The Guy Who Designed Lunch Boxes

If you were a kid in the 70s/early 80s, you likely carried a lunch box to school. On that box was probably a 3-D/bas relief-type image of your favorite TV show. Like this:



I was listening to the Mystery Show podcast last week when its host did an episode about this lunch box:




A fan of the show wanted to know where the artist had gotten this scene, since it wasn't in any of the episodes. (He'd watched them all numerous times.) Why is the jean jacket knotted? And why does Epstein look like he wants to fight Barbarino? They were friends.



To get her answer, the podcast host tried to track down the lunch box's designer, Elmer Lenart. He's no longer alive, but his designs live on in the Smithsonian, where the Kotter lunch box and many others are on display:



This is Elmer, as the giant on the Land of the Giants lunch box:



He also designed this one:



This one:



And this one:



Eventually his job was phased out. Lunch boxes stopped looking like ^^^that^^^ and started looking more like this:



And this:



Needless to say, the latter two lunch boxes likely won't end up in the Smithsonian.

Did you have a lunch box growing up?