5 Weird Museums That Actually Exist


pecker museumToday, I am walking through Podskalska in Prague’s New Town. New Town is wonderful; it is often overlooked by tourists and yet it’s lined with charming buildings which mark Prague’s varied architectural history.

Moreover, the back streets are often home to hidden gems. I’ve stumbled upon a bust of Winston Churchill, a pub with an archery range in it, and a church with a severed arm behind the altar. There’s always something weird just waiting to be discovered in those cobbled streets.

And better yet, there’s always a good pub near that something weird.

Today’s surprise turns out to be a museum of toilets and kid’s potties. The sign was in linoleum – what else – and the large front window is stuffed with the historical representation of The John. We take a picture of it and then swiftly move to the pub across the street. But I am already obsessed with this idea of the toilet museum.

The toilet museum exists. Someone thought that a museum to toilets should exist and they built it here in Prague 4 and then filled it with appropriate objects. Once I start thinking about it, the idea doesn’t seem all that crazy.

Surely, there are other weird museums out there and then I start remembering others I’ve been to – the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, the Sex Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Medieval Torture Devices in Prague.

What else is out there? I sip my beer in content, because my internet surfing time for later is set with purpose. Here are five other weird museums that actually exist in the world.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

In laymen’s terms: A museum of dicks! A whole museum dedicated to the world’s peckers, wieners, willies, and cocks. The peckers on display range from the 67 inch tip of a blue whale’s to the 2 millimeter dong of a hamster (who I think I roomed with in college). Also featured are man junk specimens of both Huldufólk (Icelandic elves) and trolls.

Don’t miss the room on penile warts!

Momofuko Ando Ramen Museum

When Momofuko Ando invented Ramen instant noodles on August 25, 1958, after months of frustrating trial and error, the world’s future college kids joined together in a collective song of thanks and joy.

The museum is in Osaka, and is – according to the website – “four stories of fun-filled exhibitions and attractions” which includes a riveting history of Ramen instant noodles and a factory workshop where visitors can make their own noodles, thus voiding the entire point of Ramen in the first place. Reservations must be made to enjoy that feature. The museum is 500 yen for adults, but free for high school age kids or younger. They probably figure that most of them are going to buy far more than 500 yen in Ramen in a few years.

The Barbed Wire Museum

Before you say, “What the feck!?” just keep in mind that this museum is in Kansas. There’s just not a lot to do out there.

According to the good folks at the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum, barbed wire – or the Devil’s Rope – is bringing people together in La Crosse, Kansas. There are symposiums on fencing (armored, I suppose), a trade show for fencing tool collectors, and it’s home of the annual Kansas Barbed Wire Collectors Association (KBWCA) Swap and Sell.

One highlight is an authentic raven’s nest made primarily out of barbed wire. It was found in the 1960s in Missouri. Another place there’s just not much to do.

Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum

Barney Smith is a master plumber who apprenticed with his dad, who was also interested in mounting trophies on plaques. Barney noticed at a young age that toilet seat lids resemble plaques. He suggested this to his dad who did to his dream what most people do while sitting on a toilet seat.

Nevertheless, later in life Barney started making artwork on toilet seat lids and it has since become a kind of a “toilet seat scrapbook of his life.”

Highlights include a toilet seat lid commemorating the space shuttle Challenger, which actually incorporates a piece of insulation which floated ashore after it blew up (NASA has not authenticated), and a lid covered in volcanic ash from Mount Saint Helens.

I’d like to see more famous toilet seat lids featured. For example, the seat lid from the toilet Elvis died on, or the seat lid from the dirtiest toilet in Scotland from Trainspotting, or from George R.R. Martin’s toilet: The Throne of Thrones.

The Mini Bottle Museum

If you have ever gotten a cocktail on an airplane, you know exactly what a mini bottle is. Those little pocket-sized midgets that hold a shot and a half of seven-mile-high-relaxation.

Yes, there is a whole museum dedicated to them in Oslo. The museum displays 53,000 mini bottles, bottles filled with mice, worms, and even flowers (I think they were factory mistakes, but it’s not made clear).

There’s a (mini) bar. Moreover, there’s a slide from the third floor to the cellar “horror room” an intimate and creepy dining and drinking room meant to provide a place for the Mini Bottle King to enjoy his old age.

If there’s one thing I have learned in the last day, it’s that you never know what will come out of Scandinavia. Also, I recently discovered the desire to see an Icelandic Elf’s pecker.

What’s the weirdest museum you’ve been to?

  1. #1 by Lee on October 5, 2015 - 4:52 pm

    My weirdest museum was The Museum of Death in San Diego. It was right next to the Irish pub I was a bouncer for, and I ended up good friends with the owners, a lovely, if morbid, couple. It was in a basement, and when you descended the stairs you always had to step over the family dog, golden retriever, who lay curled up sleeping at the bottom of the steps. I say always because he’d been dead 10 years and they had him perfectly stuffed.

    Besides from a bunch of gruesome exhibits, they had also managed to buy (at great expense) one of the bunk beds that the Heaven’s Gate folks had used in their mass suicide. Complete with purple shroud over a manikin wearing Nike sneakers.

    They also branched out into weird living things, my favorite being the chicken which had two assholes.

    The last I heard, they had closed up shop and reopened in Los Angeles to great success. Go figure…

  2. #3 by Sean on October 5, 2015 - 10:01 pm

    The Mutter Museum, hands down. it’s a very cool place if you have a strong stomach and a few hours to kill in Center City Philadelphia. You don’t realize the effect looking at someone else’s colon preserved in a giant glass case has on you until you’ve done it.

    http://muttermuseum.org/

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