Confirmed: Humans can wear Muffler Man heads
We recently settled an ongoing debate among the Roadside Team -- whether a human
being can wear the head of a Muffler Man. Would it weigh too much? Is the neck seating and bolt arrangement too uncomfortable
when supported by regular-sized shoulders?
Our opportunity came on an overcast November day on Casino Pier, a family-oriented attraction in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. We inspected a muffler man downed in a storm a year earlier. The statue's head, decapitated and face down on the boardwalk, had been exposed to the elements, but seemed otherwise undamaged. We dumped out the standing water, and our tallest field researcher went Bobblehead for a few minutes.
The head has an interior volume that could accommodate nearly 20 decapitated
human heads. Though ungainly, the big fiberglass noggin can be worn unassisted
(The Pier owner held on most of the time anyway, mainly to prevent the metal
rod protruding out of the neck hole from reenacting the Phineas Gage incident). The acoustics are odd; God-like pronouncements from within sounded flanged
and, well, muffled to observers.
A CN8 News video crew recorded the moment, which didn't last all that long. It wasn't the weight or the painful fiberglass edges -- it was the sudden realization that a year of exposure to the elements in Seaside Heights probably includes a summer of night beach revelers discovering a funny place to pee...
Address: 800 Ocean Terrace, Seaside Heights, NJ [Show Map]
Directions: Garden State Parkway exit 82. East on Hwy 37 to the beach. Right on Ocean Ave., then south four or five blocks to corner of Grant Ave. and Ocean Terrace on Casino Pier.
Hours: Daily Memorial Day-Labor Day, weekends in April, May, Sept.
