Monday, October 18, 2010

Little Golden Book Monday #129

Today's Little Golden Book is a second printing of the officially licensed Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers from 1976 (first printing 1974). As soon as I saw this book, I started thinking about a favorite childhood mall hang out, called Willie Woozle. There was one of these hot dog and malt shops at both of my local malls; Surrey Place Mall and Guildford Town Centre. I went looking on the net for some photos of Willie Woozle, but sadly, I could not find even one photo of the place, just some people reminiscing about how much they liked going there when they were kids. I can't be sure since I could not find a photo, but I seem to remember that the Willie Woozle logo featured an owl very similar to Woodsy and I used to think the malt shop was somehow related to Woodsy, which I'm sure is what they were going for.
I assume every one knows what a malt is, but just in case you've never had one, the term malt comes from the malted milk that made the shops famous. The concoction is a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk that is dried to a powder form. The taste found popularity in soda shops, and even greater popularity when mixed with ice cream. If you remember back, Scooby-Doo and the gang were always hanging out at the malt shop. Wendy's burger restaurants still serves malts which they call Frosty's.
Since I could not find a photo of the Willie Woozle malt shop, I decided I would get creative with one of the interior pages from the Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers book to at least include my childhood vice!

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