For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 22, 2016

Are those china brands only Canadian?

As a Hardware salesman my Dad used to sell it and we had various patterns of it all different as he got to keep his samples. Same thing with the Libby glassware. Melmac was supposed to be “Unbreakable”. He was demonstrating this one time by smacking the center of a dinner plate on the corner of a store counter when it snapped stabbing him in the hand on the third smack. Company that he worked for stopped any further demonstrations of that claim by any other salesmen.

Mid 20th century, my mom was outside watering plants when a salesman stopped by. She was about to protest that she did not need anything, when the man grabbed a Melmac plate and bounced it across the concrete driveway. Sold! Mom bought two sets.l

Maybe three dinners a year we do not use paper plates. Sometimes we cut them in half and call it dining on the half plate. It’s true.

Melamine, also is used as an additive in Baby forumula milk in China. It poisoned over 300 babies.

And here I thought they got their last dinnerware from ALF’s home planet.

Our camper is still stocked with melmac dinnerware!

Melmac was also slightly radioactive. I remember demonstrations of this at school.

My next door neighbour explained that she only had Melmac in her cupboards because every time her husband lost his temper (apparently quite spectacularly) he’d grab china out of the cupboard and throw it in the sink. She said “better the china than me!”.

I am I the only one who finds this whole wedding theme a horror story?

Melmac – One of the overlooked History lessons. I suppose History in general is neglected along with things like cursive writing and times tables. ↔ The current teaching disease that thinks all ‘rote learning’ is by definition useless is going to cost us dearly.

Melamine is still around today, it’s what those “Magic Erasers” are made from.Still toxic though..The Chinese put it in dog food as a protein filler and it killed and sickened may pets before a stop was put to the practice.

Someone is selling a 150 piece lot of Melmac dishes on eBay for $250! Go get it! :D

We had two sets of dishes and silverware in my house. The good stuff that was only dragged out on holidays or for special company and the somewhat mismatched ware that was for daily use.I can remembering polishing the silver ( one of my assigned chores ) with silver polish and a special cloth. The silverware came in rolls of soft cloth with pockets for the appropriate utensil. If memory serves, the glasses, silver service, and dishes were a complete service for 12 people ! All patterns were registered at a jewelry store. My mother was shocked when she went to replace a spoon that the electric pig ate. After 50 years of marriage those wedding gifts had certainly, like my parents marriage, appreciated in value considerably.

That’s the look you give when you’ve said a real zinger. And most people don’t maintain eye contact when the zinger leaves their lips.

Yeah, we should be using Cuba and North Korea as our national role models.

Melmac was pretty much indestructible, so you shouldn’t need replacements for it.

The original substance was named “melamine.” Melmac was a trade name.

My mom had Melmac dishes for many years. After my brothers and I grew up, she bought stoneware and dumped the plastic. For those who are confused about ALF and Melmac, this strip predates ALF by many years (originally published in 1987). The producers picked the name for the home planet as a joke because Melmac was so common at the time. There was a store in Buena Park that sold only Melmac in all its variations. (Ours were dark burgundy red and square.)

I do. It was great for your first set of dishes, particularly if you were a young klutz like me! Good dishes wouldn’t have lasted 6 months…

I remember it. My Grandmother had some. They are also making melamine dinner ware again. It’s sold in Dollar stores for a dollar per piece. IT IS NOT Microwaveable though.

Congratulations, you managed to spell BOTH words in that term wrong! You obviously don’t understand what it really means either.

When I left home, my mom gave me several dinnerware items, that I still use nearly 50 years later. I have no idea where she bought them; but, I’m sure some are Melmac. They’re functional; so, I see no reason to get rid of them. Plus they hold some sentimental value for me.

I think there’s some confusion here. Fiestaware was the ceramic that used a radioactive glaze. Corel is the armor plate glass that will sometimes explode. Melmac was the ubiquitous cheap plastic that Alf’s planet was named for. (and yes, melmac/melamine was a poisonous milk substitute used in baby formula and pet food.)

Science teachers would pull out a geiger counter to show how things were radioactive.