Arts Ent The Best Of Everything Magic At The Drop Of A Coin Marvin's marvelous museum is more fun than a barrel of mechanical monkeys. • • • • • • • S • S S %TN 4 / 12 2002 82 0 IT UIA Sliovvi-ofyin 1696 East. Fourteen Mile Road Celebrity ' (Between Mound &Van Dyke) (810) 268-3200 lb* *ill lb 10111 incredible phenomenon of amusement There are over 1,200 electrical outlet ure he's a character ... Gotta for young and old ... oddities and nos- plugs and five huge transformers in the be, with all the loony things to talgia that astonish everyone of all ages. 5,500 square feet of space crowded rub off while being around While model airplanes buzz on an with pinball machines, dancing and them all day. overhead track, video machines among musical figures, mechanical banjo to A wonder he hasn't gone absolutely others constantly make clattering and play for loose change, airplane models, buggy ... walking about looking like he ringing sounds ... as signs dangle every- street signs, kooky signs, Barbie doll on just got back from cleaning the barn where, dummies move about, a buffalo a tight-rope, Sing Sing Prison with ornaments dangling from head on the wall puffs out smoke, vin- electrocution, a guillotine exe- his jazzy suspenders. tage fans of all styles, sideshow posters cution, musical monkey band And his office looks like it from yesteryears (said to be the largest ... plus everything and any- took a direct hit by an atomic collection of vintage magic posters on thing imaginable in coin- bomb. display in the world), kiddy carousels, operated devices ... including But he's sharp, entertaining animated robots, antiques, gypsy for- over 150 video games, multi- and entrepreneurial. tune-telling machine of the early 1900s ple games like Ski-doo wave Marvin Yagoda is a regis- to wild games of today. racers, driving machine, six- tered pharmacist who has Oldest machine is a Mutoscope that in-one simulated Cedar Point become the talk of the odd_ DAN NY flips pictures as you look in ... It dates roller coaster, fishing museum planet. RAS KIN back to 1905 and was put out by machine, truck driving His Marvin's Marvelous Columnist machine, sports games, state Local Louis B. Mayer and his American Mechanical Museum is a listed Mutoscope Co. before he gained of the art fighting games, phenomenon in the World Hollywood fame with Metro- music games ... and even imported Almanac's 100 Most Unusual Goldwin-Mayer. video amusement entertainment direct Museums in the United States. Marvin Yagoda's uncanny coin-oper- from Japan. At one time, Marvin, who spends ated technology equipment includes a Historical and modern arcade one or two days a week at his Sam's 1935 view of what a drunkard sees after machines, sideshow wonders, curiosi- Drugs on Fenkell, opened by his father, imbibing one too many ... and one ties, etc. ... in laughter-filled areas. Sam Yagoda, in 1931, had a hobby where you stick your hand in a hole It is next to the new Loehmann's store, since the 1950s of collecting old coin- and onto something called the Great former F & M of Farmington Hills site operated machines ... It sort of got out Chopandoff ... A grinning character ... in its own building in back ... fronted of control ... and in 1990, he rented a slams down a blade and out spurts on Orchard Lake Road by a large clock part of the former Hunter's Square on blood ... thankfully, not your own. that goes backward ... naturally. Orchard Lake Road, south of 14 Mile He loves to relate a tale by his The only time Marvin's closes is ... Back in 1980, Marvin had four "Harvest Time" farm scene in a huge when they turn off the lights at night square feet in an aisle-way of Tally Hall glass case ... hand-carved while in ... Otherwise it's a seven-day-a-week there, with one machine, a chicken prison by the Butcher of Alcatraz, a operation ... holiday or not ... except contraption that gave out eggs with a triple-murderer who killed an Iowa Yom Kippur, that is. prize in the middle ... He still has that farm family ... For a quarter, the minia- This is the 12th anniversary of machine and it is still working ... so far ture farm equipment begins to move ... Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical giving out over 200,000 eggs ... Tally all while Marvin tells the story. Museum ... that opened in 1990. Hall closed in 1989 and Hunter's This is also where he has those much- 12 years of what has grown into an Square reopened in 1990. Thus began Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum ... as he continu- ally adds more oddball and tremen- dously interesting things that were older than the last ... plus modernistic joy galore machines and displays that meet many a fun-loving eye ... People say that it seems like every time they go to Marvin's, he has something new But that's not all ... He sells pickles, too ... A dollar apiece from a large jar on Marvin's snack bar counter ... and ice cream, soft drinks, kosher hot dogs, popcorn, etc. From the time one enters until he or she is dragged out screaming frantically Ohs that they want to stay, it's one heckuva fun time. Marvin Yagoda presides over his mechanical empire.