As mentioned in my post "Big Daddy", which featured that beautiful custom BMW R80, the inspiration for that bike was Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. Starting back in the late 50's, Roth proved to be a real entrepreneurial guy who did everything from cartooning and illustrating to customizing cars and hot rods and pin striping. He started the 'monsters in hot-rods' cartoon craze with the 'Weirdo" t-shirts he created along with fellow artists and hot rod pioneers like Stanley Miller and Dean Jeffries. One of the quintessential Big Daddy cartoon characters was the Mickey Mouse anti-hero "Rat Fink", still popular enough today to warrant the 'Rat Fink Party and Kustom Kulture Extravaganza' held yearly in California.
Roth created many custom hot rods, like the surf buggy 'Surfite', seen in 'Beach Blanket Bingo' (with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello) or 'Beatnik Bandit' which resides in the National Automobile Museum in Nevada. He also did his fair share of custom motorcycles and trikes and was, for a time, involved with a few outlaw motorcycle clubs who frequented his garage. Roth couldn't get any mainstream motorcycle magazines to publish his ads, let alone his features on custom choppers, so he printed his own black and white publication and distributed it himself. It only lasted about 3 years but was the first of it's kind and certainly paved the way for other such magazines down the road.
After a few 'incidents' with bike gangs and the police, Roth changed things up and eventually, with his 4th wife, joined a church and became involved in social work .
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| Rat Fink was the anti-hero, in contrast to Mickey Mouse |
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| Big Daddy was a bit of a ham! He was likely the first to use the Iron Cross in association with 'biker' culture. |
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| Ed independently published and distributed 'Chopper' magazine |
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| Big Daddy loved nicknames and catch phrases |
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| Rat Fink rides |
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| One of Ed's custom trikes |
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| Big Daddy airbrushes one of his 'Weirdo' t-shirts |
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| Ed took a lot of photos of bikers and made up posters to sell |
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| 'Monsters In Cars" cartoon |
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