Puff on This: Latex Gloves as Entertainment
The wildly successful ’70s sitcom, M*A*S*H , had plenty of latex gloves puffed up to balloon status to create a festive atmosphere whenever needed in the army tents, particularly for parties in the surgeons’ infamous barracks, The Swamp. Trapper tried at times to momentarily take little Korean kids’ minds off their war scars with his glove creations. Of course, real clinics and hospitals outside of Hollywood sets had long before been using latex gloves in this same way. But the cast of this show brought this expanded usage of medical gloves home, right into our living rooms. For one such episode, check out Season 2 of M*A*S*H , Episode 6 at Netflix.com and take a trip down memory lane.
If you enjoy top notch clay animation with a peculiarly British flavor, you owe it to yourself to have a look at Nick Park’s The Wrong Trousers. In this piece, you will meet the unforgettable evil mastermind, Feathers McGraw, a penguin who ingeniously transforms himself into a rooster with the flick of a latex glove on the top of his head. This is entertainment art intended for all ages and is well worth popping into your Netflix queue for a Friday evening with the family.
Pediatricians jokingly refer to a fictitious medical school course called Balloon Making 101, a technique for enhancing their bedside manner with the young and ill at ease patient. Paramedics also can lay claim to some lighter moments with latex gloves. Their trucks travel along America’s roadways or wait in dispatch lots with boxes of gloves on board so it is bound to happen. Stupidvideos.com provides evidence of paramedics wrapping latex gloves over the end of ambulance tail pipes and exploding them when turning on the engine. A career that often requires hours of tedium between bursts of adrenalin must find its creative outlets.
There is obviously a lot of irresistible fun in latex gloves for there to be so many good laughs associated with them. One thing is for sure: they can help the balloon animal-impaired among us actually succeed in making a recognizable creature. This link gives the novice some starting pointers and the site’s owner promises a future instructional DVD. Go to www.balloon hq.com and do a search for “ideas with latex gloves”. Get out your magic markers and party on!
With protective gloves and masks taking up more and more retail shelf space in this season of H1N1 and other pandemic fears, there is perhaps a wisdom in finding the lighter side of these objects. Laughter is, after all, an age old medicine and there is plenty of science to support how it boosts our immune systems.
Jen Long is a glove industry consultant and Director of Communications for an online Disposable Gloves Retailer, where she offers support resources to those who need to use disposable gloves of any type. Visit her online library, All About Latex Gloves.
