The Boss suggested I sniff around to find out because he was walking up Collins St recently — heading to the footy — when he encountered a humongous queue stretching an entire block from the Town Hall to the new Swatch store, near Elizabeth St.
Of course, a dog will only ever queue for dinner or a fire hydrant, but here all these patient people were: waiting to buy the very latest Moonshine Gold Earthphase MoonSwatch, for $610. It has Snoopy and his little feathered mate, Woodstock, on the dial.
The Boss happened to be in the street on launch day, August 9; he learned that each of those desperate punters knew they were limited to one MoonSwatch only — no dinner included.
The MoonSwatch is a collaboration between Swatch and Omega. It feeds off the legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch, the timepiece worn on lunar excursions by astronauts with far more training than your average beagle.
And why the beagle is there is not obvious to a cynical old dog. Why not a dog with real marketing appeal — like a Chessie?
Well, Swatch has made a fortune producing cheap plastic quartz watches — these are the ones with a small battery in them that power a quartz crystal. They are accurate, inexpensive timepieces — with colourful flair.
Omega, however, makes traditional (and much more expensive) mechanical watches comprising well over a hundred finely crafted parts. Their owners value the superb workmanship and precision of their complications as much — or more than — merely keeping time.
But fast-fashion Swatch was so successful, it bought out the more prestigious Omega, spying a marketing opportunity. The first MoonSwatch launch — on March 26 this year — saw huge crowds lining up in Tokyo, New York and London, as well as Melbourne and Sydney, to secure one of 11 different designs and colours — each representing a planetary figure of the solar system.
But fast-fashion requires constant hype, so this latest model featuring Snoopy has arrived — inspired, we are told, by the Sturgeon moon on August 9. It’s called that in the Northern Hemisphere because North America’s largest fish is reputedly easier to catch under the August full moon.
I’m still trying work out what Snoopy and the moon have in common: I would have thought the hapless Russian hound Laika — shot into orbit on a one-way ticket on Sputnik 2 in 1957 — would have a stronger claim. But The Boss says NASA nicknamed the lunar module Snoopy after the Apollo 10 mission was told to “snoop around” the moon in 1969, in order to identify the Apollo 11 landing site — so Snoopy became NASA’s mascot.
NASA then launched a Silver Snoopy Award for contributions to safety in space exploration; one was presented to Omega after its Moonwatch timed a critical 14-second rescue procedure for the Apollo 13 astronauts after a gas tank exploded.
Not missing a trick, Swatch have emblazoned the latest Moonshine Gold MoonSwatch with a hidden quote from a 1969 Peanuts comic strip, only visible under UV light. “I beat them all…” says Snoopy, dreaming himself as the first beagle on the moon.
Was Snoopy the first dog on the moon — or just the first to moonwalk away with your wallet? Woof!
