Remembering Metaframe Corp.

AS I WAS CLEARING OUT OLD MAGAZINES I came across a picture from a 35-year-old Pet Business article that reminded me of a company called Metaframe. For a time it was probably the largest company in the pet industry so I thought I’d share a bit of nostalgia that many people might never have heard of before.

Back sometime in the 60’s Harding and Allen Willinger, Anton Schmidt, Irving Gal and others merged their companies to form the Metaframe Corp. Metaframe using Pemco technology improved the stainless steel framed aquariums, stands and developed the stainless steel full hood. The company also offered a full line of aquarium accessories from pumps, filters and filter media, to aquarium ornaments and aquarium cleaning tools, becoming a major player in the pet industry.

In the early 70’s Metaframe became big enough to catch the eye of Mattel, the nation’s largest toy maker who bought the company and invested a lot of money into product development including the Mark III all glass aquarium and the hugely successful Habitrail line.

Unfortunately back then being taken over by a major manufacture like Mattel wasn’t the best indicator for success. Where Metaframe was once the largest vendor in the pet industry, compared to Mattel’s mega millions in sales, it was just a division to be ‘managed’ without the laser focus that owner operators had given it in the past.

Some major examples of corporate missteps were things like redesigning the original Dynaflo power filter that dominated the pet industry. Mattel came out with the Dynaflo II, which had a glitch that if it wasn’t perfectly balanced on the aquarium, would grind the impeller against its housing. Then there was the Habitrail Cho-Cho, a takeoff on the original design to look like a locomotive hamster cage. Unfortunately there we edges in the mold that let hamsters and gerbils gnaw holes in it. Mattel decided they’d had enough and Metaframe was eventually sold off in pieces to ASU (The Mark III Aquariums) and Hagen (Habitrail) and Anton Schmidt (San Francisco Bay Brand) and disappeared sometime in the 1980’s, ending an important chapter in the growth of our industry.

For a time Metaframe was such an important vendor that if a distributor didn’t have it, it was touch-and-go whether or not they could compete with those that did.

NOTE to those old enough to remember first hand, please keep in mind that all this took place before the internet and is basically from memory, so if I’ve made any errors, or left-out anything important please feel free to correct the errors or add any missing information.

UPDATE: According to Jon Willinger, Mattel never bankrupted Metaframe but instead sold the company to Aquaology, which ran it for a few years and then filed for bankruptcy. The Hagen Company purchased all the Metaframe assets, but at some point, they spun off the San Francisco Bay Brand component to Anton Schmidt.