San Jose, California: Sausage Dancing Pig Sign

The sign is illuminated in the evenings, but last I saw the animated flickering was no longer working.

The vintage Silva dancing pig sign, advertising pork products in an enticing yet disturbing display of happy pig cannibalism, is once again lit and the happy creepy pig is dancing his little heart out. Drive by and say "hello" and breathe a contented sigh that this holdover from the '50s escaped the wrecking ball and has now joined the company of the SF Weiner dog as a nostalgic homage to pork products. It does my heart good to see him every time I leave the train station, as if his demented pinkness is personally welcoming me home.

The Stephan's Sausage sign with its happy, dancing pig cheerfully encouraging you to eat him and his friends because they're "pure pork" is about to become no more. Already his light has been dimmed (and without warning, hmmf) by his new owner. Stephan himself has retired and sold the factory and the sign. The factory will be torn down. Happily the sign will live on in a museum (or so the buyer promised after public outcry). However, if you want a last snapshot of the happy pig in his original setting now is the time to take it as he could go any day. I suggest sunset for the best lighting. The piggy can be found at the intersection near the Poor House Bistro and right next door to the San Jose Caltrain station.