The Cat's Meow

OH, HELLO: Sunday morning, our first stop was EMP Museum (formerly Experience Music Project), a phenomenal, wide-ranging collection (underwritten by Paul Allen) in a wild looking building at Seattle Center.

It's not an inexpensive destination. Fortunately, we scored free passes through the Seattle Public Library's Museum Pass program. 

The reason for this latest visit to EMP was to see the limited time exhibit featuring all things Hello Kitty. I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about it, Annabelle up first. ... 

EMP is currently presenting an exhibit called “Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty”. The exhibit it split into two parts. The first part, which is downstairs, is about the history of Hello Kitty and the founding of Sanrio. Sanrio is the company that owns Hello Kitty and produces merchandise. The first Hello Kitty merchandise was a coin purse (1974).

The business grew after that, which is where part 2 of the exhibition comes in. Hello Kitty has spanned to many kinds of things, from everyday appliances like toaster ovens and coffee pots, to things like school uniforms and giant statues. Hello Kitty is certainly everywhere, and it’s wonderful that its main message is happiness and friendship.

Here's what CJ had to say about it all ...  

"Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty" is an exhibit at EMP, a Paul Allen museum, that, according to the museum's website, "is a leading-edge nonprofit museum, dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture." The Hello Kitty exhibit is about Hello Kitty, an iconic character made by Yuko Shimizu in 1974.

According to the exhibit, the first product with Hello Kitty on it was a coin purse, which Sanrio still makes. According to the exhibit, there is a Hello Kitty themed version of anything you can imagine, like Hello Kitty motor oil and Hello Kitty toilet paper.*

*If those aren't weird enough for you, you can see even more at http://www.therichest.com/buzz/30-of-the-strangest-hello-kitty-items/

Did you know Hello Kitty's favorite food is her mama's apple pie? And lucky us, we found the secret recipe at the exhibit!

 And speaking of apples, Hello Kitty is 5 apples tall! Annabelle is 12 apples tall!

 And CJ is 13.5 apples tall!

We saw Hello Kitty in so many shapes and forms. There was a confectionery version (that was actually plastic, as opposed to sugar art).

And here's a wild, enormous Hello Kitty, with EMP's famous guitar cyclone as a backdrop.

There were a number of fashion items on display, ranging from several Hello Kitty dresses featured on America's Next Top Model to Japanese school girl uniforms. This dress Lady Gaga once wore was a standout.

We can now also report that we own museum pieces!!! A month or so ago we spied a Hello Kitty 'bride' at Value Village in a McDonald's uniform. It was $1.99. A few seconds later, we also found the groom, another $1.99. It was so weird, we felt compelled to buy them. And there they were in EMP on our visit, out of the thousands and thousands of HK products.

AND ALSO: While at EMP, we simply *had* to stop by the Indie Game Revolution part of the museum. 

There, we made a beeline for the Best Video Game ever, Tenya Wanya Teens, about 'competitive teenage awkwardness.' 

In it, you have to use a crazy game pad (whose colors keep changing) to do everything from take a shower to use a urinal to confess your love for someone to sing some karaoke.

The museum was very quiet, and we had free range of all the games for a change, so we also played a neat-o cooperative one called "Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime." 

I played with CJ for awhile and he did a nice job of thinly veiling his disdain at how awful I was at it.

I had CJ research the game today and it turns out it was available in a home port version, on sale for just $9.95 via the STEAM Web site. We took the plunge, our only Black Friday/Cyber Monday splurge (other than some kale and bananas).

On the way out of EMP, we stopped by the Super Awesome adjacent playground.