VV(11): Bloody Chiclitz

[Dave Monroe]

"Early in May Eigenvalue introduced Stencil to Bloody Chiclitz, president of 
Yoyodyne, Inc., a company with factories scattered careless about the 
country and more government contracts than it really knew what to do with." 
(V., Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 226-7)

J. Kerry Grant sez ...

"Chiclitz's nickname will seem mysterious to those readers not familiar with 
the threatening question, 'Do you want a mouthful of
bloody Chiclets?'"

A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49, p. 66 ...

Chiclets, of course, being those little candy-coated squares of chewing gum, 
indeed quite reminiscent of enamel-coated teeth ...

http://www.gum-mints.com/conaffairs/chiclets.shtml

... and not some Pynchonian variation on those Nabokovian nymphets (for 
which TRP of course instead has recourse to the term, "subdeb").  Chiclitz, 
of course, being "Chiclitz the munitions king" (V., Ch. 2, Sec. ii, p. 55), 
"Clayton ('Bloody') Chiclitz," "Chiclitz of Yoyodyne" (V., Ch. 7, p. 152), 
but also "the president of the company, Mr Clayton ('Bloody') Chiclitz 
himself" (TCOL49, Ch. 4, p. 83), "old Bloody Chiclitz," "free enterpriser,"  
"about as fat as Marvy and wears hornrimmed glasses, and the top of his 
head's as shiny as his face," "the Royal Baby" ...

"Officially he is one of the American industrialists out here with the 
T[echnical] Force, scouting German engineering, secret weaponry in 
particular.  Back home he owns a toy factory in Nutley, New Jersey.  Who can 
ever forget the enormously successful Juicy Jap, the doll that you fill with 
ketchup then bayonet through any of several access slots, whereupon it flies 
to pieces, 82 of them, realistically squishy plastic, all over the room? 
or-or Shufflin' Sam, the game of skill where you have to shoot the negro 
before he gets back over the fence with the watermelon, a challenge to the 
reflexes of boys and girls of all ages." (GR Pt. 3, Ep. 26, p. 558)

See ...

Gimbel, John.  Science, Technology and Reparations:
  Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany.
  Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1990.

As well as ...

Dower, John W.  War without Mercy: Race and Power
   in the Pacific War.  New York" Pantheon, 1986.

"Only thing a coon ought to have in his hands is a broom." (p. 560)

But, to continue ...

"Right now business is taking care of itself, but Chiclitz has eyes on the 
future.  That's why he's running this fur operation [...]  'Reentrenchment.  
Got to get capitalized, enough to see me through,' splashing champagne into 
gold communion chalices, 'till we see which way it' gonna go.  Myself, I 
think there's a great future in these V-weapons. They're gonna be really 
big." (GR, Pt. 3, Ep. 26, p. 558)

And, of course, he's right.  Here.  But he seems to have lost his foresight 
eleven years later ...

"In the late 1940's Yoyodyne had been breezing along comfortably as the 
Chiclitz Toy Company, with one tiny independent-making shop on the outskirts 
of Nutley, New Jersey.[...]  He was well on the way to cornering the toy 
gyroscope market when along came a group of school kids on tour to point out 
that these toys worked the same principle as a gyrocompass.  'As wha,' said 
Chiclitz." (V., Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 227)

There is a Nutley, NJ, by the way, but I can't tell that it's in any way 
known for its toys.  Although ...

http://www.mynutley.com/

Eventually yields Rockner Companies, Inc., as a toy manufacturer ...

"Chiclitz remembered vaguely from a trade magazine that the government was 
always in the market for these.  They used them on ships, and more lately, 
missiles."  (p. 227)

Vision returning ...

"'Well, figured Chiclitz, 'why not.'  Small-business opportunities in the 
field at the time were being inscribed as abundant.  Chiclitz started making 
gyros for the government.  He kept expanding, buying, merging.  Now less 
than ten years later he had built up an interlocking kingdom responsible for 
systems management, airframes, command systems, ground support equipment." 
(p. 227)

I.e., the military-industrial complex ((c) Ike) ...

"Dyne, one newly hired engineer had told him, was a unit of force.  So to 
symbolize the humble beginnings of the Chiclitz empire and to get the idea 
of force, enterprise, engineering skill and rugged individualism in there 
too, Chiclitz christened the company Yoyodyne." (p. 227)

"Yo" = "I" in Spanish ...

A few years later (ca. TCOL49), Yoyodyne has begun to flounder, perhaps 
ultimately to fail ...

"Yoyodyne, Yoyodyne,
Contracts flee thee yet.
DOD has shafted thee,
Out of Spite, I'll bet."

(TCOL49,  Pt. 4, p. 83)

Certainly, it doesn't turn up on that website ...

And note "San Narciso's big source of employment, the Galactronics Division 
of Yoyodyne, Inc., one of the giants of the aerospace industry," "a 
prolonged scatter of wide, pink buildings," "two sixty-foot missiles on 
either side and the name YOYODYNE lettered consevatively on each nosecone" 
(TCOL49, P. 1, p. 25) ...

I don't, however, recall any mention of either Chiclitz or Yoyodyne in 
either of the novels since Gravity's Rainbow (Vineland, Mason & Dixon).  
Does Pig Bodine have the record for most separate appearances in a Pynchon 
story?   Let me know ...

Note the time change, by the way, April to May ...
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