Farmington Hills, Michigan: Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

Marvin's really gives you a bang for your roadside buck. A lot of games, models, signs and memorabilia -- that I would make a detour to see individually -- are amassed in one place. It's tucked behind a nondescript mall, but don't be fooled by the bland exterior. Get $20 worth of quarters and immerse yourself in the weird, the wacky and the fun!

My father and I are the owners of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Michigan. We purchased the P.T. Barnum Cardiff Giant at Sothebys Auction in 1994. This is the P.T. Barnum's Cardiff Giant which was found at the State Fair grounds in Connecticut and purchased by Dr. Smith (one of the largest arcade and side show collectors). His entire collection was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 1994 we won a fierce bidding war against Ripleys for it.

Another must-see, esp. if you find yourself w/an excess of spare change, is Marvelous Marvin's Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills, MI, on Orchard Lane Rd. I like to think of it as a test of nerves. Jam-packed w/video games, old-school mechanical fortune tellers (plus their newer cousin, a fortune-telling device that scans your palm like a bar code), motorized dioramas (my fave is "The Drunkard's Nightmare," where your coinage summons devils from the cupboards and a snake out of his hootch jug), toy planes circling endlessly overhead. A little overwhelming at first and not for the weak for any extended period of time, like, more than 20 minutes.