WEBVTT - Accidental Inventions 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome to Business on the Brink, a production from I 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:14.880 Heart Radio and how Stuff Works. Invention doesn't always go 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.680 as planned. Sometimes you get unpredictable results, but rather than 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.760 stick to the original plan, a wise business owner might 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.720 cast about for a new strategy, and before you know it, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.560 you've got a success on your hands. This is a 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:54.480 series of accidental inventions on Business on the Brink, Harry One. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.640 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Arial Casting, And this episode 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.960 was sort of done as a whim whom Yeah, I 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:08.520 had been thinking about incidents where someone has come up 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.000 with an idea and they have an I you know, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.679 they've got an actual implementation in mind for that idea, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.800 but it turns out whatever that implementation was doesn't work out. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.920 And in most cases, if that happened, you'd say, well, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.160 that's a failed invention, that was a failed experiment. Yeah, exactly, like, well, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.440 I gotta you know, you learn more from failure than 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.160 you do from success. Gotta try something else. But occasionally 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.000 people are able to take that failure or that miscalculation 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.920 and then reposition it to become a success. That became 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.760 the genesis for this episode. And there's some stuff I 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:47.280 mean there's a lot of things we could have covered. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.160 We're only going to look at three specific products in 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.120 this episode. But one of the ones that was going 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.520 to mention that we don't cover in this episode, just 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.880 as an example, is the super Soaker. Water guns your 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.280 bmiliar with each Ye, yeah, we love these things. Uh. 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.280 They came out when I was still young enough to 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.040 be able to play with water guns without raising suspicions. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.840 I mean, I still I still play with water guns, 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.240 I know, but you're also younger than I am by 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.000 a decade. So the super Soaker was actually invented by 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.079 a guy who was working on water pump for like 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.840 water heaters, and turned out and you figured out how 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.240 to use that for a water gun, and it became 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.720 a huge deal. That story is its own dramatic up 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.239 and down story that we may cover in a future episode. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.560 But the the things we're covering here are smaller, Yeah, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:45.480 smaller and smaller in size, but not necessarily smaller in success. 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.840 Although some you may say we're never made as big 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.000 a splash, so to speak, as a super Soker, but 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.520 they've been around longer. So yeah, we're gonna talk about 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.920 some creative ideas and creative individuals who were able to 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.840 take they that initially didn't go as planned and turned 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.880 them into successes. And the first on our list is 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.280 tall do do do do do do? Shake this and 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.600 see it, says a a'ser unclear. Ask again later what 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.720 could that mean? It means that you're holding an imaginary 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.560 eight ball, magic eight ball in your hands, Jonathan, Okay, yeah, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.760 but your way to break the illusion. It's an audio podcast. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.400 They never know. Yes, we're going to talk about the 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.400 magic eight ball. And one thing that I found very fascinating. 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.640 These were things that I just sort of looked around 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.680 and found a couple of these. It surprised me, and 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.600 the magic a ball was one of them. You think 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.400 the magic a ball is just kind of a fun 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:46.720 little diversion, right, Yeah, you know, a toy by people 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.040 who are inspired by Wegi boards and yeah, that kind 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.920 of thing. And Luigi board also is a toy, by 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.160 the way, it was created by a board game company. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.080 But the eight ball has its history wrapped up with 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.840 the history of mysticism, of seances and and clairvoyance because 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.000 the inventor of the magic gate ball, or at least 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:11.360 a co inventor, was Al Carter and I call him 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.360 Al because and about half of the references about the 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.720 origins of the magic eight ball, his name is given 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.320 as Albert, and in the other half it's given as 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.159 Alfred and Albert. Yeah, so we're just calling him al 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.000 kind of like Chevy Chase and Paul Simon. All right, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.520 But um, it says here that the first eight ball 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.440 that al created wasn't even a ball. No, it wasn't 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.479 a ball. It certainly wasn't an eight ball. Uh So 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.200 his mom worked as a clairvoyant and a mystic, so 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.599 essentially a medium or a fortune teller, and he was 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.200 inspired by this to create a device, a gimmick. You 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:52.880 might say, if you were a magician, you would call 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.080 it a gimmick, and it was a thing to use 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.960 sort of as a fortune telling device. And uh he 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.720 came up with this concept that he called the psycho 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.800 sear psycho is spelled s y c o. And this 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.520 would be in the nineteen forties. And this did not 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.200 look like a magic eight ball, although it it had 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.960 the same purpose. So it looked kind of like, um, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:21.320 imagine a soda can, but it's taller than a soda can. 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.680 So like one of the new diet coke cans, sure, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.440 and it's it's it's it's narrower than a standard coke can. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.560 Right now, I'm calling it coke that you can tell 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.160 him from Atlanta, because all soft drinks become coke eventually. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.200 But then the ends of the cylinder are clear, like 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.920 a little clear windows. So instead of a solid top 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.400 and a solid bottom, it's i mean still solid, but 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.000 now it's clear like acrylic. On the inside. He had 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.839 a very dark, syrupy liquid. A lot of sources say 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:54.080 it was essentially molasses. Uh. It was apparently divided in 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.279 the middle, so it's actually two containers um in one 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.320 form factor and the a eye on either one. Well, 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.919 because you could put smaller canisters on either end of 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.800 it and not have to fill the entire tube necessary. Yes, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.920 and you had die with things written on the faces 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.320 of the die, very much like you would with a 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.839 magic eight ball, So you would ask yes or no questions, 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.640 Give a little bit of shake, turn it up so 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.040 that one of the windows is facing up. Wait for 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.080 one of those dye to slowly rise to the surface 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.400 of some thick old more lashes. If you break it, 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.160 you get a snack, that's true, a nice sweet tooth 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.120 there and then you get to read the message on 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.479 there and find the answer to your yes or no question. 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.200 Was one of his messages when he was designing this 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.279 Go talk and get a partner. Uh No, but that 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.400 is what he did, So it would have been a 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.440 very predictive message had that been the case. So yeah, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:54.039 he decided that he couldn't just go out there with 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:55.919 this idea on his own. He didn't. He lacked the 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.880 resources to make it as a big product. It's going 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.240 to be kind of a common theme throughout all of 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.560 the stories we're telling in this episode. Yeah, and it's 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.560 something that you run into a lot when you're talking 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.760 about inventors. I mean, most of the time, the people 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.600 who are inventing something don't necessarily have access to, say, 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.200 a manufacturing facility, and that was the case here. So 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.920 depending upon the version of the story that you read, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:31.000 uh he either went to his cousin Abe Bookman, or 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.880 his brother in law Abe Bookman, or he went to 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.920 a merchant named Max Levinson who had a brother in 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:44.400 law named Abe Bookman. I mean, I guess technically all 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:48.040 three could be correct. That's creepy. But he went to 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:54.280 a guy named Abe Bookman, who had graduated from essentially 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.560 an engineering school, that Ohio Mechanics Institute. And this was 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.440 with the hope that Bookman would help him come up 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:06.200 with a way to mass manufacture the psychos here. And 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.320 so the two of them went into business together and 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.800 they created their own company called a Labe Crafts. And 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.440 a Labe is a combination of the names Al and Abe. 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:23.440 That's very clever. Yes, So sometime in that early partnership, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:32.880 al Carter passed away. Ironically, he didn't see it coming, Jonathan, 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.800 but it's a serious thing that I shouldn't joke about. 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:44.480 But I mean, yes, but time and comedy, you know. Alright. Anyhow, 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.840 so this wasn't the end of the magic eight ball 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.880 A Bookman continued on, Yes, exactly. So even though Carter 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.480 had he had patented this idea. UM. The name of 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.400 the pattern was really funny too, is like very If 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.600 you've ever read titles of patents, you see that they're 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.160 very technically describing whatever it is the invention does. They 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.560 don't give like a name like that. UM. Anyway, he 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.240 did patent it, and so Bookman still continued forward with 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.320 the design. He ended up making a shorter version of 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.880 the Psycho Sear. It was about half the height of 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.760 the original cylinder, still in cylinder. So it wasn't more 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:27.679 short sighted. Yeah, I mean it wasn't more longsighted. It 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.280 was just as sited, I guess, is what we can say. 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.600 But it was. It was about half the size of 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.000 the Psycho Sere and it only had one side of 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.839 the cylinder with a window in it. The other side 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.559 was solid, and it was called the Psycho slate instead 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.880 of the Psycho Sear. I wouldn't think of a slate 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.079 is something I could shake and get a fortune out of. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.360 Well here's another interesting the fact that I didn't include 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.840 in our notes, But apparently al Carter when he was 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.480 first thinking about this, he was inspired by something his 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.840 mother is to do, which is that she would take 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.680 a slate, like a like a blackboard slate and some chalk, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.200 and the slate would have nothing written on it, and 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.000 she would have the chalk and she would put it 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.360 out of sight, like in a container of some sort, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.360 and she would have her clients ask a question and 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.800 then she would open up the container and the answer 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.280 would be written on the slate. Now here's the interesting 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.520 thing is that that's an old style stage magic trick. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.800 It is. I've seen it on Penn and Teller. Yes, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.600 Penn and Teller are famous for doing tricks very much 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.160 in this very same style. And the argument goes, and 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.240 this is a very solid argument, if there is a 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.120 non magical way to do it, chances are that's how 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.720 it was done, because why go through the trouble of 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.400 doing in a magical way, which is, as far as 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.040 we know, impossible when you can do it in ordinary 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.160 way exactly, But if you play it up with a 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.400 lot of theatrics, you can make it seem like it's mystical. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.720 So he got the idea from his mom. So Psycho 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.600 sl eight in a way, is almost a throwback to 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:10.200 the original inspiration for this device. Now, Bookman was able 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.960 to make these in larger volume than the Psycho sear, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.319 but it didn't exactly take off. I mean, obviously we 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.560 don't have it today. We have the magic eight ball. Yeah, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.600 so how do we go from a slate to a ball? 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.400 So first it was Bookman saying, you know, these just 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.080 aren't going off store shelves. I guess there's not a 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:35.840 lot of mediums at large. But I would flip this 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:40.160 table if I know, and you've got your cup of waters. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.360 So yes, there was. There was not a huge demand 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.280 for the psycho slate. So he thought, well, maybe I'll 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.480 change up the form factor a bit more and have 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.240 something that appeals to that same set of people. And 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.520 so he decided, I'll make a crystal ball version where 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.560 the cylinder is essentially nestled in the crystal ball. Um 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.240 it'll be a dark crystal ball, so it's not like 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.080 it's clear acrylic or something, and you'll still turn it 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.200 over to read the little message on the uh in 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.240 the window, the clear window that's in this crystal ball. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.600 And so he started making those, and these also weren't 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.719 going like gangbusters, but they did get the attention of 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:29.240 a Chicago company called Brunswick Billiards. Billiards as in pool tables, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.600 the capital P that rhymes with trouble. Yeah, that doesn't 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.120 rhyme with trouble, but it starts anyhow. So he must 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:39.719 have been the one who said, hey, let's take these 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.040 and turn them into billiard balls. Yeah, well the billiards 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.600 company did. They came up to book exactly. They came 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.319 out to book when they said we want to do 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.160 a promotional item Essentially, it was a giveaway and we 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.480 like this thing you've created. Can you make some that 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.040 look like eight balls from the game of pool? And 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:03.240 Bookman said, you bet you anyone about making eight ball 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:08.920 versions of this fortune Teller's crystal ball. And the giveaways 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.360 were incredibly popular. People loved the magic eight ball, and 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:17.199 people of free things, people also love free things. That 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.600 remains true to this very day. This, by the way, 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.360 is still happening in the like early fifties. At this point, 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:28.920 Bookman decides, after this agreement has concluded with Brunswick Billiards, 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.679 that he would continue making eight balls as a variation 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.840 of this crystal ball one that he had been making, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.880 and he starts kind of giving up a little bit. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.760 He starts selling them as paper weights because he can't 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.520 really think of like, people aren't buying them as much 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.960 as they were enjoying getting them. Yeah, they weren't. There 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.400 just wasn't a market of people who were like, I 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.080 want to consult the spirits of beyond, but I just 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.719 don't know how to get into that racket. So that's 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.640 when thought, hey, Amar, get these two kids. Kidcel fall 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.480 for anything pretty much. He saw that kids were playing 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.439 with these paperweights and really having a fun time with him, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.200 and he thought, well, maybe that's just the Maybe that's 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.719 just it. It's not that the product is bad, I'm 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.320 marketing to the wrong audience exactly. And so he decides 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.840 he will market it as a toy, and he starts 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.840 to do that, and now it actually is starting to 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.480 take off. And again it was an unpredictable result. But 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.960 by nineteen one, Bookman was ready to retire from this business. 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.640 So he sold the company A labor Crafts, which had 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:39.920 been around for twenty years. Of that more than twenty years, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.080 almost almost thirty years at that point, respectable sold it 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.320 to a company called the Ideal Toy Company. That's another 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.080 company we could do a full episode on. They mainly 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.680 were known for doing like doll type stuff. They were 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.200 very much in the dull biz. I think Betsy Wetsy 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.600 was one of their dolls. Yeah and uh. In nineteen 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.360 seventy one, the same year when Ideal Toy Company would 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.760 acquire a Lab Crafts that joined the New York Stock Exchange. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.120 At the time, it was one of the largest toy 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.200 companies in the United States. Well, they also had toys 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.720 like the Rubik's Cube yep, they were the ones that 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.640 made the Rubik's Cube famous in the eighties, So that 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.760 was from the Ideal Toy company. But by the later 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.600 part of the eighties, mid to later part of the eighties, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.080 the company was really starting to struggle that there was 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.200 a recession. Um there were some bad business decisions that 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.720 led to some financial troubles for Ideal Toy and so 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.320 uh CBS Toys, which was a subsidiary of CBS. YEP. 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:45.120 CBS the Broadcasting Company ended up purchasing Ideal Toy and 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.040 Magic a Ball went along with it in nineteen two 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.520 for fifty eight million dollars. So now Ideal Toy becomes 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.760 part of CBS Toys. But that would only last for 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.440 a little while because CBS would then sell Ideal Toy 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:02.240 to another company called view Master International. You remember, you 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.800 know a Master. I owned a view Masks. Okay, I 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:06.840 didn't know. So v Master are those ones that look 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.400 kind of like binoculars. You put in a disc that 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.080 has different photographs in it. It has the stereo vision 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.560 kind of lenses, so it gives you that sort of 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.680 three D yeah, and you just click through and it's 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.600 like a slide and then if you click halfway, then 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.040 you just try to get these really weird images. Yeah. Anyhow, 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:29.560 so yeah, that becomes the view Master Ideal company. Uh 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.680 rolls around. Then you get Tycho Toys, which announces that 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.360 it would acquire view Master Ideal for about forty four 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.520 million dollars, less than the last acquisition, but not that 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.600 not bad. And it also meant that the Magic eight 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.000 Ball would go to Tycho Toys, which was famous for 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.040 other types of toys like the easy Bake oven, so 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.720 very very popular or tasty bake oven, I should say 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.320 not easy bake. They did not start putting the lasses 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.920 back into the eight balls, no know. At this point 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.080 it was rubbing alcohol with blue dye. That was the liquid. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:10.000 But they weren't done yet. Mattel, another giant in the 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:14.480 toy industry, swoops in to acquire Tycho for seven hundred 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.320 fifty five million dollars. Well, I mean, Tycho is a 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.200 bigger company. They had a lot more toys exactly. Tycho 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.359 was huge. Now that meant that the Magic eate Ball 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:31.639 went with Mattel, and along that whole process, the Magic 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.080 eight Ball continued to be a product sold on the market. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.600 So even though ownership was changing hands, multiple times. The 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.280 product itself continued to do pretty well. It was you know, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.280 it wasn't like it was flying off store shelves in 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.600 particular years, but it was a steady seller. I mean, 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.199 about two thousand twelve they had sold a million of 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:54.120 them a year. A million a year's a lot. That's 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.760 pretty decent. And uh. Now these days you can find 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.159 magic eight balls in all sorts of size, from the 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.160 regular size, which is definitely larger than an actual billiard ball, 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.960 two key chain versions. You can find a bunch of 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.879 them that are licensed. I've got a Simpsons one which 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:16.560 has Simpsons phrases in there, like dough instead of no um. 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:21.520 So there are definitely variations on the magic eight ball. Uh, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.240 and it's interesting. So I have the notes here, so 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.479 I'm gonna ask you arial the questions and you can 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:33.480 tell people what the answers are. How many sides does 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:38.680 the die inside of magic eight ball have? Yes? So 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:43.800 it's essentially like a Dungeons and Dragons. A bookman must 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.480 have been a secret Dungeons and Dragons. No, No, it's 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.919 just so that they could have a lot of sides 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:50.960 with the answer yes, ten of them, a lot with no. 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.400 Five of them, and then five more that said maybe yes, 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.320 So you weren't just shaking like, well, you can't have 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.920 a three sided dice. No, no, The best you could 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.439 do is the's a coin. This way it made your 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.040 chances more random, right, well, and also meant that you 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.199 were twice as likely to get a yes as you 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.840 were a no, maybe or a maybe. And Uh, it's 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.359 funny because I was looking at a statistic site and 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.400 it said, statistically speaking, you would need to ask seventy 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:24.080 two questions at least to see all twenty possible answers 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.880 just based on probability, that would be the bare minimum 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.960 you would need to to do. Uh, based on probability alone. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.960 Now it is entirely possible to ask twenty questions and 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.840 then get each answer in sequence. It's just not likely 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.280 to happen. So you've got a note here says well, 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.080 that happen every seventy two times. Ask again later, Ask 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.560 again later. Now you don't have one here that they have. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.640 Ask again later. That's true unless it's a maybe. That's 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.199 that's a maybe. It's it's on there kind of like 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.280 answer unclear, Ask again later, that's a maybe. Uh, so 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.879 it's it's not an outright yes or no and uh 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.879 yeah again, like the licensed versions have different variations for 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.160 positive and negative. But yeah, that's to me, that's an 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:13.040 interesting story about an item that originally was marketed more 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.760 seriously if you can, if you can, think of it 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.680 that way, or at least more earnestly as a fortune 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.879 telling device, and then ultimately became a novelty slash toy. 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.959 And that's where it found its success. I'm very excited 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.000 to get into our next story. But first, let's take 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:38.439 a quick break aerial. Yeah, let's let's talk about rubber 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.119 for a minute. It's pretty useful, it is. It's incredibly 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.880 useful stuff. I mean, it's so here's the stuff about 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.879 rubber that makes it useful, right, It's really resilient, It 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:53.800 resists damage pretty well. It's waterproof material, it's stretchy, it's flexible. Uh. 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.240 It is used in tons of stuff, including and this 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.040 is important, stuff like wires and boots. But you know 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.440 it's not easy to get rubber, right, not not natural rubber. No, no, 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.520 not natural rubber because it comes out of trees and 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:14.080 and specifically trees that largely are in Asia. Yes, so 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.879 like largely a specific region and to get it, you 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.400 have to like cut into the tree and collect sap 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.600 like you're getting maple syrup, and and that has latex 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.159 in it, and then you're trying to in them that 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.840 makes rubber. Yes, So it's a whole process. And then 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.040 you have to of course ship it from wherever you're 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.159 you're harvesting it to wherever you wanted to go to 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:39.119 use in whatever materials. So rubber. Everyone recognized that rubber 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.120 was useful stuff, but it was just it was hard 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.320 to get a lot of it at once. So starting 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:46.920 even as early as the eighteen hundreds, you had scientists 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.040 who are saying, this is definitely useful, but we need 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.239 to figure out a different way to make it, and 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.200 so people started to work on formulas to create synthetic rubber. Okay, 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:57.480 but you know, I don't want to start in the 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.080 eighteen hundred, skip ahead, Jonathan. Okay, all right, well how 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.480 about World War two? That better, because that's that's going 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.960 to get to the beginning of where we're going to hear. 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.119 World War two. Obviously, the U. S. Military has a 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.040 huge need for rubber for stuff like tires and boots, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.080 like I had mentioned a second ago, And on top 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.959 of that. In World War Two, one of the powers 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.920 that the unit United States was up against was Japan, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.480 which had already attacked or was threatening regions where natural 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.720 rubber was coming from. So there was a clear need 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.560 to develop synthetic rubber, and only that it needed to 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.160 be synthetic rubber that came from materials that were easy 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.679 to get to in wartime. So that meant that the 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.360 US had to say, who out there can help us 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.359 do this stuff? So who did well? There are a 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.879 couple of different versions of this story. There was actually 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.600 a lot of people working on this problem, and at 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:54.160 least two different groups came up with a similar possible 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:56.280 solution that ended up not being a solution to the 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:00.359 synthetic rubber problem spoiler alert. One of that one of 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:04.200 those groups rather was Earl Warwick and Rob Roy McGregor, 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:08.080 who worked at Corning glass Works, and they took borick, 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.600 ox side and silicone oil, mixed it together and they 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:15.320 found that it made this stretchy, bouncy material stuff which 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.520 they filed for a pattern in the early forties and 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.520 they got the pattern in ninete The other version has 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:23.879 a guy named James Wright, who was an engineer at 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:26.199 General electric. This is the version of the story that 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:31.200 most people tell for the material we're about to cover. Yeah, 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.480 it is more fun. He got the assignment to try 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:38.840 and create cheap synthetic rubber, and he dropped some silicone 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.439 oil in boric acid, so very similar. He got that 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:45.840 same sort of gooey substance. Discovered that it had some 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.280 interesting properties. It bounced. You could, you know, roll it 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.840 into a ball and bounce it against the ground. Uh, 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:54.520 if you hit it hard enough it would shatter. You 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:58.639