You can expect to see Princess Leia, Marge Simpson, Wilma Flintstone, Barbie, and even the original Charlie’s Angels.
And don’t forget every other pop culture icon or cartoon character that was ever made into a toy, a game or a figurine.
At the Barker Character, Comic and Cartoon Museum, the collection of toys dates back to the 1800s and into the 2000s, and visitors are always welcome for the holidays.
Packed with displays of toys, games and other memorabilia, the museum’s two floors of collections reach out to generations of children whose memories might include characters from Popeye, Mickey Mouse, the Simpsons and Star Wars to the Hulk.
Director Karen St. Clair, who manages the museum, gift shop and animation art gallery next door on Highland Avenue, was ready and waiting for guests to arrive recently, along with docent Joe Haray.
St. Clair and Haray are looking forward to welcoming holiday visitors on Christmas and New Year’s eves.
“Weekdays have been a little slow, but we’ve been busy on the weekends,” she said. “We’ve seen people from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, out for the day or the weekend, because it’s not that far of a drive.
“We’re hoping Christmas Eve will be busy. Joe’s really looking forward to it,” she said.
Groups from senior citizen centers, group homes and schools are part of the community of visitors these days, said Haray, who leads tours daily during museum hours.
“We also get grandparents and their grandkids,” he said. “Just recently we had a great group of kids from Danbury High School. They were great, and they seemed to really enjoy it. They were all nice kids.”
The museum, founded in the 1950s by the late Herb and Gloria Barker, began as a personal collection.
“Herb was a collector, an affectionate collector,” said Haray, who was dressed as Old Saint Nick, and inside the museum of toys. “He started his own collections of things he liked, and it just grew from there.”
After Barker’s death in 2019, the collection continued to grow, thanks to donations of everything from movie props to figurines, dolls and toys. A walk through the museum takes time; there’s so much to see, with collections nestled in glass cases and carefully arranged. Items honoring the Flintstones, a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the 1960s, fill case after case on the first floor.
There are board games, some still in their cellophane wrapping, based on television shows like “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and Barbie. Lunchboxes of every description hang neatly from the rafters of the first-floor display room, and movie props, like a full size Hulk with a lighted Christmas beard, stand in a corner.
The Simpson family sits on a bench on the second floor, and Wall-E the robot, stands near a Star Wars collection. These are just a few of the “selfie” or group photo opportunities that are popular with visitors, the director said.
The glass cases deserve time and attention; there are Popeye toys dating to the 1920s, many of enameled metal. There’s Little Lulu, another vintage cartoon character. Betty Boop and Barbie and her crew have their own display areas.
“Herb was born the year Popeye first came out, and so he had a huge collection of anything Popeye,” St. Clair said.
Popeye was introduced in the comic strip “Thimble Theatre” in 1929, to pilot a boat for Olive Oyl and her boyfriend, Ham Gravy, according to the museum.
“Herb was also friends with the creator of Gumby, so we have a lot of those toys too.”
The museum’s oldest toys are the cast iron elephant ramp walkers, which were manufactured in 1873 by The Ives Toy Company of Bridgeport. According to the museum, they were the first automatons to be powered by gravity; and “140 years later, they work as well as ever and lumber obligingly down even the slightest incline.”
To describe the many collections of toys that were lovingly collected over the years by the Barkers as well as those donors isn’t easy. But Haray, who loves working at the museum and continuing its mission to delight visitors, does his best.
“Take a look at this,” he said, leading a guest to a View Master diorama, which was photographed and made into a tiny rotating collection of slides for the once-popular Disney toy.
“This is how it was taken, to show the dimensions and make it look so real. It was pretty amazing, back then,” he said.
Popular culture includes music, and many of the bands of the 50s, 60s and 70s had their own figurines to accompany album collections. The Beatles and the Monkees are just two of the many iconic groups that were made into toys for young fans.
Early Disney collections featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck are also part of the museum’s repertoire, along with a wall of Halloween masks that were sold in the 1970s.
And the toys just keep coming. The museum’s Wizard of Oz collection, including toys and even future items, is from one person, St. Clair said.
“The Gumby collection is from one person; there are a lot like that. People start with something and it just grows,” she said.
Five years ago, the museum had a professional appraisal of its contents done. It took months and was exhausting but eye-opening, St. Clair said.
“It’s a huge job, and prices fluctuate pretty drastically sometimes, too,” she said. “(The collections are) worth a lot. The thing is, we don’t sell the collections; people sometimes want to buy things, but we won’t sell them. That’s not what they were meant for.”
A new feature recently added to the museum displays are QR codes, which, when scanned, reveal facts about the items, such as a TV guide collection protected under glass upstairs.
“So many younger people have never heard of the TV Guide,” St. Clair said. “They don’t realize how important it was at the time, how people looked forward to getting it every week.”
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The Barker Character, Comic and Cartoon Museum in Cheshire, founded in the 1950s by the late Herb and Gloria Barker, began as a personal collection. Today, donated collections of everything from board games to movie props, dolls, figurines and toys fill the two-story building. The property also includes an art gallery and gift shop, and the Barkers’ company that makes trophies, awards, plaques and other commemorative items. Emily M. Olson
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The Barker Character, Comic and Cartoon Museum in Cheshire, founded in the 1950s by the late Herb and Gloria Barker, began as a personal collection. Today, donated collections of everything from board games to movie props, dolls, figurines and toys fill the two-story building. The property also includes an art gallery and gift shop, and the Barkers’ company that makes trophies, awards, plaques and other commemorative items. Emily M. Olson
When donations to the museum arrive, St. Clair said, each estate or item is carefully considered.
“People don’t always know what to do with the collections from their parents or their grandparents,” she said. “The younger generation doesn’t want it. So we try to fit everything we can into the museum.”
The museum property also includes an art gallery and gift shop, and the Barkers’ company that makes trophies, awards, plaques and other commemorative items. The gift shop and gallery feature original works by Disney artists and others; there are also limited edition and collectible Disney purses, sculptures, prints and paintings.
The Barker Character, Comic and Cartoon Museum is located at 1188 Highland Avenue in Cheshire. The museum’s regular hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Barker museum will be open Christmas Eve from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Santa Claus will be there with treats for visiting children. The museum charges a small fee for admission. Visit barkermuseum.com or on Facebook, or call 203-272-2357.
