#252: The 'Traveling Cake' 1

One of the first of two 'traveling cakes' that were leftover from the stl250 organization, these have no permanent location. Instead, these are making appearances at special events around St. Louis. As of this writing (10/12/2014), the second one has not been public yet. This traveling cake first made an appearance at the Art Fair (in the Shaw neighborhood) in mid-September 2014. Its next location was at Clayton High School, just down the street from Brown Shoe Company. This was where I captured the shot at. I don't think Clayton High School had any historical or other types of significance, but it was their Homecoming week so that's why it was there for that time. I'm just glad I was able to get it while I could!

According to people in the Facebook group 'Stl250 Unofficial Cakeway to the West', this cake was originally supposed to go to Purina Farms, but supposedly they chose the cake Charlie Houska did over Paul LeFlam's. LeFlam's had the Purina's trademark checkerboard logo around the base of the cake, according to an insider. But LeFlam decided to re-decorate, posting cartoon characters from a span of 100 years.

Left side of the cake, featuring Tweety Bird and Scooby Doo

Back side of the cake, featuring Odie (from Garfield comics)

Right side of the cake, featuring Felix the Cat

Top of the cake, with the checkerboard

Its artist, Paul LeFlam, posted to the group his side of the story:

"Here is the story of The Cartoon cake. Some of it is fictional, some is not.

The Cartoon cake is a repaint, so I decided that since it was not dedicated to a specific spot I would go with a fun format for the cake, that led to the celebration theme. I officially titled the cake, “Let’s Celebrate”

The following could be and most certainly is pure fiction. I sent out a call for anyone that had a fun attitude, people would recognize and wanted to be portrayed on a public expression of Art. Soon after I received a call from someone that said they were an actor and wanted to help me acquire prominent figures of television history to participate in the celebration of our 250th year birthday festivities, he informed me that his name was Rocky.

During a lengthy conversation with me, he relayed to me that he had a lot of friends that would love to be portrayed on the cake and kept insisting that he had a lot of “Friends” After we’re into our conversation for a while I’m thinking, Rocky and Friends, where do I know that from, however that train of thought soon dissipated during our conversation With his personable attitude and the fact he informed me that if needed he could “fly in” if needed for a face to face meeting, I told him that wasn’t necessary. He guaranteed me that he would influence his friends and have them get in contact with me. The response was overwhelming, after numerous phone calls I saw that things were getting out of hand and I had to start declining requests, someone named Mickey and Minnie were very disappointed .

As to the cat with red stripes, he was very mysterious,, hangs out in France and spoke very little English and I know maybe 10 words in French, that made for an interesting conversation. I agreed to include him on the cake. I think he won an Academy Award or something."

Kids taking a close look at the cake while it was on display at the Thomas Dunn Learning Center (11/8/2014)

NOW: Auctioned off for $815 on biddingforgood.com. On private property.

Cake artist: Paul LeFlam