WEBVTT - Odd, Silly and Unnecessary Inventions 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.840 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.159 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.120 I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works, and I love 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.959 all things tech. And today I was feeling a little 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.760 bit silly, probably because I didn't get enough sleep last night, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.920 and so to honor that silly feeling I have, I 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.680 thought perhaps we would do an episode about odd inventors 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.600 and inventions, the silly, the unnecessary, the wacky, sometimes just 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.400 the unexpected. So not everything on this list is truly 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.640 weird and bizarre. Some of them people have thought about 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.880 as being odd, and in some cases they were purposefully 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.080 made that way. And there are a lot of gadgets 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.080 and technologies out there that you could describe as useless 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.120 or counterproductive, or ineffective or just playing dumb. But I 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.679 want to celebrate inventors who came up with gadgets or 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.440 technologies that are, at least on first glance, just playing goofy. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.400 So in other words, I'm not out to skewer some 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.880 sincere but failed effort to make a cool product. I 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.680 don't want to hold something up and say, look, at 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:23.679 what they tried to do and see how they failed. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.280 Ha ha ha. No, I really want to highlight stuff 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.120 that was ingenious, perhaps in its entertainment value, if not 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.360 in actual utility. So I think there's no better person 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.080 to talk about when you're looking at silly inventions than 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:44.039 Ruben Garrett Lucius Goldberg, better known as Rube Goldberg. And 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.480 if you've ever heard about a Rube Goldberg device, this 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.880 is the guy that that is named after. And if 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.720 you haven't heard of a Rube Goldberg device, you've probably 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.040 seen one in some shape or form. I'll talk about 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.560 a few famous pieces of meat you that feature Rube 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:07.200 Goldberg devices in a bit. But first, who was Rube Goldberg? Well. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.600 He was born on the fourth of July in eighteen 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.160 eighty three in San Francisco, California. As a kid, he 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.320 loved to draw, and he showed signs of wanting to 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.519 be an artist. He first started tracing pictures using thin 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.320 trace paper on top of existing comics and drawings. Then 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.919 he started to make his own drawings, but his father 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.480 had other ideas for him. His father was a police 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.639 officer and a fire commissioner in San Francisco, and he 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.919 thought his young son, Ruben would make an excellent engineer. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:45.160 So after Reuben graduated high school, young Goldberg would enroll 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.559 in the University of California at Berkeley and major in engineering. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.000 He graduated with a bachelor's degree in the field, and 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.679 he went to work for the City of San Francisco 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:00.120 as an engineer. And his day job had him designing 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.720 and working on maintenance for sewer systems, and to say 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.079 that he found the work unfulfilling would be an understatement. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.000 I guess he could say he thought it was a 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.000 crappy job. He also was a witness to how politics 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.400 works from the inside, and he saw city officials making 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.800 deals with contractors in a way he found to be 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.840 dishonest and corrupt, and that really rubbed him the wrong way. 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.080 He did not want to work in that environment anyway. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.880 After only a few months of working as an engineer, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.000 Rube decided to make a massive career change. He applied 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.000 to work for the San Francisco Chronicle as a sports 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.960 writer and a cartoonist. Then he jumped ship to the 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.680 San Francisco Bulletin. Again, working as a cartoonist, he would 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.080 often illustrate articles that were about sports and things of 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.640 that nature, and he created several long running cartoons, most 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.800 of which have been largely forgotten today. He did create 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.640 a comic strip called Mike and Ike, but today I'd 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.320 argue that when people mentioned Mike and Ike there talking 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.960 about the candy, and the candy may or may not 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.800 have been named after the comic strip. The comic strip 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.680 was already out of print by the time the Mike 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.520 and Mike candy became a thing, so it may have 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.680 just been true coincidence and not some a case where 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:17.560 they named a candy after a comic strip. It's not 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.840 likely the comic strip was super famous and beloved at 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:26.040 that point. By seven, Goldberg was creating comics with absurd, bizarre, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.200 and sometimes very dark jokes and gags in them. Starting 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:36.960 in nineteen fourteen, he also illustrated scenarios involving complicated contraptions 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.800 designed to carry out some relatively simple task, and this 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.760 would become his real claim to fame. Goldberg might start 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.400 with a very simple action, such as pouring water from 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.920 a water picture into a glass. Then he would concoct 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:57.599 a series of improbable and complex actions that would lead 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.360 to that conclusion. Sort of a very very complicated sequence. 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.320 In a way, it's similar to elaborate Domino setups, where 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.599 someone has created a really intricate design that a series 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.720 of falling domino's reveals. In fact, there are typically some 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.080 parallels between Rube Goldberg machines and Domino setups, and a 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.480 lot of Rube Goldberg machines include Domino sequences in them. 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:25.600 In nine, Goldberg created a character named Professor Lucifer Gorgon 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.920 Zola Butts a k. This character would become the genius 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.200 inventor of many of the zany designs Goldberg imagined to 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.680 either accomplish a simple task or otherwise make some sort 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:44.920 of social commentary. For example, in one fairly ghoulish illustration, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.280 Goldberg created a system to test someone to see if 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.440 they had the right metal to invest in the stock 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.720 market are they the right kind of person to take 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.400 that gamble. The system included a pistol pointed at the 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.560 back of the head of the would be investor, as 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.920 well as a glass that would slowly get filled with poison, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.840 and should the person survive this experience, Professor Butts wrote, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.800 then that person would be suitable to act as an 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.919 investor if they had a disregard for their own personal safety. 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.400 So little social commentary there. Not all the inventions were 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.240 quite so grim or packed with that kind of social commentary. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.800 Many were just plain silly, and people enjoyed the comics. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.440 Goldberg became so well known for these ideas that didn't 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.080 take long for his name to become an adjective for 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.960 such devices. In ninety one, the Miriam Webster Dictionary included 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.560 Rube Goldberg and used as an adjective to describe any 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:46.560 system of unnecessary complexity designed to complete and otherwise simple task. 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.200 I find it pretty impressive that took less than two 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.560 decades from the first invention cartoon for Goldberg's name to 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:58.640 become officially associated with this general idea. Some people enjoyed 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.159 the cartoons to the point of holding their own ridiculous 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.160 complex devices to complete a simple task in real life. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.560 Physically building these things. They were bringing this philosophy into 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.160 the real world, and the goal wasn't really to do 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.320 whatever it was the machine did. It was to show 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.920 off creative ingenuity as well as to celebrate this peculiar 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.320 human desire to avoid having to do certain things. It's 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.480 a bit of a cliche, but it's also true that 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.840 many people would spend much more effort finding ways to 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.520 avoid doing something then it would require if they just 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.360 took the time to do the thing in the first place. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.920 Goodness knows, I'm guilty of this. I found creative ways 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.760 to avoid having to do certain things that involved doing 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.680 way more work than it would have been for me 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.160 to just do the thing to begin with. Goldberg described 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.560 it as quote man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to 0:07:54.640 --> 0:08:01.440 accomplish minimal results in the quote. In nine at Perdue University, 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.880 to engineering fraternities called Triangle and Theta Tao would compete 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.520 with one another to build actual physical machines following the 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:15.360 Rube Goldberg esthetic as part of their Engineers Ball, which 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.000 was a social event organized by those two fraternities over 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.840 the course of the next few years. Until the Engineer's 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.800 Ball was discontinued in nineteen fifty five, the competitions would 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.760 happen annually, and the competitions were spirited, to say the least, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.240 and at one point the fraternities had to agree to 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.640 a set of rules that would disqualify any team guilty 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.680 of attempting to sabotage the other team. But after nineteen 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.960 fifty five, the competition was set aside and largely forgotten 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:47.120 about until nineteen eighty three. That's when some members of 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.680 the Theta Tao Phi chapter did some cleaning around the 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:55.360 old frat house and they came across a rather odd trophy. 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.000 After some research, they learned about the original competitions and 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.199 decided that they should be revived. The first competition, sponsored 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.240 by the fraternity, set the task as filling a cup 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.920 with eight ounces of water. That was the end goal. 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.280 You could get to that end goal, however, you liked. 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.160 Once again, the competition became an annual event, and it 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:22.040 began to attract attention beyond Perdue. University. Television personalities like 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:26.280 David Letterman featured segments on the odd inventions, and by 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:31.360 night a guy named Mike Barrett decide the celebration in 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.840 Ridiculous and Unnecessary Inventiveness should really be a national competition. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.840 Since then, it has grown to become the biggest media 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.080 event at Perdue, pulling in more media coverage than any 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.640 sporting event held at the university. While the machines are 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.920 supposed to be absurd and silly, they're also supposed to work. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.000 That is, ultimately they are meant to accomplish whatever the 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.560 end task happens to be. This makes designing a good 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.480 Rube Goldberg machine challenging. How can you create a level 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.679 of complexity, perhaps one bordering on chaos, and still get 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.800 the result you wanted by the end of it. It 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.000 requires not just an understanding of engineering, but also physics. 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.800 Many of these machines rely on careful timing that is 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.280 determined by things such as the length or steepness of 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.640 a ramp, the weight or size of a marble, or 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.040 other physical factors. If you put a machine together without 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.800 consideration for these factors, it might not work. You might 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.959 find that one element isn't heavy enough or moving forcefully 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.320 enough to activate the next part of the sequence. To 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.079 use the Domino's analog, it would be like setting out 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.360 a domino course and finding out you had spaced a 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.040 couple of the dominoes too far apart from one another, 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.680 so that they failed to make contact and the whole 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.920 sequence just stops. Now. I have no clue how most 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.960 engineers go about this, but I would probably start with 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.319 whatever the end goal was and decide how I was 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.160 going to achieve that very last step, and then work 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.720 backward what action or event would do whatever it was 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:10.920 I was trying to do. Then how could I make 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.480 that action happen? And so on. I think of it 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.079 sort of like writing a murder mystery. You might want 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.160 to start with the end and then work your way 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.600 back to the beginning to make it a real mystery, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.600 as opposed to just trying to make it up as 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.119 you go along. You can see a lot of examples 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.640 of Rube Goldberg devices in the media. Peewee's Big Adventure, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.960 the film that Tim Burton made ages ago, opens with 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.880 such a device that uses everything from models of dinosaur 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.360 skeletons to a large mannequin in the guise of Abraham 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.160 Lincoln to cook breakfast for the main character. Likewise, the 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.280 movie Back to the Future includes several devices, all triggered 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.920 by a timer to do everything from start a coffee 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.000 pot to open and empty a can of dog food 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.920 into a bowl. So clearly Doc Brown has better things 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.640 to do with his time than take care of menial tasks, 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:04.080 you know, are things like stealing plutonium from terrorists. On 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.120 one of several versions of the music video for Okay Goes, 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.640 This Too Shall Pass, an incredibly impressive Rube Goldberg system 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.240 is set in motion and in apparent synchronization with the music, 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.280 activates numerous effects and even provides some of the musical 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.640 notes for the song itself. It's one of my favorite 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.400 examples of the Rube Goldberg design philosophy, and it doesn't 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.720 hurt that I was already a fan of that particular band. 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:35.120 The Guinness Book of World Records certified in twenty sixteen 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.840 that an enormous Rube Goldberg machine designed to light the 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.280 Christmas tree for the town of Riga in Latvia was 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.480 in fact the world's largest Rube Goldberg machine. It takes 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.040 about four minutes from initiating the sequence for the entire 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.400 process to complete, and it's a fun watch on YouTube 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.520 as well. When we come back, I'll cover other odd, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.679 silly and useless inventions, but first, let's say a quick 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:10.839 break switching gears for a moment. I thought I'd talked 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.880 about another inventor who came up with some ideas that 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.720 turned out to be sort of the punchline for a 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.120 lot of jokes. They were simultaneously successful from a sales 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:27.439 standpoint and also the subject of ridicule by many. That 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:32.480 inventor was Samuel J. Pope, Peel, father of the famous 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.079 Ron Pope Peel now Ron Pope Peel, became known as 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.520 the head of a company called Ronco that sold lots 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.600 of kitchen gadgets, mostly for the kitchen itself, and Ron 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.120 served as the host of many and infomercial coining phrases 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:51.240 like but wait, there's more. He was a master of 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.400 direct marketing, and we can thank him and his father 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.319 for popularizing the suffix oh matic such as veggio madic. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.679 While Ron Popel is who a lot of folks think 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.360 about when you hear the name Pope Heal, it was 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.000 his dad who invented many of those weird devices in 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.800 ron Co's early days, though Ron himself would go on 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.680 to invent some of his own later on. Anyway, the 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.480 story of the Pope Heals is one filled with an 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.560 incredible amount of drama, which I think is already kind 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.160 of unusual. Sam Popeal was born in New York in 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.240 nineteen fifteen, and many of the men and his family 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.600 worked as product demonstrators who would set up in various 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.480 department stores to give personal demonstrations of different products that 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.880 were for sale. At age seventeen, Sam was asked to 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:40.920 fill in for one of his uncles to do that 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.480 very gig and apparently didn't go so well. He apparently 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.160 cut his finger badly on a vegetable slicer. But something 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:49.920 must have made him feel like that was the right 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.040 line of work for him. So as he got older, 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.239 he began to come up with ideas for his own products, 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.640 and he and his brother Raymond founded a company they called, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:03.200 appropriately enough, the Pope Peel Brothers. One of Sam Popil's 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.440 first inventions was what he called the chopp O Matic, 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.800 later known as the Veggio Matic. It's a manually operated 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.200 food processor, and there have been many variations in the 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.360 years since its introduction. The basic design had a pedestal 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.920 with a round hole in the top surface of the pedestal, 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.800 and in that round hole you would place the cutting 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.360 blades for the vegeo maatic, so it might be a 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.600 great might be a line of blades, and then positioned 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.080 above this platform of blades was another surface that acted 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.960 as the handle. So you would have a press essentially, 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.040 and you would put the vegetable on the blades, and 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.480 it would be essentially in between the blades and the 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.520 top of the press. And uh or I guess you 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.640 should say, the bottom side of the press, and so 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.520 then you would push down on the handle side of 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.760 the press and create enough pressure to push the vegetable 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.640 through the blades, and thus the vegetable would be chopped 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.520 or sliced or diced or whatever. It's classic, and I 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.760 guess it's not really that crazy of an invention, although 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.840 you could argue the amount of labor it's saved might 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.240 be somewhat trivial depending upon what you were actually trying 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:20.640 to do, so there was arguable effectiveness of this. The 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.240 Popio brothers and later Ronco would produce lots of different 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.400 inventions of debatable usefulness. My favorite has to be the 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.000 pocket fisherman. This is a small fishing rod and reel. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.480 The base looks kind of like the handle for an 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.000 appliance like a food mixer or a dustbuster vacuum cleaner, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.680 kind of has that shape to it, and it has 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.200 a rod that folds down against this handle. So you 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.720 unfold the rod from the base and then you have 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.200 your little fishing pole. There's a compartment inside the handle 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.920 on the base that could hold stuff like tackle and 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.000 lures and bobbers and that kind of stuff, and yep, 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.880 you can still buy these today. If you're so inclined, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.320 you could actually purchase Pocket Fisherman right now. I've seen 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.840 some videos of it in action, and while it's one 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.960 of those gadgets that made as seen on TV a 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.320 household phrase, it actually seems to hold up pretty well. 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:16.040 The reviews I've seen have been maybe not glowing, but 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.600 not negative either. In other words, it just it works 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.800 for what it is, and so if you have a 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.400 desire to have a fishing rod stuffed in your backpack 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.199 so it's not taking up too much space just in 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.359 case you have the opportunity to fish, it's not necessarily 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.600 a bad choice. In fact, I think a lot of 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.000 the inventions from the Popeils probably hold up for the 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.960 most part. You could argue they are unnecessary, but most 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.960 of them seem to work at least as advertised. Apart 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.400 from the more outlandish claims you'll typically see on infomercials 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.040 about how the right product is going to transform your 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.199 life forever and turn it into a Disney musical, that 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.639 part still seems like it might be a bit of 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.840 a reach. Ron Bobile's company, Ronko, went bankrupt in two 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.320 thousand seven, so he can still find the products he 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.840 made famous for sale on sites like Amazon, and I 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:09.760 don't want to end on a sad note, so I 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.560 thought i'd explain why I wanted to include the Pope 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.760 Pels in this section. It's because of a particular person. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.480 That person is weird Al Yankovic. Now, for those of 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.600 you who are unfamiliar with weird Al, he's a comedian 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.840 who writes humorous songs, and about half his songs are 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:32.000 outright parodies of existing music. The other half our original songs, 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.119 though some of them are what you might call style parodies, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.919 and that Yankovic is mimicking the sound of an established 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.600 band or artist, just not picking a specific song to mimic. 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.840 On his Weird Al in three D album, he has 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.479 a song called Mr. Pope Peel that's done in the 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.720 style of the B fifty twos. The song references some 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.720 of Sam Pope Peel's memorable inventions, and that album was 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.000 one of my favorites when I was a kid, which 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.240 I'm sure surprises absolutely ly none of you out there, 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.760 but it's why I decided to choose Mr pope Peel 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.800 to be included in this particular episode. Ron Popeil Samuel's 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.119 son was really the TV personality who would pave the 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.520 way for other famous spokespeople like Billy Mays and Tony Little, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.840 among others. And he owed a lot to the pitchman 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.800 who came before him as well, people like Crazy Eddie. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.160 But yeah, you could kind of trace the lineage of 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.080 television spokespeople, and Ron Popel would be a very important 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.600 part of that lineage. Now, there are a few inventions 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.960 that aren't really inventions, nor are they really tech, but 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.840 they tend to end up on lists about odd or 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.479 useless inventions, and I want to spend a little time 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.760 talking about a couple of those. One is the famous 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.520 pet rock, which had a strong run for a good 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.240 part of nineteen seventy five. It was the brainchild of 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.239 a copy editor named Gary Doll, who, when listening to 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.560 his friends complain about how high maintenance their pets were, 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.240 bragged that he had the perfect pet. It was rock. 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:10.480 You didn't have to feed it, you didn't have to 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.880 walk it, you know, to clean after it. It was perfect. 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.600 So Doll would then go on to sell pet rocks, 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.280 and yes they were rocks, but they were packaged and 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.040 what looked like a small pet carrier and more importantly, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.679 they came with a pretty decent book of instructions on 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.600 how to care for the pet rock. And the book 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.719 was really just a joke book that was filled with 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.840 jokes and puns. So really, ultimately you were buying a 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.800 book of jokes that happened to have a rock that 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.359 came with it. And it was a cute idea and 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.359 it was a successful one. It made Doll into a millionaire, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.000 so you can't really knock it. And yeah, that's not 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.800 really tech, but hey, how about how about a USB 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.040 pet rock? I think Geek sold these, and uh, it 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:03.120 was a pet rock with a USB port, didn't do anything. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:05.640 You could just you can plug a USB cable into it. 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.960 But then you had a rock on a USB cable 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.639 and that was it. This is the joke. And just 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.239 for the heck of it, I check to see if 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.040 you can still buy pet rocks and I found one 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.080 on Amazon that claims it was approved by Gary Doll himself, 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.640 and the price on it is prepare yourself for this 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.760 twenty bucks. And also it did not include the thirty 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.919 two page care manual. I'd now like to introduce you 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:39.800 to my brand new idea, the pet paper weight. Order now. 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.200 But yeah, I think without the Book of Jokes, it's 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.640 really just a rock. Now, I never could have predicted 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.639 the success of the pet rock, But do you know 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.119 someone who might have predicted that success? This is my 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.200 playful way to introduce a duo, that of Albert or 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:03.040 maybe it was Alfred Harder at abe Bookman. Now I 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.800 say Albert or Alfred because about half the sources I 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.960 looked into on this story had it as one, any 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.639 other half had it as the other. So we'll just 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.840 call him al Anyway, these are the two guys largely 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.680 responsible for the invention of the magic eight ball. So 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.800 let's tell the story of this low tech novelty item. 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:29.679 So Albert or Alfred again conflicting reports. There was the 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.560 kid of a mother who did something pretty special for 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:38.720 her profession. Carter's mother claimed to be clairvoyant. Now, I'm 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.720 a skeptic and I do not believe in such things 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:46.440 as clairvoyance or psychic powers, or telekinesis or anything of 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.159 the sort. But never mind that Ma Carter was bringing 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.639 in clients for her sessions in the nineties. One of 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:57.960 the items she used was reportedly a container that had 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:02.120 a slate and some chalk inside the container, and her 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.159 clients would ask questions and the answers would reveal themselves 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:08.600 on the slate. She would open up the container and 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:12.080 the slate would have something written on it by the chalk, 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:14.960 as if by magic. This is, by the way, a 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:19.040 pretty popular gimmick was stage magicians who accomplished this task 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:23.560 without the dreadful responsibility of being psychic. So, in other words, 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.160 if there's a way you can do it by trickery, 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:33.760 that indicates that any quote unquote real version of the 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:38.080 phenomena is questionable at best. If there are ways to 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.480 do it without it being from some supernatural source, chances 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:46.160 are it was a perfectly normal source. Anyway, This gave 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:49.560 her son Al an idea. Al wanted to build something 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.080 that he could sell to folks, and his first version 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.760 of the gimmick was a cylinder look a bit like 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.639 a soda can or a beer can, a little narrower 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:03.080 than what you would see with a soda can, and 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:07.240 the two ends of the can were transparent, so the 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.000 top and the bottom of the can had these transparent 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:14.280 discs there instead of solids. Inside the cylinder was a 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:19.320 syrupy liquid uh largely described as molasses in the reports 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:22.320 I read, and inside were a couple of dice that 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.960