Why are googly eyes universally funny?
No one ever glances at candy lips and doubles over in hysterics. Costume ears? Yawn. I did once see a fake nose in a Munich novelty shop that made me smile. It was inexplicably bedazzled. Why would anyone want their breathing hole to look like it was designed by Swarovski? Nope. If you really want to amuse strangers in any part of the world, stick with googly eyes.
That is the lesson out of Bend, Oregon, where a prankster dubbed the Googly Eye Bandit has been affixing plastic peepers to public sculptures including horses and stylized birds. In one photo, a perforated iron ball now looks like I might after seeing a ghost. A deer statue has the startled visage of Machine Gun Kelly upon discovering Megan Fox snooped his incriminating texts.
In a story this week, the Smithsonian Magazine outlined the mixed reaction to the Googly Eye Bandit. Residents love the gentle hijinks. They are engaging more with public art, even if it’s just to point and laugh. But authorities are asking the Googly Eye Bandit to halt this sticking spree before a mural or metallic critter on the city’s Roundabout Art Route is damaged.
As René Mitchell, Bend’s communications director, told the New York Times: “Adhesives can pull off the paint, wax or other protective coatings on the metals. If paint on steel is chipped, scratched or removed with adhesives, the steel will rust.”
Bah humbug. The city has already spent $1,500 removing retinal stickers? Nuts. Let me guess: the Googly Eye Task Force includes curators, historians, consultants, metallurgists, bonding experts, accountants, statue whisperers and a politician’s second cousin once removed? I would have carefully peeled off those googly eyes for a free tour of Mountain Hood and Crater Lake.
I want to see kokanee salmon. They look like they’re about to say something.
Here’s an idea that will get two thumbs down from the artists: do not remove the googly eyes. It’s too late. They can’t be unseen. The genie is out of the bottle and he has swirling bug eyes. Leave those stickers on the phoenixes and fawns. Who knows, maybe this will spawn copycats and there will be stories about how the Toupee Bandit is now putting zany wigs on a bronze Abe Lincoln.
Art vandalism is what the Just Stop Oil lunatics commit when they hurl tomato soup on a Monet or spray-paint Stonehenge. Art vandalism is when a madman takes a hammer to Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” Art vandalism is “Mufasa” and other Disney spinoffs that shame the originals.
Googly eyes on public art is a balm for the soul in these gloomy times.
You don’t think this bandit-at-large is now wide-eyed while basking in the attention? This low-cost stunt — people, you can buy 1,000 “Black Wiggle Googly Eyes” on Amazon for $9.99 — is getting international press and shout-outs from Stephen Colbert. The Smithsonian is writing about googly eyes, which is like the Audubon Society taking an active interest in plastic flamingos.
I hope an Arts & Crafts rascal in the GTA gets some ideas. How transfixing would the CN Tower be if it had two giant eyes staring down with pity as you’re bumper-to-bumper on the Gardiner? Put googlies on gargoyles and grotesques. You know those humongous blow-up figures that flutter outside car dealerships? Comedic eyes for them as well. With the insane amount of construction on around town, put googly eyes on the cranes, excavators and backhoes.
It will make people smile instead of sigh. I’m inspired. This holiday season, I’m sticking googly eyes on my car, trees, mailbox and cats. I’m kidding about that last one. Googly eyes are for inanimate objects, not living creatures. Although it might be wise for Trudeau to stick googly eyes to the back of his head so he can safely turn his back when someone in his party is freaking out.
It’s impossible to feel down while staring deep into googly eyes.
A grandma last year went viral on TikTok when she snuck hundreds of googly eyes into a Walmart and gave faces to products and posters. She pasted eyeballs on bananas and eggs. She put them on tabloid cover subjects and Pampers baby models. She gave ocular bulges to the Quaker Oats fellow and Mrs. Butterworth’s. And while doing so, she could not stop laughing.
There was a consensus more than 10 million views later: What a fun granny!
It’s been a rough year. The doomscrolling was out of control. But googly eyes are a reminder that not all news is bad news. So I salute you, Googly Eye Bandit, and thank you for having a sense of mirth and playfulness amid the blah. Thank you for peering into absurdity.
We will need more of this in 2025.
