Tragedy! According to an article in the LA Times, Union Products, the company that has been churning out 250,000 plastic lawn flamingoes a year for just under a half-century, has shuttered its factory due to rising production costs. The company’s president, Dennis Plante, and the creator of the kitsch icon, Don Featherstone, are looking for another company that may be interested in acquiring the molds, but there’s no deal yet.

I’d better inform my mother. She’ll want to horde a few sets of the silly things, just in case…