FARMINGTON HILLS, Michigan -- It was by word of mouth that I first learned about Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum in suburban Detroit.
The words about “this amazing place” came from my 14-year-old daughter, Rosie. She heard about it on TikTok from a Michigan-based rock band she likes called Tally Hall, which named its 2005 debut album after the museum.
“Can we drive to Michigan this weekend?” Rosie asked for weeks, before our family of four finally gave in and headed north to visit this wondrous, whimsical place.
The more than 5,000-square-foot museum and arcade, tucked inside a strip mall, is loaded to the gills with old and new coin-operated machines, vintage memorabilia and curiosities that will thrill and amaze you.
While the pandemic forced the museum to close for a year, the place was crowded during our visit just before New Year’s Day. Sanitizer dispensers are now stationed throughout, and employees are regularly seen wiping off machines.
We spied pinball games, animatronic characters, photo booths, sideshow posters, a mini merry-go-round and model airplanes soaring overhead on a track attached to the ceiling.
“It’s a sensory overload,” says owner Jeremy Yagoda, who runs the museum with his brother-in-law, Andrew Rosenfeld. “You cannot see it all at once.”
Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum is the creation of Jeremy’s dad, Marvin Yagoda, who was a pharmacist by trade and a collector of unusual things by enjoyment. “Dad always loved magic, sideshows and circuses,” Jeremy said of his father, who died in 2017 at age 78.
In 1980, Marvin set up an egg-laying chicken game in Tally Hall, an indoor mall and food court near 14 Mile Road. Eventually, Tally Hall’s landlords rented out a retail space to Marvin, which he filled with kiddie rides, antiques and games.
Tally Hall closed in 1988, and the center was redeveloped into Orchard Lake Plaza, where Marvin reopened his space in 1990. “He just went nuts then,” said Jeremy of his father, who began collecting player pianos in 1960.
Memorabilia from Tally Hall decorates the arcade, including the mall’s sign, which hangs from the ceiling. Rosie explained that’s where the band Tally Hall got its name, as she snapped a picture with her phone.
Marvin’s collection grew into an amalgam of oddities that cover the gamut from playable favorites to things you just stare at in bewilderment, such as a human-like figure picking its nose in a machine called “The Disgusting Spectacle.”
The museum has been featured on the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” and listed among the World Almanac’s 100 most unusual museums in the U.S., according to its website. Marvin also appeared on “American Pickers,” helping crew members gauge the age and worth of antique, coin-operated machines.
Marvin graduated from University of Michigan as a pharmacist and took over his father’s store, Sam’s Drugs in Detroit. But his passion was the museum.
“The museum was a place for my dad to share his toys with everyone,” Yagoda said. “I try to keep it running the same way, logic and rational, keep it fun and unique and different, treating people right.”
Today, the museum includes hundreds and hundreds of items, Yagoda said. It’s open 365 days a year, and admission is free. All machines use real coins, not tokens. Two onsite change machines are available, along with stacks of paper cups.
Most machines still work, and visitors can set them in motion with one or two quarters. Many date to 1920s and 1930s England, where they were popular at seaside arcades. Toss a quarter into “Marvin’s Lunch Time,” and a table of hungry sailors eat their dinners while a lone man in a bathtub slurps spaghetti. “The Guillotine” shows a beheading, complete with a missing skull and random blood stains.
There are more-modern machines, too, including rows of pinball machines, Skee-Ball and fast-paced action arcade games. Part of the museum operates as a game center for kids to collect tickets they can trade in for candy and toys.
“We’re always trying to keep the newest stuff that interests kids, who then see the other, older stuff and get interested in that,” says Yagoda, who has an 8-year-old son whose favorite game is “Tank! Tank! Tank!” “What’s really fun is when I get multi-generational families.”
The real fun for most adults will be the kitschy items. For 50 cents, you can see a 1980s-era green alien animatron launch into a heartfelt, hilarious rendition of “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
The oldest items date back nearly 100 years. Tucked in a corner is the Cardiff Giant, the 19th-century hoax of a man purported to be 10 feet tall. Yagoda says his dad purchased a replica of the giant, which was commissioned by P.T. Barnum, at a Sotheby’s auction.
An electric chair, attached to a wall, was housed at Sing Sing prison in New York and was responsible for 30 deaths, according to a sign in the museum.
“Things will make you smile and make you say, ‘eew,’ " Yagoda said. “A lot of the machines are one of a kind.”
Like the one Yagoda calls “the throw-up guy,” which houses a custom-made, costumed man in a wooden cabinet. Put a quarter into the machine, and the man spits up water into a bucket as a white light flashes on and off.
“Our museum was built out of passion,” Yagoda says. “It wasn’t about the dollar. People come in all the time wanting to buy the old antiques that we have. It’s nice that they’re interested, but my standard is ‘What are you going to sell me that’s cooler and I can put in its place?’ "
If you go: Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, 31005 Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan, is about 180 miles from Cleveland. The museum is open every day, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Information: marvin3m.com
Pramik is a freelance writer from Columbus.
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