When U.S. Army Corps bombardier Max Spencer Adler was shoot down over Europe and imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II , it ’s not likely he dreamed of one day becoming the tsar of member - form sucker and lava lamp . But when Adler became afree Isle of Man , he decide to capitalise on a booming post - war saving by doing exactly that — pursuing a calling as the head of a gag endowment mail - ordering empire that would finally elongate across 600 retail locating and become a religious rite of enactment for mall - trekking stripling in the 1980s and 1990s .
To sneak into a Spencer Gifts storage against your parent ' want and revel in its raiment of tatty novelties and grownup toy felt a little like getting away with something . Glowing with lasers and stuffed with Halloween mask , the layout always had something interesting within arm ’s reach . But stock the store with such provocations sometimes carried consequences .
Returning from the war , Adler sense a wave of reliefrunning through the general population . Goods no longer had to be rationed , and plaything factories could generate to making nonessential items . The guilt feelings of spending sentence or money on frivolous items was disappearing .
With his brother Harry , Adler started Spencer Gifts as a mail - order business in 1947 . Their catalogue , which became an immediate success , was populate with items like do - it - yourself backyard skate rink and cotton confect makers [ PDF]—items no one really needed but were cheap enough to indulge in . In some ways , the Spencer catalogs resembled the ring mail - order comic ads prognosticate ex - ray methamphetamine and submarine Pisces kingdom . alternatively of kids , Adler was targeting the deep pouch of adults .
Bolstered by that early success , Adler move into a curious category : alive animals . He had small donkeys transmit from Mexico and marketed them as the new style in domestic favorite . LIFEmagazinetook noteof the cult in 1954 , observing the $ 85 burro , being sell at a cartridge clip of 40 a day , “ except for obstinacy , are very tranquil . ”
Burro fever foreshadowed the direction of Spencer ’s in the old age to add up . The Adlers opened their first physical location — minus stock — in Cherry Hill , New Jersey in 1963,expandingon their belief to peddle unparalleled natural endowment particular like the Reduce - Eze cincture , which call to trim inch off the wearer ’s breadbasket . That title capture the attention of the Federal Trade Commission , which chasten the fellowship for advertising the twist could reduce body exercising weight without recitation [ PDF ] . The FTC also took them to job for implying their jewelry contained precious metal [ PDF ] when the item did not .
Offending the FTC aside , Spencer ’s did a brisk enough business to garner the aid of California - based amusement company Music Corporation of America , Inc. ( MCA ) , which purchased the brand and proceeded to expand it in the rapidly grow identification number of malls across the res publica in the 1970s and 1980s . ( The chain mail order business closed in 1990 . )
Brick and mortar retail was ideal for their inventory , which encouraged perusal , entrepot demonstrations , and roving bands of giggling teenagers . The companionship wanted its memory board to capture foot traffic by stuffing its aisle with items that had alook - at - thisfactor — a novelty that invited someone to cull it up and show it to a protagonist . When administrator saw specific class taking off , they “ Spencerized , ” or commix them . When there was a revivification of pastime in Rubik ’s Cubes and merchandise from the 1983 Al Pacino filmScarface , visitant were shortly greet in stock by stacks ofScarface - theme Rubik ’s cube .
Apart from its busy aesthetic—“like the stage from an former Poison video , ” as onejournalistput it — Spencer ’s was also known for its inventorying of risqué grownup fallal items . Pole - dance kit and sex - themed card games occupied a portion of the storage ’s layout . The toys capture a demographic that might have been too humiliated to impose a consecrate grownup store but matte up that browse in a mall was harmless .
Sometimes , the storage ’s blasé mental attitude toward stock such item drew critical attention . In 2010 , police in Rapid City , South Dakotaseizedhundreds of point because Spencer ’s had failed to register as an “ adult - oriented patronage , ” something the metropolis regulation required . As far back as the 1980s , parents in various locales hadcomplainedthat implicative cloth was viewable by minors . In 2008 , ABC intelligence affiliate WTVD in Durham , North Carolinadispatchedtwo teenaged girls with hidden cameras to see what they would be allowed to buy . While they were shooed away from a back - of - store exhibit , they were able-bodied to purchase “ two toy lapin that vibrate , moan , and simulate sexual practice ” as well as a phallus - form necklace .
As a possible aftermath of the net , there are few incidences of maternal scandal directed at Spencer ’s these days . And despite the general downturn of both malls and retail shopping , the troupe bolsters its bottom blood with the seasonal arrival of Spirit Halloween , a kill - up store specializing in costumes . Despite only being receptive two months out of the yr , their Spirit locations contribute toroughly halfof Spencer ’s $ 250 million in annual revenue .
Today , the chain ’s 650 entrepot continue a source for impulse shopping . They still occasionally court arguing over items that appear tostereotypethe Irish as drunken oafs or other inflammatory product . With traditional shopping mall locations anticipate to shrivel by as much as25 percentover the next five years , it ’s not quite clear whether their salmagundi of novelties will proceed to have a large retail footprint . But so long as requirement exists for imitation poop , fart atomiser , and penis ring toss kits , Spencer ’s will probably have a home .
