WEBVTT - Invention Playlist II: Bubble Wrap 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:08.520 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.520 you welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.400 I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I've got a question for you. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:21.360 In what way are humans most like cats? Oh? I 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.800 don't know, Joe, in what way are humans most like cats? Well, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.200 I'll answer the riddle myself then, since you thought it 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.720 was a joke, No, it's not a joke. No, it's 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.960 that both actually love packaging material of like gifts and 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.120 packages more than what's inside it. Because with the cats, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.040 you know, like if you ever had a cat on 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.080 Christmas Day when presents are being open, of course you have. Uh. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.199 I don't know if this is your experience and my experience, 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.680 they always want to get in the wrapping paper and 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.320 go to war with But with us humans, it's not 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:54.440 the wrapping paper. It's that darn bubble wrap. That stuff 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.800 is so intoxicating, the tactile pleasure of it, the gentle 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:05.160 popping sounds. It's like it's a drug from another universe. Well, um, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.480 first of all, on on the cat issue, yes, I 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.360 can definitely testify that cats love packaging material. Uh, they 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.760 also really love or at least. My cat really loves 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.320 uh instruction manuals for the assembly of furniture, um like 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.680 Ikea manuals and kind of like Ikea manual or like 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.039 a Lego instruction book. When you start, when you pull 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.000 everything out of the box, that's right where she goes. 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.480 If you have the most comfortable couch in the world, 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.760 and then there is an Ikea instruction manual somewhere on 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.000 that couch, it's the instruction manual that she will lay on. Well, 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:41.679 I wonder if that's part of the larger trend of 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.680 cats always wanting to be between you and what you're doing, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.720 and how they don't want your attention until you're really 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.960 trying to focus on something else and then they need 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.840 to get on top of that thing and in your 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.760 face possibly. And of course they love boxes and all 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.520 I understand because they are you know that they're they're 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.600 both predator and prey and uh and so they you know, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.680 they want little places to hide out in to hide 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.200 from predators, but also you know, places of ambush for 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.519 the things that they would be hunting. Do you have 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:11.760 this memory when you were a little kid of like 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.000 the early early years of playing with bubble wrap and 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.560 just the intense fixation with popping every single bubble on 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.960 the sheet. Yeah. I mean I don't remember necessarily like 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.639 the feeling like I had to pop every bubble, but 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:30.720 I remember like this vague sense of almost disappointment at 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.639 having completely popped all of the bubbles and there being 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:38.560 something like fresh and exciting about a complete unpopped sheet 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.480 of bubble wrap. So yeah, I have some fond memories 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.080 of it. And as you know, as as a former child, 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.720 but also as the parent of a current child, especially 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:49.760 when he was younger, you know, we would we get 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.679 some bubble wrap. You give him some bubble wrap and 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.440 just just tell him here and go for it, and 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.600 he would have fun popping it. Um. It's better than 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:01.640 any twenty toy, It's yeah, yeah, Core. As as we'll discuss, 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.320 we see less full on bubble wrap these days, we 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.360 see in another type of of packing material that is 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.520 plastic inflated with air. We still get a decent amount 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.160 of bubble wrap here in the office because we often 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.919 get books delivered to us in the office in those 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.880 bubble wrap lined envelopes. Oh yeah, I guess we do, um, 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.280 which is always kind of silly because I don't, especially 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.160 if it's a you know, a review copy book. He 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:29.880 broke my book, and I don't. I don't mind if 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:31.639 it gets beat up a little bit. I mean, especially 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.960 since outside of work, when I order a book for myself, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.480 I always order like the whatever the cheapest used copy is, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.960 so you know, I get something in that has like 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:44.280 a weird odor to it and coffee stains. I love 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.520 And yeah, I love it when when a book has 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.760 been you know, the various package of passages that are 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:53.000 underlined and highlighted and little notes at it in summaries. Um. Yeah, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.080 so I really don't care if it is you know, 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.000 if it is you know, completely protected from the you know, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:04.200 the physical dangers of transit. But but yeah, we still 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.520 so we still get a lot of of bubble wrap 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.400 like material. In fact, we get so much that it 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.200 can be a little you know, overbearing at times. Um, 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.880 I feel like once a week I have I'm like 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.760 a you know, an executioner in my house going around 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.479 to the various inflatable bits and just stabbing them all 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.560 to get the air out so I can stuff the 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.640 plastic in the and the recycling and then a similar 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.800 case with freezer bags for for food that is shipped, 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.160 you know, having to to gut those and get all 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.360 of the the the the the unfrozen material out of 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.320 there so I can stuff those plastic bags into the recycling. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.560 I totally know what you're saying. My childhood fascination with 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.279 and love of bubble wrap has in many ways been 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.719 replaced by an adult guilt complex about packaging materials. I 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.880 feel like, oh, this probably isn't good for the planet. 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.440 I've gotten too much stuff shipped to my house and 0:04:58.440 --> 0:04:59.920 and I don't know what to do about it. Now 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:01.840 it's here, I guess I just gotta pop this and 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.919 try to recycle it if I can. Yeah, So, on 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.840 today's episode, as as you can can tell, we're going 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.640 to discuss bubble wrap. And before you turn off and 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.400 say like, I don't you know that sounds dreary, No, No, 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.560 it actually has a surprising origin story which we'll get into, 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.800 and we'll discuss what came before bubble wrap, and and 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.520 where we've gone, where we're going post bubble wrap, and 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.680 what that sort of future holds for us. All right, well, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.440 maybe we should go straight to the origin story. Yeah, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.520 and this is a more recent invention. So this is 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.760 not going to be one where you know the the 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.560 inventors are lost to the myths of prehistory. No we 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.400 know their names. So the story of bubble wrap begins 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.680 in the nineteen fifties with a pair of business partners. 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.680 Now these were an American inventor named Alfred W. Fielding 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.159 and a Swiss chemist named Mark Chavon. Now, Fielding and 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.920 Chevon were playing around with an idea for an innovation 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:03.120 in interior decorating, not in packaging material, not in childhood entertainment, 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.360 but in interior decor. They wanted to explore new frontiers 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.760 in wall paper. Now, wallpaper has gone in and out 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.720 of style over the course of the twentieth century, and 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.440 actually has gone in and out of style. I guess 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.520 before then is it in right now? I feel like 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:19.880 it's a little bit and I I didn't know. I 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.599 feel like these days, the modern sensibility, it tends to 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.440 be more sort of like solid painted muter color walls. 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.039 But I don't know, maybe it's coming back. I don't 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.719 know that much about interior design. I feel like I 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.160 I've been encountering it more like when when I go to, say, 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.400 like a new restaurant or something you know where there's 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.480 clearly been a lot of recent energy put into the decor. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.640 I will sometimes find wallpaper and I'll think, oh, my goodness, 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:46.440 this is this is a sign of things to come. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.560 I don't know, well, it used to be more of 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.200 a sign of luxury and interior decorating, but then it 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.560 became cheaper and more popular in the twentieth century, appearing 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.800 in more and more homes. I don't know if it's 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.479 coming back, and if it is coming back, I wonder 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.240 what that says. But anyway, in nineteen fifty seven, these 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.000 two guys Fielding and Chavan, we're trying to see if 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.920 they could make a new kind of weird artsy three 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:16.800 D textured wallpaper out of sheets of plastic layered over 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.920 paper backing, and so modern accounts of their efforts, including 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.480 an article I was reading by David Kindy and smith 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.440 Sony in about this invention, but a bunch of other things, 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:31.160 they all identify the beat generation as the target market 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.880 of this wallpaper. And I don't know if that goes 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.880 back to something that Fielding and Chavan themselves said at 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.520 some point, but it's gets repeated a lot. I'm trying 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.320 to exact imagine exactly what that means from like a 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.840 mass market consumer style point of view. Obviously they weren't 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.400 just trying to sell this to Alan Ginsberg and his friends, 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.640 because when you think Alan Ginsberg, you think can bubble 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.160 at well, I mean maybe maybe, because so I would say, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.520 for some reason, we today tend to think of the 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.920 nineteen fifties as an extremely square time in the history 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.080 of like American arts and culture. But in reality, it 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.840 seems to me like it was exactly the opposite. Mid 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.920 century architecture and design, like the late forties through the 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.200 early sixties really seems to me to be absolutely crammed 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.560 with bizarre experimental styles that would be far too weird 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.200 for most new businesses or homeowners today. Uh. And so 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.320 that that's sort of the landscape imagining, Like I'm wondering 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.320 if this experimental textured wallpaper might have fit in with 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.479 elements of the mid century futurist architectural style known as googy, 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.720 which if you're trying to picture that, think like classic 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.360 architecture and designs in Las Vegas that you can still 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.040 see on some of their signs right right the the 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.560 the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.920 prime example of googy. And by the way, googie is 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.920 spelled g o O g i e. A word that 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.160 pretty much any search engine will try to insist does 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.280 not exist. They're like main Google right right now, I 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.240 mean googie. Uh and this is googie. So yeah, this 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.960 is probably the most readily available example of googy. That's 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.040 just going to be in your mind right now. If 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.320 you play video games. There's a bunch of googie design 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.640 that shows up in the Fallout game because they're going 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.040 for that nineteen fifties retro futurist style. There there are 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.400 other sort of names for related or overlapping mid century styles, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.840 like mid century Modern, which is I think broader than googie, 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.320 or what is sometimes apparently now called ray gun Gothic. 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.439 I think that's a coinage by William Gibson. Interesting. Uh, yeah, 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.040 I think it is important to This is actually something 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.120 that I always have to continually remind myself that the 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:46.199 creative minds of the nineteen fifties, the nineteen forties and 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.560 and other decades as well, for the most part, we're 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.480 just as as weird and as inventive, if not more so, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.680 than anybody working today. Uh, you know, some of my 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.880 favorite artists that I've discovered it, such as Irving nor 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:05.000 It was you know, surrealist, dark surrealist painter, and he 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.040 was active, he would have been active at this time 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:08.800 in the nineteen fifties. And you look at his work 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.160 now and it looks it's it's difficult, it's uh, you know, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.800 it's it's it's weird and dark and uh and and 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.160 and you know, undercutting in a way that you might 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.520 not expect from the nineteen fifties if you're just picturing, 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.920 like you know, the sort of the atomic family scenario, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.080 the atomic family, the nuclear family family, it's the same thing. Yeah, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.840 you made me think of fallouts. I'm thinking about you know, 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.400 the idea more about atomics, I guess. But but also 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.400 like there's there are all these other strange styles that 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:43.560 are flourishing at the period, like like the tiki aesthetic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.160 this definitely lines up with the same era. So for 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.640 those of you are not aware, mid century tiki was 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.880 a post War War two aesthetic fad that most memorably 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.040 gave us tiki drinks, but also in an entire aesthetic 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:01.000 vibe that's firmly rooted in the cultural appropriation of Polynesian culture, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.920 they drinks themselves. However, as tiki drink master Beach Bumbari 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.439 points out in his excellent book Portions of the Caribbean, Uh, 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.679 these drinks are firmly products of the Caribbean and Caribbean products, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.240 particularly rum, while the design is assembled from Pilford bits 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.680 of Polynesian aesthetics. Now, now, I'm a big fan of 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.960 tiki drinks myself. I think they're fun to make, fun 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.040 to drink and share. And then the history of of 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.679 each individual cocktail tends to be interesting with its sort 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.600 of you know, they're they're they're the stories of like 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:36.200 feuding bartenders in the fifties and sixties, etcetera. Um. But 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.440 just as the products that make up a tiki drink 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.280 are problematic in their roots in Western exploitation of the Caribbean, 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.280 so too is the style rooted in the exploitation of 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.400 Polynesian people's. So uh, you know, I'm not trying to 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.720 ruin tiki for anyone, but I'm just saying imbibe with 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.800 a shot of self reflection. And by the way, I'd 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.559 love to actually cover tiki and more detail on another episode. 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.680 Perhaps we could do an episode on invention of the 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:05.600 my tai. Really yeah, it has an interesting history, Okay, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:10.080 trade secret swarring, tiki bartenders. Uh yeah, there's a whole 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.680 world there. Uh. And of course again Beech Bumbari is 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.640 a wonderful authority on all of these, highly recommend his books. Interesting, Well, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.439 maybe we could come back. But so thinking about wallpapers specifically, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.439 I mean connecting it back to the to the teaky aesthetic. 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.800 I was looking at a blog post by writer named 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.640 Katherine Brooks that was collecting wallpapers throughout history, and she 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.719 had a couple of examples of wallpapers selected from the 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.080 nineteen fifties, and they are very strange. One has this 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:42.760 complex design with kind of green and black tropical garden motif. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.280 It seems to be evoking sort of like a like 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.480 a tiki a fascination. It's got palm trees and stuff. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.360 But then another one of these wallpapers is just one 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.559 that shows pine spriggs and it's apparently embossed. It has 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.520 some kind of three D texture. So maybe three D 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.760 textured wallpapers were already sort of a thing in the 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.640 nineteen fifties. But to come back to our inventors Fielding 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.559 and Chivon, they were working out of a garage in Hawthorne, 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.000 New Jersey, in nineteen fifty seven to come up specifically 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.760 with a heat based ceiling process to press together two 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.760 layers of plastic shower curtain with paper backing, and unfortunately, 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.480 the final product they came up with did not have 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.319 the aesthetic properties they were looking for in a wallpaper. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.520 The hot lamination of the flexible plastic ended up trapping 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.680 air bubbles between the layers, which doesn't sound like a 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.360 great texture for wallpaper. Or maybe it does. I don't 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.320 know exactly what it was they were trying to do, 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.640 but the popable walls sounds bad. Well, I mean, it's 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.560 not great, but it's not horrifying. And it does make 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.559 me think of the walls and Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.679 You know where you had the flavored illustrations on the wallpaper. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.560 I don't remember this part. You have flavored walls. It 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.520 was like lickable walls. Nice. This what the snores berries 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.920 tastes like Snorm's berries or whatever. Um, so you canberriesberries, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.120 So you can imagine like snawsberry bubble wrap walls where 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.040 you could go up and you pop this, uh this 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.120 this pimple on the wall and in it emits this 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.640 uh this the smell, this odor, if not this taste 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.920 of whatever, you know, the you know, the suite happens 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.600 to be. Oh okay. So it's like perfume sample walls. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.800 It's like popable or scratch off kind of mechanics, but 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.720 for your house. No, we're not saying that's what Fielding 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.040 and Chavon had in mind. I don't know exactly what 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.680 they were thinking, but they wanted to create this beat wallpaper, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.640 and they did get patents for their process, but the 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.800 wallpaper did not really catch on. And Howard Fielding, the 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.640 son of Alfred Fielding, was a young kid when his 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.400 father brought home a sample of one. At some point 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.680 they had this invention that was the layers of plastic 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.360 with bubbles in it. And speaking to David Kindy of 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.960 Smithsonian Magazine, how Ward Fielding recalls this sort of psycho 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.200 tactle tractor beam allure of the plastic bubbles when he 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.920 first saw them. He says, I remember looking at the 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.600 stuff and my instinct was to squeeze it. I say, 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:14.720 I'm the first person to pop bubble wrap, but I'm 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.400 not sure that's true. The adults in my father's firm 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.280 likely did so for quality assurance, but I was probably 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.000 the first kid. They were really fun to pop. The 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.160 bubbles were a lot bigger than so they made a 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:31.880 loud noise. And I think it's always interesting when the 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.520 extent to which the people associated with a product or 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.080 a company actually talk about or promote it's sort of 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.160 off label use. Like this whole thing about the people 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.680 who make Q tips. They probably know that people are 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:47.960 sticking those in their ears all the time, but they 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.400 don't talk about that because you're not supposed to do that. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.200 You're requested not to stick them in your ears. But 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.600 who actually thinks that's not going on? I mean no, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.440 I mean they have other uses to be sure, you know, 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.840 it can be used makeup and um, and I use 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.640 them sometimes when I'm working on painting miniatures and all. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.320 But that kind of code of silence is not going 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.640 on with bubble wrap. In fact, I noticed that whenever 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.160 their interviews with people involved with the company that still 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.840 makes bubble wrap, or you know, the Sealed Air Corporation, 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.160 which we'll get to in a minute, or people who 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.960 were involved in the invention of bubble wrap always talk 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.480 about the popping. They're like, it's like that. They admit 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.960 I like to pop the bubbles too. I don't know 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.760 what that is. It seems to be almost part of 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.960 their marketing. Yeah, I mean, in a way, this is 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.200 not the reasoning, but you can know, you could know. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.280 You could look at it like, well, you're when you 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.840 pop all the bubbles and a piece of bubble wrap, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.800 you render it useless, thus requiring the the purchase of 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:53.680 additional bubble wrapping for any packaging you're going to do. Okay, yeah, yeah, 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:58.680 make up make a product that the children will destroy. Well, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:00.600 maybe we should take a break and then we come back. 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.600 We can explore what happened with this failed wallpaper with 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:11.480 the bubbles in it. Alright, we're back. We've been discussing 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.760 the history of wallpaper or what initially comes right before 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:20.480 wallpaper in this quest to create this ideal beat generation 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.320 wallpaper that has air bubbles in it? What comes before wallpaper? 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.240 Or did you mean bubble wrap comes before bubble rap? Okay, 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:29.920 And I guess in a sense it would have been 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:31.920 like what would have been what it would have come after? 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.680 Like this is gonna be the next evolutionary step for wallpaper. Okay, yeah, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.119 and instead it becomes the birth of something new. This 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.320 was gonna be the wallpaper you put on the side 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.320 walls of your like moon Igloe or whatever. But no, 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.800 it didn't work out that. It was not successful. It 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.919 didn't prove to be a popular product. I don't know 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.720 if they ever sold any of it. So the lamination 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.399 process was not successful at making a desirable wallpaper. But 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.120 they did get patents for their process, and they tried 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.320 to see if their system of making bubbly sealed layers 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.960 of plastic could be used for other stuff. Well, my 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.920 mind instantly turns to fashion. Didn't Barbarella where some one 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.000 of her outfits they didn't have like air bubbles in it. 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.720 Oh she might have I don't quite remember, but that 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.439 would seem to be Yeah, that would make sense. I 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.480 know there was at least I kept reading references to 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.360 There was one Playboy cover at some point that had 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.280 an actress or model dressed in bubble wrap. Uh. So 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.520 clearly there's some kind of alternative fashion uses for it. 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.080 But one thing that they tried to do when they 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.000 were marketing it was as insulation. They tried to so 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.920 Fielding and Chavon tried to market it as insulation material 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.800 for greenhouses. This failed to attract much interest, apparently just 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.920 wasn't great at insulating um. But Fielding and Chavon did 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:48.960 not give up in trying to find a use for 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.840 their plastic product. And I think it's interesting that here's 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.320 an example of the kind of like supply side drive 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.880 in in find in innovation, right where they're like, we've 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.920 got this process, we've got this invention, but we don't 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:03.919 know what it does yet. It's the opposite of the 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.960 idea that necessity is the mother of invention, right. Um, 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.760 So they're like, we know how to make this stuff, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:10.880 but we don't know if it can do anything useful, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.440 and they're trying to find a use for it. So 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.879 they didn't give up, and they continued making business moves 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.240 to support the development of this product in the in 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.119 the following years. So in nineteen sixty they founded a 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.600 company called the Sealed Air Corporation, which still exists. And 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.320 it was this year, in nineteen sixty and that Mark 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.800 Chavon had his breakthrough insight about a new use for 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.560 the textured wallpaper. And this is as told in a 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.040 two thousand ten New York Times City Room piece by 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:41.919 James Barron. Apparently, Chavon was on a small propeller plane 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.119 flying from Ohio to New York, New Jersey, and the 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.840 story is that Chavon was watching out the window as 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.439 the plane was coming in toward New Jersey and he 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.760 saw clouds and in that moment, in his mind, the 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.560 clouds seemed to be cushioning the planes controlled descent through 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.760 the atmosphere. It was a soft cushion and of gas. 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.960 And according to a manager with the Sealed Air Corporation 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.400 named Ron Schellenberger, this was how Chivan realized that bubbly 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.720 plastic could be useful for its cushioning properties during the 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.560 shipping of products. The lift under the airplane was quote 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.520 like bouncing across the bubbles. Okay, I'll allow it. I'm 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:25.000 always a little suspicious of idea origin, story depend upon, 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:27.840 you know, these Eureka moments of observation. Not to say 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.760 it doesn't happen, but sometimes it is used to I think, 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:35.000 to just add an artificial sense of myth and mystery. Sure, well, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.400 as I said, this is the story they tell. It's 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.600 hard to know if that was really what was going 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.320 through his mind. Rather than uh, you know, somebody sitting 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:43.960 in the seat next to him was like, hey, you 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:48.160 should use that bubble wrap to ship products. So they 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.560 branded their air filled plastic sheeting as bubble wrap, which 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:53.600 is still a company trademark today. But it's one of 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:56.720 those things like clean X for tissue paper, popsicle for 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.920 quiescently frozen treats. I think it's one of those brand 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.920 terms that's just sort of become a worldwide generic term 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.040 against its will. Technically, some of the stuff we call 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.720 bubble wrap is air cushioned packaging material made by other companies. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:12.960 I was reading a two thousand six article in Forbes 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.840 by Monty Burke that reported that counterfeit bubble wrap I guess, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.600 being sold under the trade name but allegedly manufactured in China, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.240 had been found in a home depot in California. Counterfeit 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.240 bubble wrap. Like, why would you go to the trouble? 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:28.639 This doesn't bring to mind? You know, we were joking 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.160 earlier about pitching a horror story, a horror of franchise 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.480 about about bubble wrap, that this is the angle you 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.760 could take. Illicit bubble wrap that was created by another 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.280 manufacturer and the bubbles, I don't know, contain some sort 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.280 of you know, terrible gas that drives people crazy or something. 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.479 It's bubble wrap from the todash darkness. There you go. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.000 Is he basically rights itself. So how did it go 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.920 from failed kitchen wallpaper and failed insulation two cushioning material 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.920