Whatever Happen to Tobias Hackner?

[New2u]

Does anyone know whatever happened to "Tobias Hackner" who was possibly the first person to ever put together a tickling organization called "The Family" back in 1976 and advertised frequently in the "Fetish Times" newspaper?

I know the "Fetish Times" ceased publication in 1985 and "Tobias Hackner" simply disappeared from the radar. I believed he and the other gentleman, "Dave" who started the very first Foot Fetish publication called "WOM Productions" in 1976 were both ahead of their time and both have disappeared.

 

[keith940]

he died. read it some where a few years back.

 

[Tickler Bart]

I Remember. . .

I used to order stuff from him so many years ago.
When the movie 'The Best Little *****house in Texas' came out on video, there was a line mentioning "Tickling your ass with a feather". At about the same time, Jermaine Jackson came out with a song 'Let Me Tickle Your Fancy'.
I mentioned these 2 things to Tobias. He replied back to me saying, & I quote. . . "That's not the kind of tickling we're looking for".
I was hurt by that statement because I felt that the WORD itself should have been acknowledged in the media. Don't forget, this was in the early 1980s, before my first PC & the internet.
I decided not to deal with him anymore.
I am very sorry that he passed away.

 

[Doubold_T]

So, that's where WOM Productions came from! I bought a bunch of their styff, almost every Barefoot Digest Annual (Which q now claims he can't find! ), and a few tickling photo sets, which I managed to rescue. Yes, I remember his ads, too. Always ment to contact him, but, I guess that ship has sailed.

 

[New2u]

Dead?

he died. read it some where a few years back.

Dead? What publication mentioned his death and did it show Tobias' real name?

 

[MaxSpeer]

Tobias Hackner never created a "Family" like he said he was doing. He created a lucritive business for himself. I used to trade him stories and he would send me back inferior ones in trade. I once sent him an original, high gloss photo I took and he sent me back a poloroid copy of a pic he had and then had the audacity to say he wanted it back and that it was just a loan.

He would sell my stories for an outrageous price and I would get nothing for it. To this day, I don't have these stories and will probably never see them again. However, once in a while they pop up on sites like these with other people's names attached to them. People I know would send him audio tapes and he would copy them and sell them for $50 a piece.

True, he was one of the only people at the time providing tickling materials, but at such prices that many people I know from that time (who are still in the Community) thought he was an idiot.

To offset Hackner's prices, my friend, and NEST co-founder started a company of his own. He actually had custom 8mm FILMS made and transferred them to video. At the time, he was known as PDD. His original drawings (The Fiend, Dr. Phibes, Hillbillies & others) were signed as DEE. On the Net he was known as Mr. Hyde. I have a small collection of PDD videos. To a collector they are priceless. By today's standards, they suck, but at the time, Oh Man, no one was making tickling videos. This is before Cal Star and HOM. He even did the camera work for some of KJ's early vids, but they and most of his collection were lost in a fire.

Max

 

[milagros317]

Fascinating. Thank you for supplying the history, Max.

 

[MaxSpeer]

Another interesting note is that I had compiled the first hard copy mainstream list and Hackner was selling it. It was a 50 page reference manual of tickling in movies, tv, literature, and commercials along with a list of the stars and a cross reference as to which media they appeared in.

At that time, I was corresponding with Andy in Chicago and the TMF member referred to as OddJob. The three of us, along with Mr. hyde (aka PDD) were putting together the first mainstream videos. I am confident that the mainstream videos circulating now contain a large percentage of the materials we gathered together way back when. I still have some of the old tapes (they're falling apart). I was asked recently, to find the infamous MacDonalds commercial but I have a whole lot to go through to find it. many of the mainstream snippets were tagged at the end and in the middle of many of the videos we were trading and I have about 400 videos.

I swear, some day we should compile a written history of the Tickling community. It's fascinating.

Max

 

[Tickler Bart]

But . . .

When did he die? (IF he did die, that is)
And from what publication was this information taken from?

 

[Oddjob0226]

Max is on target (By thew way, what's thre latest on Mr. Hyde? Last e-mail I sent, the address didn't work) . Although I went to Tobias for material and was quite greatful for what I got, really, he just had a huge collection of tickling material and sold out copies stuff from his collection, nothing more than that. We all have similar collections, now, at leat those of us who have been around this for a while. He had great variety of stuff, but little of it was his original material, and he had some HIGH prices. I returned an audio tape to him once becuase it was recorded at the wrong speed, and I never got my money or a replacement tape back. There were people out there like Bob Marshall and Solettico some years later, placing ads in similar publictions, making things from their heart that were original, and - although they made money - were not as pricey.

The double edged sword of the Internet is, while coprwriting things has become almost useless since so much can be uploaded adn creaters rights are hard to enforce, the positive side is that so much stuff can be had for free. So there's no need to pay some insane amount of $$$ for a reproduction of something from 1 person's collection that he got for free to begin with; you can just locate it yourself on the WWW. True, there are a few things Tobias had I'd love to get my hands on (some of the audio tapes, some of the illustrated stories) but overall, with the fetish explosion of magazines and videos (and gatherings!) AND the Internet, Tobias 'died' when there was no more real need for his services anymore. And with the funds he made from his collection, he went on to become the star of 'The Apprentice'.......

 

[MrTicklefeet]

Hadn't heard that name in a while

Yes, I referred to him as the low quality clown. Bootlegging other peoples materials, and charging high prices. I dropped that habit pretty quickly. I had gotten a BAC bootleg comic book from him the last time I ordered. He was simply taking advantage of a market that hadn't quite grown yet.
I don't miss him.

 

[New2u]

Tobias Was a Person Of Questionable Ethics

Well gang, from what I've read about Mr. Hackner from your posts, it doesn't suprise me about his questionable business ethics. I dealt with him a few times back in the '70's and was also not very satisfied with his ways.

I guess I was curious because, back then, as you know, there were absolutely no tickling materials available...period. If fact, the only thing I found in the early '70's that related to the subject of tickling was an old (1970) 16mm "porno" film called "Foot" which had this english butler type gentleman "licking" and "sucking" on this young 21 year old girl's barefeet and soles while she was laughing and giggling her head off from the tickling sensation of the man's tongue. I've never ever found this film on video yet. I think this could warrant a differenct thread on this one.

 

[BleuFetish]

Now I feel bad that I nominated him for a golden feather award 😉

I knew he was something of a putz....
But I had no idea he rubbed Max and some others so badly...

however, as greedy as he was... he was one of the only people back in those early days and boy were we STARVING for ANYTHING back then.

I remember traveling to California in the very early 80's and seeing a tied and tickled magazine and almost passing out!

You young'ns dont remember life BI (before internet)... us old guys had to get up a half hour before we went to sleep and walk 14 miles in our bare feet in the snow just to get 3 black and white pictures of a guy holding a feather to a girls underarm.... AND WE WERE THANKFUL!!!!

Oh yea... and we lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road!

😉

all kidding aside... things were really different up till even maybe 8 years ago... remember... everything was mail order or if you were lucky like me.. you lived close enough to NYC to go to Kinematics or some of the places on 42nd street... (which is now basically the most vile, vanilla tourist attraction... blech!).

You kids don't know how good you have it... for gods sakes you don't even have to leave your computer to jerk off now.... lol!

bo

 

[New2u]

The Internet, the Lifeblood of the tickling community

BleuFetish, you can say that again. I remember those days around the early 1970's B.I. (Before the Internet) where you had absolutely NOTHING on tickling. They were sad and frustrating days. Thank heavens for the invention of the Global Internet, for us tickle lovers, the calvary had arrived to the rescue.

 

[sole seeker]

before internet... us old guys had to get up a half hour before we went to sleep and walk 14 miles in our bare feet in the snow just to get 3 black and white pictures of a guy holding a feather to a girls underarm.... AND WE WERE THANKFUL!

Yeah! and it was uphill! ... both ways! ... and the girl's underarm was real hairy, too!