Many of the Lux, Keebler and other maker's pendulette novelty clocks employ simple animation with attachmments to the short, fast moving wide-arc pendulum. The movements are designed with more than adequate force for the pedulum to wag puppy-dog tails, shift eyes and tongues to and fro and still maintain a rough approximation of the time of day

The Lux pendulette clocks were invented and manufactured by Paul Lux and his family beginning before WWI. Using movements made by the Waterbury Clock Company where Paul was previously employed, Lux fabricated the various face and case parts moulded of a sawdust composition invented by Helmut Beerbarm's Syracuse Ornnammental Carving Company, best known as Syrocco. Today Syrocco makes much of the resin patio furniture sold in America, while the Lux Clock Company was purchased by the Robertson-Fulton Controls Company long ago.

At the peak of production, Lux is said to have produced as many as 3,000 clocks every day. It required a large workforce to decorate the clock faces using paints. Much of the detail painting is handwork and varies both in quality and detail. Obviously, the painting was done in batches by scores of "artists."

After WWII, Lux built new facilities and switched from the moulded sawdust composition to the then-new process of injection moudled plastic. The early plastic pendulettes were of the comic strip "Lil Abner's" immensely popular character known as the "Schmoo." Other plastic styles followed, including some of the older designs done in the new process. Thus it's safe to say that the wood-dough pendulettes that termites and other wood-eating insects devour are all pre-WWII. Nothing was manufactured during the war years.

The seemingly endless styles and themes of the animated pendulettes were based on contemporary themes of the day and the design artists' imagination. Oddly, the names assigned to some styles are unimaginative and just plain dull, but must have been meaningful to tthe production and marketing departments, although far from the thoughts of the designers!