landlord. He said you have to come to Gulfport, it's this little art village. I fell in love with the place. Anyway, I just got kind of silly and started collecting these things.
If not toys, what would you have collected?
I collect Mardi Gras beads. I love Mardi Gras. And I collect paper towels. I get to maybe 10 left on the roll and that's when I stop using it and I put them in plastic bags. It's textile art, I guess.
Did you ever worry you might be killing yourself for the sake of your collection?
You mean with the food? Sometimes I don't get all the way through it. I bring it home and feed it to the squirrels. They really like the french fries.
