My website for tiki mug collectors, Ooga-Mooga, is now six months old. A few days ago, when I created the mug template for the Horned Skull (designed by Stuckie of Munktiki) Ooga-Mooga reached 1,000 different mugs in its database. I’m just absolutely thrilled at how Ooga-Mooga has been embraced. There have been some great stories from people about how Ooga-Mooga has made an impact for them, but this one from Tiki-Kate, whose mug collection was badly damaged when a car crashed into her house (!), takes the cake:

Ooga-Mooga was such a tremendous help to me in getting my collection back in shape after the accident at my house. I never would have been able to figure out what was missing if I didn’t have each mug cataloged. Also, my insurance adjuster used Ooga-Mooga to verify the replacement values on my mugs.

Whoa!

I want more people to enjoy Ooga-Mooga, so I’ve dropped the price for it considerably — you can now get your entire mug collection online for as little as $1 a month! A full-access Trader account is only $1.50 a month. By getting your collection up in Ooga-Mooga, you can track its value, find the best mug to use for the drink you want to make, trade and sell mugs, learn more about what you have in your collection, and of course you can let others see and drool over your collection.

I’ve learned so much about mugs, and seen so many beautiful collections and mugs I’d never seen before, thanks to Ooga-Mooga. As I’m writing this, people have added 2,997 mugs into Ooga-Mooga, it’ll probably roll over to 3,000 very shortly. There are well over 3,000 photographs of mugs in Ooga-Mooga. Thank you to all the collectors who have shared their collection with the world using Ooga-Mooga!

• Ooga-Mooga!

In 2004, Disney artists Jody Daily and Kevin Kidney created a line of tiki mugs inspired by the Enchanted Tiki Room. These tiki mugs were hot sellers at Disneyland (one of them, Jody’s Pele mug, is in more Ooga-Mooga collections than any other mug). Amazingly, Kevin & Jody donated their time in designing these mugs, because they so wanted to see them get made.

Many are not aware that there was supposed to be one more mug, actually a bowl with a pedestal base. This bowl is based on the tiki Rongo, the God of Agriculture (“Me number one kite flyer!”) from the lanai pre-show. Using the original Rolly Crump tiki design as inspiration, the sketch at left was created by Disney artist Jody Daily in 2001. In 2003, Disney artist Kevin Kidney created the sculpt based on Jody’s sketch, seen below (click image for full-size version).

Rongo Bowl sculpt by Kevin Kidney

This design was the largest and most elaborate of the designs that Kevin & Jody produced, and it surely would have become a favorite among collectors. Sadly, this sculpt was accidentally destroyed at the factory, and none could be produced.

Heart breaking, isn’t it? This should help soften the blow: Kevin tells me that he and Jody have some new tiki mug designs coming soon to Disneyland! I don’t know yet what the designs will be, but Kevin and Jody are in my opinion the best artists at Disney, and they’re sure to be magnificent.

• Mugs by Jody Daily [Ooga-Mooga]
• Mugs by Kevin Kidney [Ooga-Mooga]
• The Enchanted Tiki Room [Critiki]

Go easy on ‘em — tell them you’d love a subscription to Ooga-Mooga, the paradise for tiki mug collectors!

Buying an Ooga-Mooga subscription as a gift is a headache-free experience — one stop shopping, one size fits all. Well, there are two sizes, Standard (unlimited mugs, limited features) and Trader (unlimited mugs, full featues), but I’ll leave it to you to hint which one you’d like.

• Gift Subscriptions on Ooga-Mooga

Another new feature for Ooga-Mooga — now collections can be grouped by using tags! This feature is available for Trader accounts only, so if you’ve been on the fence about getting a subscription (or upgrading your subscription), this is one more way that Trader accounts rock.

To group your mugs, simply go into the “Edit” page for each mug, and type your tags, separated by commas. There is no set list of tags — the beauty of this is that you can group your mugs the way you want to. You might want to have a group for all of your skull mugs, or for your mugs from a favorite location, or for the mugs you’ve got in storage. Anything goes.

Take a look at my collection to see how it works. So far, I’ve got a few groups — vintage mugs, mugs that I received as gifts, mugs that are souvenirs from places I’ve visited, my favorite mugs, and mugs I’ve actually imbibed from myself.

For those familiar with tags from other sites, like Technorati — these tags won’t be picked up by tag search services, but they will be soon.

• Collection of Humuhumu [Ooga-Mooga]

A new feature for Ooga-Mooga: the Drink Matcher. Ooga-Mooga has always been able to tell you the right size drink for a mug, but now it’ll look through all of your collection, and tell you the right mug for the drink you want to make! For instance, this mug here is a perfect fit for a 6 oz. drink. It even takes into account ice & leaving a bit of room at the top.

Look for the Drink Matcher under My Collection, on the right sidebar of Ooga-Mooga.

• Ooga-Mooga
• The Great Ooga-Mooga Capacity Drive [Tiki Central]

• The Islander, Stockton [Critiki]
• Ooga-Mooga
• Critiki

This week has seen some rarer-than-hen’s-teeth mugs surface, and predictiably go for big bucks. Just now, a Ren Clark Severed Head mug closed on eBay for a jaw-dropping $1,325. This unusual mug caught most collectors’ eyes in the Book of Tiki. Sven Kirsten has made it known he yearns to find a candid photo of a diner at Ren Clark’s Polynesian Village drinking out of one of these mugs — preferably a woman with a beehive hairdo. Also up for auction is a rare Trader Vic’s glass, the Voodoo Tumbler that was used for serving Voodoo Grog. This specimen from the collection of Doctor Z is in excellent condition, with its golden tiki masks well defined all around the outside of the glass. The Voodoo Grog auction closes Tuesday, October 4.

• Trader Vic’s Voodoo Grog Glass from the Collection of Doctor Z [Ooga-Mooga]
• Ren Clark Severed Head [Ooga-Mooga]
• Ren Clark’s Polynesian Village Tiki Mug Headhunter Rare [eBay]
• Trader Vic’s VOODOO TUMBLER Imperial Glass tiki RARE!! [eBay]
• Ren Clark’s Polynesian Village Tiki Mug Headhunter Rare [Tiki Central]
• Trader Vic’s Voodoo Tumbler in PRISTINE condition! [Tiki Central]

If you have a Standard or Trader account, you can tell people visiting your collection page about your collection, in a paragraph of text that appears right above it. Go to Account Settings and fill out “About This Collection” to see how it works.

Also, I have one of my mugs up for auction right now (part of the “eBay for PJ” fundraiser effort for New Orleans tikiphile Purple Jade). Naturally, I have up in the Mugs for Sale section of Ooga-Mooga, so you can see how that works, now too. I already have 6 bids! It’s pretty neat.

• Collection of Humuhumu [Ooga-Mooga]
• Tiki Artist Purple Jade Affected by Hurricane Katrina [Humu Kon Tiki]
• Ebay for PJ! Buy or Sell and Help Out Purple Jade [Tiki Central]
• Ooga-Mooga Mugs for Sale [Ooga-Mooga]

First off, a dear friend of mine, pablus, has written a lovely little ditty in tribute to tiki mugs and tiki drinks (keep your ears perked for the Tiki Bob anti-tribute). My Mug Collection is an infectious tune, it’s on heavy rotation in the Humuhumu household.

Secondly, I’d like to take a moment to show off my own mug collection, which naturally is on display at Ooga-Mooga.

I’ve currently got 33 mugs in my personal collection on Ooga-Mooga (I’ve got a couple more here & there around the house that I have to add still), 28 of them are unique (I’ve got some duplicates, mostly coconut mugs). The most common mug in my collection, by Ooga-Mooga terms, is the Disneyland Pele Mug, which is in 16 other Ooga-Mooga collections. The total capacity of my collection is at least 2.3 gallons, the largest being my Trader Dick’s Hula Bowl (26 fl. oz.), and the smallest being a Dinky Tiki Shot (2 fl. oz.). The best bargain in my collection, according to Ooga-Mooga? My Trader Vic’s Coconut Mug, which I got for .50, 9% of the going rate of $5.50.

Hmmm… it’s 5 o’clock, maybe it’s time to fix myself a Fog Cutter, which at 7.5 fl. oz. Ooga-Mooga tells me will fit perfectly in my new mug from the Lucky Tiki!

• My Mug Collection [MP3]
• Collection of Humuhumu [Ooga-Mooga]

Also — anyone who signs up for Ooga-Mooga before August 31, 2005 will not be subject to rate increases for two years!

• Ooga-Mooga
• Ooga-Mooga! — offer ending August 31 ! [Tiki Central]