Holy toledo, Batman!
Funeral museum adds whimsy to deathly subject
“To the Batmobile!” In the 1960s, the excited cry meant that Batman and Robin had received a desperate call from Commissioner Gordon … a crime was going down in Gotham City … and the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder were on their way from stately Wayne Manor to thwart the dastardly Joker or the Riddler or the Penguin.
“Pow!” “Splat!” “Wham!” “Bam!”
Now “To the Batmo- bile” means hopping in your own car, driving on Interstate 45 to the Richey exit, making a couple of tricky turns after you see the Lupe Tortilla restaurant and visiting the National Museum of Funeral History, 415 Barren Springs. There are no signs along the highway pointing to the museum. Funny, the highway department doesn’t seem to have a problem putting up free signs publicizing gun shows 25 miles away.
It was my first visit to the Funeral History museum. I knew it was in Houston, but it sounded a little too creepy and
ghoulish for my taste. I don’t do funerals. I’ve never been in a graveyard.
But Genevieve Keeney, president of the Funeral Museum, promised that I could sit in the Batmobile. I told her, “Really? I’ll be there at 11 a.m., after the traffic on 1-45 dies down.” Dies down … get it? One of the museum’s mottos is, “Any day above ground is a good one.” Another one: “THE place to visit when you are dying to do something different.” So yeah, she gets it. She’s funny, in a Morticia Addams sort of way.
The museum’s Batmobile is a full-size, shiny replica of the Dark Knight’s car from the TV show, with all the crime-fighting gizmos of the original. It’s got a fire extinguisher on the passenger side and cassette player in the dashboard.
The No. 1 song on Jan. 12, 1966, the day “Batman” debuted on ABC: “We Can Work it Out,” by the Beatles. Other songs that Batman and Robin might have been listening to that week: “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon & Garfunkel; “She’s Just My Style,” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys; “Five O’Clock World,” by the Vogues; and “Ebb Tide,” by the Righteous Brothers.
The funeral museum is 30,500 square feet, one floor. Admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and military, and $7 for kids. It’s $5 extra to take a selfie sitting in the Batmobile.
I asked Keeney whom she liked more: Gomez Addams from “The Addams Family” or Herman Munster from “The Munsters.” She went with Herman Munster.
The National Museum of Funeral History, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is a nonprofit organization with most of its support money coming from admission tickets and an annual golf fundraiser. The museum isn’t nearly the downer I was expecting. It’s pretty fascinating with about 30 hearses, 50 caskets and coffins, and a ton of history.
What’s the difference between a casket and a coffin? A casket is usually a rectangular box, and the lid is connected with a hinge. A coffin is usually built in the shape of a body, narrower at the head and feet.
There’s an interactive game in which you have to guess the gravestone epitaph of celebrities.
Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny): “That’s all folks.”
Merv Griffin: “I will not be right back after this message.”
Frank Sinatra: “The best is yet to come.”
The museum has copies of celebrity death certificates. They’re available in the gift shop for $1 each.
There’s a copy of the bill for George Washington’s funeral: $99.25. According to those commercials I see at 3 a.m. on TV, the average cost for a funeral now is between $7,000 and $10,000. And yet a full set of Ronco kitchen knives (the next commercial) is just “three easy payments of only $13.33.”
There are exhibits dedicated to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, presidential funerals, the history of embalming, coffins and caskets of the past and “fantasy coffins from Ghana.” The museum can be rented for Halloween and birthday parties.
The museum has replica caskets of Presidents John Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and the hearse that drove Princess Grace to her grave in Monaco. The museum dedicates a whole room to pope memorabilia, including clothes and rings and hats. It has the embalming machine used on the body of President Harry Truman.
A casket for a rich person, bedazzled with $1,000 in paper money and $693 in coins, is on exhibit. That’s weird. You can read about the deaths of Roy Rogers and Charles Foley, inventor of the game Twister. The museum has “programs” (hand- outs) from the funerals of Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, Bo Diddley, Whitney Houston and many more celebrities.
Keeney said she’s always been “fascinated with death,” beginning when she was 7. She doesn’t fear death; it’s a natural part of life, a “journey we will all take,” she said.
She is concerned about how she’s going to die, though. She would prefer to pass away painlessly in her sleep, “with a little bit of memory loss.” Cause of death: old age. She wants to be cremated, with some of her ashes placed in Arlington National Cemetery and the rest divided among her children and grandchildren.
When she took over as museum president, annual attendance was 5,000 visitors. Last year, more than 20,000 visited, including many school field trips. Keeney advises that you allow two hours for your visit.