Fun at 40: Prankster at heart Blaylock celebrates milestone

TUPELO – From the same spot for the past 40 years, Jimmy Blaylock has been having the time of his life.

In the heart of Mill Village where he grew up, Blaylock has been plying his wares in his shop at 314 South Green, appropriately name Fun World.

Blaylock was a fun-loving prankster early in life, and while he tried fixing engines for a while at his fathers engine shop, neither his heart nor hands were in it.

He also worked two years at Tecumseh, but that wasn't what he wanted to do either.

"I had to get out," he said. "I said, 'you have to do something better than this,' so my wife, Patty, and I were trying to figure something different. We opened up in 1984 as a magic shop."

When Blaylock's family went on a Disneyland trip when he was kid, the happiest place in the world wasn't with Mickey, Minnie and Donald – it was shopping at magic and prank shops. That provided the inspiration for Fun World at the beginning.

But there was a slight problem with opening a magic shop.

"We found out there were no magicians in Tupelo," he said with a laugh. "So we started doing the singing telegrams, and we had some of the novelties, pranks and jokes and they worked.

"It took a while to figure out what the people wanted, and of course, over the years, things have changed."

That includes the fact that there are fewer jokers and pranksters, in Blaylock's opinion.

"Now we're a gift shop and novelty shop now – we don't do the singing telegrams – and we sell a lot of balloons, too," he said.

Don't worry: If you want a rubber chicken, Fun World has them. T-shirts, caps, costumes, knives are for sale, as are adult gifts and novelties. And if you're a Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne or Muhammad Ali fan, you might find something you like. Elvis fans need look no further, as Fun World has plenty of Elvis merch from coffee cups and T-shirts to the famous swinging hips wall clock.

In fact, Elvis is the biggest seller at the store.

"We have a lot of tourists come here," Blaylock said. "Last week we had some German tourists. The were in the historic Mill Village where Elvis used to live on Maple Street," he said. "Tourists often stop by here and over at Relics. We send customers back and forth. I tell them to go see some antiques and Relics tells them to stop by Fun World."

The waning demand for pranks coincides with declining suppliers.

"A lot of the companies went belly up," Blaylock said. "One of our biggest novelty companies in New York City went out during COVID, and that's kinda put the damper on it. You really don't see any fun shops anymore. There aren't any left."

Lining the walls of Fun World are photos of celebrities, many of them wrestlers. In the early 1990s, Blaylock began his gig of being a wrestling promotor. He was a "heel" in the industry, going by the name of "Hollywood Jimmy." He began a year-long promotion with Jerry "The King" Lawler on his show with Mid-South Wrestling.

"That helped boost business at the store, because we started getting wrestlers to come to the store, too," he said.

Blaylock then did segments on what was then The Nashville Network and the "Crook and Chase" show, and then he was invited to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" where he appeared for several years, followed by appearances on the "Wayne Brady Show," the "Steve Harvey Show" and others.

The TV exposure gave Blaylock nationwide attention, and he even had to make catalogs to send out across the country.

The television appearances have settled down over the years, but Blaylock could be seen in a documentary coming out this fall on Netflix.

"We'll see what happens," he said.

Blaylock has maintained his wrestling ties, and is associated with the EPW wrestling promotion out of Booneville now, "where we get paid to run our mouth," he said.

But Fun World is still his main focus, and he hopes there's at least another 40 years with the business.

"We've had so many customers who have been with us for years, some since we've opened up," he said. "We try to treat everybody who walks through the doors with respect. You do that and they'll come back. We had kids who came in here for the toys and candy and now they've grown up and come back for the gifts. It's really neat."

Fun World will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. at the store.