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By PHILIP MORGAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 11, 2007

Halloween novelties are the rage now, but whoopee cushions and joy buzzers are still steady sellers at the mail-order company once described as "the Rosetta stone of American culture."

BRADENTON As kids, Ralph and Kim Hoenle grew wary of the surprises Dad brought home from work.

"We always knew whenever my dad brought something home for us and said, 'Here, what do you think about this?' We wouldn't touch it, because invariably it would shock or buzz or beep or squirt water," says Kim, now Kim Hoenle Boyd.

She and her brother have since taken over the Johnson Smith Co. in Bradenton from their father, Ralph Hoenle Sr. The mail-order catalog company has been hawking whoopee cushions, joy buzzers and X-ray glasses during much of its near-century of life. Along the way, its ads in children's magazines and comic books won legions of young fans, among them the late TV talk show host Johnny Carson and Jean Shepherd, who wrote "A Christmas Story."

The classic Johnson Smith Co. catalog, featuring everything from practical jokes to practical housewares, was "the Rosetta stone of American culture," Shepherd wrote.

The Halloween 2007 edition of "Things You Never Knew Existed" shows that some beloved traditions do continue. For All Hallows Eve this year, ghoulish customers can order a severed hand and foot roasting on a barbecue grill; a blue-veined "It's Alive" baby puppet; and the Gruesome Little Brother Wig, a shriveled, screaming, latex fetus that appears to grow out of the wearer's head.

This catalog is not for the wreaths and mums set.

Halloween and Christmas mark the busy season, when workers load 12,000 to 13,000 boxes a day onto trucks. This time of year, as the brown cartons snake along conveyor belts at two huge plants in Bradenton, employees load them with moaning eyeballs, severed heads and rubber skeletons.

The gimmicks that helped make the company's reputation remain steady sellers. A new generation of whoopee cushion — remote controlled — is hot, says Hoenle. The company offers an array of flatulent characters, from gnomes to teddy bears to Christmas angels.

It's the stuff kids have loved forever, even if their parents haven't.

A boy once wrote a letter demanding the company send no more catalogs. "Your products are awful," he wrote.

"Four days later, we got a letter that said, 'Please ignore my previous letter,''' Boyd says, relishing the oft-told tale. "'My mother made me write that. Please keep the catalogs coming.'"

The company was founded at the turn of the 20th century in Sydney, Australia. British-born Alfred Johnson Smith sold rubber stamps and imported novelties.

He expanded the joke lines when he moved the company to Chicago in 1914 to take advantage of the huge American mail-order market. His first catalog featured 64 pages of puzzles, tricks and novelties. By 1922, the catalog had grown to 400 pages. It hit 738 pages just before the Great Depression, then leveled off at about 500 pages.

Business suffered during the Depression and World War II, but people still asked for the catalogs to brighten their mood, Hoenle says. Some would write, saying, "I can't order right now, but when things get better, I will."

Comic Books Gaves Super Boost

To boost business, Johnson Smith became a pioneer advertiser in comic books. The back-cover ads, offering joy buzzers, whoopee cushions and a clutter of other novelties, increased the customer base, revitalizing the company.

Smith died in 1948 and left the company to a son, Arthur, who sold it to Ralph Hoenle Sr. in 1963. In the trustful days of sending cash through the mail, Dad would bring home buckets of coins taped to cards to keep them from jingling. Kim and Ralph would sit in front of the television, unsticking Scotch tape and the occasional nasty electrical tape.

"We called it peeling money," says Boyd.

The senior Hoenle moved the business to Florida in 1986 and retired in 2001, turning it all over to his son, president and head of operations; and daughter, vice president and marketing head.

Though most orders come over the telephone, about 35 percent of buyers use the Internet. About 20 percent of orders come the old-fashioned way, through the mail.

Measuring The 'American Psyche'

The business is fun, say Hoenle, 40, and Boyd, 43, though not as much as when they were young and ran up and down the aisles, looking over new products. Keeping Johnson Smith Co. a going concern well into its second century will depend on whether they can identify what customers will want, a stressful task.

"You're really trying to figure out what's going on with the American psyche or mind at any particular moment," says Hoenle. "What's going to move them? What's going to make them laugh?"

They and their buyers travel to trade shows around the world, scan the Internet and pore over sources like People magazine to find the next trend that could turn into a product. If something doesn't sell with one audience, it may with another. Besides "Things You Never Knew Existed," Johnson Smith publishes "The Lighter Side," "Betty's Attic" and "Full of Life," each catalog geared to a slightly different clientele.

Once Hoenle, Boyd and the company choose the products, and before they make a dime in sales, they spend a fortune printing and mailing the catalogs.

"Sometimes, we think we'd be better off taking the money and going to Vegas," says Boyd.

But so far, the mail-order gamble has been a good bet.

Contact the Johnson Smith company on its Web site, www.johnsonsmith.com, or by calling (941) 747-5566. Order the Halloween catalog at www.thingsyouneverknew.com or call 1-800-843-0762. Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609.

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