Our friend Mark Frauenfelder asks (via his posterous), “What the heck is this weird skin flap on Boo Berry?”

This flap, right here:

Thanks to the ongoing research I do as part of my gig as a freelance semiotic brand analyst, I’ve got the answer!

Boo Berry, who began haunting us way back in 1973, is getting a bit long (and yellow) in the tooth, these days. Also, as reported on April 1st, 2008, Boo Berry is soon going to be the subject of a biopic starring Christopher Walken. Which means he’ll be making a lot of talk-show appearances. Like every other aging celebrity, he wants to recapture his youthful good looks.

So Boo Berry has, it seems obvious to me, begun using Maybelline’s new product, the [Age] Eraser (“It’s a new age in anti-aging!”). Which, as the advertisement below indicates, apparently works by pulling loose facial skin off to the side, where it’s gathered in a drooping, pendulous flap.

I guess the flap then dangles from your face? I’m surprised it isn’t surgically removed, but some folks would rather walk around with a pensile flap on their cheek than go under the scalpel. Or perhaps the image of Boo Berry above was taken in between his Eraser treatment and surgery?

Either way, it’s spooky stuff. Shades [get it?] of Katherine Helmond’s endless plastic surgery in Brazil.

Brrrr. Happy Halloween!

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