Mission Hills resident Bob Grove stars in a new documentary about his barf bag collection. The documentary “The Last Barf Bag: A Tribute to a Cultural Icon” coincides with the 75 year anniversary of Dramamine, the anti-nausea medication which has led to dropping rates in barf bag use. We caught up with “Barf Bag Bob” about his world famous collection of over 1,800 bags. His answers have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the documentary, visit TheLastBarfBag.com.

Why did you initially start this collection?

 The origin of my collection dates to 1967 when, after I graduated from university and before I started graduate school, I went to Europe in the intervening summer. In an era before online maps and navigation aids, I acquired a city map in each city visited to remember places and locations when I returned. Soon, I had acquired a number of maps. In an effort to keep them organized, I noticed that the folded maps fit perfectly into airline barf bags. As a result, when I returned home, I had several barf bags from the different airlines flown. I decided to post them on a cork board in my bathroom, but soon, I collected more and even friends provided bags from their travels.

Fast forward to 1992, I discovered there were airline collectible shows. I drove up to the show that year that was held in Orange County and had no idea what to expect. I was expecting maybe four airline geeks in a hotel hospitality suite, but that wasn’t the case. What I found was a whole ecosystem of collectors interested in almost anything with an airline logo on it. It occupied not a hospitality suite, but the entire convention hall of the hotel. At that show I met other collectors and began trading and acquiring at an accelerated pace that has continued to this day.

You’ve been in the media, such as an episode of “Bizarre Collections” in 2012, with your collection but is it something your neighbors in Mission Hills also know about?

I am not a self-promoter by nature. Some of my neighbors know I collect barf bags and I have even recruited some of them to bring back bags from their travels. Most who know are interested to see how I display them in my bathrooms.

Despite this, I recently connected with Dramamine, the motion sickness and nausea treatment, as the brand embarked on a mission to save the barf bag from extinction. As part of this, Dramamine highlighted a group of collectors, myself included, in a short-film documentary about how our drive to collect these unique items has in part kept them alive over the years. The film, called “The Last Barf Bag: A Tribute to a Cultural Icon,” offers a really interesting look at how Dramamine’s effectiveness in use has simply led to less barf in the world, and therefore, fewer barf bags. It’s all out in the world for anyone to see, but I’m not sure if it’s made the rounds in Mission Hills yet, until now perhaps.

Has it been sad to see barf bags go out of vogue?

I credit barf bags unfortunate migration to generic status to improvements in plane travel. Planes can generally fly above the weather and therefore have better ability to navigate around rough weather. That said, as displayed in the documentary, there’s a discourse that widely available, over-the-counter medication like Dramamine are too effective in preventing motion sickness and nausea— therefore making the barf bag null. There’s also the simple fact that the rise of relentless cost cutting among the airlines has resulted in slashing any cost possible, which led to airlines now offering generic, generally plain, and unbranded bags. The same has happened with ticket jackets, airline playing cards and other branded merchandise. Boring generic bags are frequently used more as trash bags for the multiplicity of plastic wrapped items distributed to passengers. In China, for example, the bags are almost uniformly referred to as clean bags. In all, the documentary does a great job capturing the cultural significance of the barf bag and how Dramamine in partnership with the barf bag pays tribute to its impact on the public.

Do you have any favorite stories associated with your collection?

My favorite story about bag collection involves a trip to the Tijuana airport in 2008. A fellow collector in Alaska, Bruce Kelly, who is also featured in the Dramamine mission, had the idea to go to the Tijuana airport in an effort to collect bags from a number of domestic Mexican airlines that did not fly into the US. I was skeptical. Nevertheless, he flew down to San Diego and we took a shuttle bus from San Diego to the Tijuana airport. We approached the ticket counter and explained we were not flying that day, but wanted to collect a barf bag from the airline. Not surprisingly, there are no barf bags at the ticket counter. Once we got past the language barrier and puzzled looks, each and every airline called down to the ramp and had a staff member bring up one or more bags. Each airline staff member was uniformly helpful, friendly and willing to accommodate an unusual request. We left with bags from four new airlines including some extras to trade. I doubt this experience would have been repeated at an American airport. My skepticism was misplaced.

Are there any barf bags missing from your collection that you would like to add?

There are always more bags to collect. Since domestic airlines (except for Delta and Sun Country) no longer have branded bags, the focus has to be on bags from foreign airlines. There has been a proliferation of startup airlines in Iran. West Africa has a number of new, and frequently short lived, airlines. China has a multiplicity of carriers and bags of generally great design. One airline that has embraced barf bags is EVA Airlines from Taiwan. They are constantly changing their bag design and even have several different Hello Kitty designs.