Take Heart - Even Wax Figures Age and Fail

I took my kids to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Times Square the other day. If you've never been, I recommend it, and there's one in most major cities. Seeing an uncanny likeness molded in bee spit is downright creepy, but also quite thrilling. It's like staring into the face of eternity, only waxier.

But as I was there, I started to wonder ... do these things ever melt? Go bad? Get disfigured? In effect, do they age? And then I started wondering, not every wax figure, like every person, can be a success. There must be an "island of misfit wax figures" somewhere, full of botched Joe Namaths and gnarly Tina Turners. Renderings that cause a celebrity to say something quite counter to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's reaction to being goopily mimed: “It’s awesome to be a part of Las Vegas history and to be enshrined with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Bette Midler and all of the great entertainers here."

And now I know the answer, thanks to this. Though I have no idea where these shots are from and what wicked artist attempted such failed flatterings, I think of this site as Madame Not-Too-So's Wax Mausoleum. For some reason, they make me giggle and shiver at the same time. And I'm not sure I like that, but I can't stop looking.

So next time someone offers to render you in wax, check their credentials and demand approval prior to unveiling, otherwise, well, you might end up on this site, which is a lot like eternity, only suckier.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.