‘Gotta Have It!’: A Fine Amass

Now, here’s a show the whole family will love. Really. It’s about the collector’s special itch, the passion to own every last “Brady Bunch” merchandising tie-in or to corner the market on early pocket calculators.

The secret of “Gotta Have It! The Nature of Collecting,” at the Fullerton Museum Center through Feb. 19, is the emphasis on the human quirkiness behind the sheer agglomeration of objects.

Accompanying selected items from 16 private hoards are printed and videotaped interviews with the collectors, explaining how they got started and what intrigues them about their chosen field.

Chosen by museum staff from responses to a public request for information on unusual local hoardings, the collectors range from a 10-year-old insect enthusiast, who caught the “bug” at a Cub Scout meeting, to a retired U.S. Marine Corps major, whose passion for war memorabilia reflects a belief in learning from tragic mistakes of the past, no matter whether they were made by the victors or the losers.

Most of the collectors started out accidentally or casually with one object, then began lusting after every example of it, at swap meets, garage sales or antique shops. Nuance tends to comes later, when the thrill of the hunt is channeled into “mint” items, or particularly rare pieces.

Exactly why collectors create this mission for themselves generally seems to be as much a mystery to them as it may be to those of us who don’t collect anything except dust bunnies or parking tickets. Catalogue essayist (and The Times’ “Fixations” columnist) Jim Washburn writes that collecting “allows the collectors little worlds they can master, where they can possess or know all that there is.”

As it happens, no local collections of modern or contemporary art are included in the show. Yet art collectors certainly understand the emotional attachment for objects and the pursuit of rarefied details about these treasures.

Whereas art has a long, exhaustively studied and interpreted history that takes years to learn, a collector of objects like pencil sharpeners or Coke posters can become an “expert” overnight. Even more alluring, some pop artifacts allow anyone who spent bored childhood afternoons in front of a TV to be walking encyclopedias of relevant lore.

Given the home-grown influence of the entertainment industry and the dearth of significant high-culture collections in Southern California, it probably isn’t surprising that commercial objects are frequently the collectible of choice. Edie Bonk, for example, collects images of Bozo the Clown, a character who began as a voice for Capitol Records in the ‘30s and later became the popular kiddie TV show host.

With their red or (faded) carrot-colored hair, U-shaped grins and red noses, the Bozos--dolls, puppets, games, books, records, masks, telephones, bubble gum machines and so forth--are a garishly cheery lot. And that’s why Bonk collects them. Commercial or not, Bozo was her favorite clown as a child (“the happiest, silliest, friendliest one of them all,” as she says in a gallery note).

Returning to the comfort zones of one’s childhood seems to be a major theme of adult collectors. Chris Butler, who collects Lucille Ball memorabilia (including “I Love Lucy” episodes, two of which play continuously in the gallery), fell in love with the comedienne as a shy boy who was awed by her ability to get in and out of awkward situations.

As an adult, Butler prizes the show because, he says, it’s about “love and relationship”--commodities as perfectly preserved in the miniature, 24-minute world of TV comedy as they are vulnerable in real life.

Greg Davis and Bill Morgan are aficionados of TV memorabilia from the ‘70s. That’s when the world of merchandising tie-ins was growing exponentially beyond theme lunch boxes and board games. Their examples include a Buffy (from “Family Affair”) Makeup and Hair-styling Set to a replica of “The Love Boat.” Even the men’s admitted zest for competing with their friends to get hot pieces is a throwback to schoolboy behavior.

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Other groups of objects in the show reflect the collector’s cultural heritage (Alma Rail’s Native American artifacts), foreign travel (living in Saudi Arabia prompted Linda Scoggin’s interest in camels), or fascination with history, the natural world or the laws of science.

Some years ago, retired Marine Corps Maj. William Mimiaga sold his G.I. Joe collection and turned his attention to the flesh-and-blood arena of war. Chilling links to sites of unimaginable suffering are found in his collection of mundane objects from Nazi concentration camps, including an inmate’s striped uniform and cap, and a group of colored felt triangles distinguishing Jews, homosexuals and other “undesirables” from one another.

An adjacent case holds three colorful Bosnian Muslim fezzes from World War II that bear appliques of the Nazi eagle-and-swastika emblem and a death’s head: reminders of ethnic hatreds that long predated the current conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In a lighter vein, presidential campaign buttons from Dennis Doran’s collection show how a cheap, portable form of partisan publicity dating from 1896 has been pumped full of steroids (hubcap-sized Bush-Quayle buttons) and injected with increasing doses of attack-mode campaigning (from the tart humor of an Adlai Stevenson button showing Harry Truman silenced with a pacifier to a picture of a screw above the words Ronald Reagan ).

And then there is another kind of collection, consisting of ordinary objects that create their own weird ambience when allowed to multiply, like Roger Ellison’s blinding array of rubber ducks.

Row upon row of small yellow and orange creatures--pouting, sneering, performing, snoozing, piloting, driving--create a retinal overload of high-keyed color, a Silly Symphony of arbitrarily selected human activities juxtaposed and duplicated to the point of utter ridiculousness.

Such are the curious joys of knowing you just gotta have it.

* “Gotta Have It! The Nature of Collecting” continues through Feb. 19 at the Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton. Hours: noon to 4 p.m., Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays. $2.50 general, $2 seniors, $1.50 students, under 12 free. (714) 738-6545.