Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio, and.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chalk and
Speaker 2: Jerry's here too, and it's time to buckle down and
Speaker 2: get serious about some silly inventions that turned out to
Speaker 2: be pretty popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, this takes me right back.
Speaker 2: It does, because this is a super kind of eighties.
Speaker 2: But I really associate most of this with the nineties,
Speaker 2: don't you.
Speaker 1: Oh, I just mean this episode takes me back to
Speaker 1: like twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Oh gotcha? But yeah, sure, yeah, Well, this article is
Speaker 2: clearly written around two thousand and nine or twenty ten
Speaker 2: by our esteemed colleague Jonathan Strickland esteemed. Oh yeah, there's
Speaker 2: loads of esteem going his way from us. We're talking
Speaker 2: today about some silly inventions. Typically they were what you
Speaker 2: would call direct response TV marketed types of inventions or products, right,
Speaker 2: which are what those like the little thing, at least
Speaker 2: in the United States, that little red icon that says
Speaker 2: as seen on TV mm hmm. Those are basically across
Speaker 2: the board direct response TV marketed.
Speaker 1: Products, that's right. And by direct response that basically means
Speaker 1: we want to make more money, and we'll do that
Speaker 1: by making like an infomercial, and instead of the infomercial
Speaker 1: saying like and now go to your store and buy
Speaker 1: this thing, even though a lot of the stuff you
Speaker 1: could find in drug stores and like maybe a bed,
Speaker 1: bathroom beyond or something like that. Sure, but generally what
Speaker 1: they were trying to do was sell direct to you
Speaker 1: get a direct response by putting like an eight hundred
Speaker 1: number up you could call an order. So that just
Speaker 1: means they get more juice for themselves since they're not
Speaker 1: having to sell it to a store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and often it's like, yes, of course they wanted
Speaker 2: more profit, but they also wanted to be able to
Speaker 2: pay off the third mortgage they took out on their
Speaker 2: house to get this invention of theirs out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe public.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of these that were just
Speaker 2: invented by some person. You know, it's a good idea,
Speaker 2: and luckily for them, they took off and became super popular.
Speaker 2: So there's one that it wouldn't qualify in any really way,
Speaker 2: shape or form as a silly invention, so we didn't
Speaker 2: include it on this list. But it is the most
Speaker 2: the greatest selling direct response TV marketed product of all time,
Speaker 2: far and away, and it's the George Foreman grill. From
Speaker 2: what I saw in the last like twenty plus years,
Speaker 2: more like thirty years, I think it sold about a
Speaker 2: billion dollars worth of product. That is pretty significant. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you're counting, but a billion dollars still
Speaker 2: means a lot these days.
Speaker 1: It does. I never had a Forman grill. I never
Speaker 1: owned one, but I lived with one for a year.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Did it pay a share of the rent?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I think one of my roommates had one year,
Speaker 1: I feel like in college. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: don't know what those words, the whole trick is. It's
Speaker 1: like any kind of standard Panini press or something, except
Speaker 1: they raised up one side of it so Greece could
Speaker 1: trickle out of it. And that was about the only difference,
Speaker 1: I think, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the thing is it really works. You mean,
Speaker 2: and I have one and we use it basically anytime
Speaker 2: we cook burgers, we use it. And I mean, like
Speaker 2: there's no loss of taste, but there's a ton of
Speaker 2: like fat that's just just strips right out. So we
Speaker 2: use ours pretty frequently.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I don't think I knew that you guys
Speaker 1: had a Foreman.
Speaker 2: We do. And one other thing about this too. This
Speaker 2: is another thing too with direct response products. Most people
Speaker 2: think George Foreman invented that grill because he refers to
Speaker 2: it in the ads as his grill. He did not.
Speaker 2: It was already an existing product and he was approached
Speaker 2: to basically be the pitch man for it, and very
Speaker 2: wisely he said, sure, I'll do it, but you have
Speaker 2: to give me forty five percent of the profits.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He made a lot of money on miss things.
Speaker 2: Just crazy gobs of money. Good for him, And there's
Speaker 2: a similar So moving into our list now, Chuck, and
Speaker 2: this is in very much stuff you should know tradition.
Speaker 2: Not a top ten, a not a full ten top
Speaker 2: ten list, I guess is what we call this kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know that we've ever done ten, and
Speaker 1: we're never gonna.
Speaker 2: We better not. If we did. At some point we
Speaker 2: need to find that episode and go edit out one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe that's like our very last episode will
Speaker 1: be a true ten.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: That'll be the tell everyone will know we could.
Speaker 2: Do a top ten of our top ten episodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds it sounds like a great way to finish.
Speaker 2: Actually, so the segue I guess from George Foreman to
Speaker 2: the first on our list is the idea that people
Speaker 2: tended to think Suzanne Summers may have invented the thigh Master.
Speaker 2: She did not. Just like George Foreman, she was approached
Speaker 2: to become the pitch person for an existing invention, and
Speaker 2: she thanked her lucky stars all the way to the
Speaker 2: bank later on that she agreed to it.
Speaker 1: That's right. If you have a certain age, you may
Speaker 1: not even know who Susanne Summers is, or you may
Speaker 1: know her as the thigh Master lady. If you're a
Speaker 1: little bit older, if you're in our generation and above,
Speaker 1: you know her as Chrissy from the great She's Raids
Speaker 1: the Sheriff Sitcom threes Company.
Speaker 2: Oh Three's Company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, great show.
Speaker 2: She was also and she She's the Sheriff. Though, that
Speaker 2: was a good one.
Speaker 1: I didn't I've never even heard of that show.
Speaker 2: It was the kind of show that would come on
Speaker 2: at three point thirty pm Saturday, right after reruns of
Speaker 2: Mama's Family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've really never heard of She's the shaff I
Speaker 1: take it to the Sheriff.
Speaker 2: She was the sheriff. Okay, it was a good show.
Speaker 2: But yes, of course Three's Company Chrissy is who she
Speaker 2: is vastly far and away better known for. But by
Speaker 2: that I mean that was like the late seventies, early
Speaker 2: eighties when she left Three's Company. Apparently she was making
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty grand less an episode than Jack
Speaker 2: John Ritter, so she's like, I'm out of here, and
Speaker 2: there was kind of a lull in her career between
Speaker 2: then and I guess nineteen ninety one when she came
Speaker 2: back with a vengeance on TV pitching this thigh master.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pitching the v bar. That's what it was originally
Speaker 1: called when a Swedish physical therapist named doctor Anne Marie
Speaker 1: Binstrom invented this thing in the sixties. But they tweaked
Speaker 1: it a little bit. They made it look cooler, they
Speaker 1: made it a little more colorful, and brought it into
Speaker 1: the eighties slash early nineties and approached her to like
Speaker 1: you said, like, hey, you know, you're a very recognizable
Speaker 1: face and you're into fitness and you're smart lady. She
Speaker 1: played a dingbat on Three's Company, But Suzanne Summers is
Speaker 1: a very smart woman. Yeah, as evidenced by the perhaps
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars she made on Howkin the thigh
Speaker 1: Master and eventually like buying out the partners to where
Speaker 1: she outright owned it.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. So you said that this is an existing device, right,
Speaker 2: the V bar? Yes, So what it was we should
Speaker 2: just say real quick, the thigh master or the V
Speaker 2: bar was this kind of device? What would you liken
Speaker 2: it too? You know those like paper chip clips?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just ready for you to confuse everybody.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Okay, it's like a giant paper chip clip,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't open up, so you couldn't clip it
Speaker 2: to anything. It's just the squeezing part. So go to
Speaker 2: your kitchen right now, get a paper chip clip, break
Speaker 2: off the part that opens up, and then put the
Speaker 2: little remaining part that's like a V the V bar
Speaker 2: between your legs and squeeze. And what you're doing is
Speaker 2: using a mini thigh master right now.
Speaker 1: That's right. You do the same thing with your fingers
Speaker 1: if you wanted to.
Speaker 2: Right. So, they made it pop and like they hid
Speaker 2: the spring in the middle, and they gave it some
Speaker 2: great coloring. And this was now the thigh Master that
Speaker 2: Suzanne Summers was now demonstrating on some very famous TV
Speaker 2: ads again starting in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: That's right, And I guess the only other thing we
Speaker 1: should mention is that there was a physician on a
Speaker 1: lot of these commercials. There was a guy wearing a
Speaker 1: lab coat, doctor Herbert L. Gould, who was there to
Speaker 1: recommend the thing and saying that he uses it. And
Speaker 1: the cherry on top is that doctor Gould was an ophthalmologist.
Speaker 1: Is great, not that that doesn't you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: still a doctor still used the thing, I guess for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not illegitimate, it's just funny.
Speaker 1: Clearly knew Suzanne Summer somehow, probably.
Speaker 2: Or they just started picking doctor at random.
Speaker 1: Now I think he was probably her optomologist, be my guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably right. I feel like there is one
Speaker 2: more thing we should mention about the ad, and that
Speaker 2: is the fact that Suzanne Summers appeared in it wearing
Speaker 2: leotard like you would think for working out, but also
Speaker 2: panteos and high heels, which is the specific kind of.
Speaker 1: Look yeah, oh, actually, there is one more thing, because
Speaker 1: this is we buried the lead. The probably the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing about all of this is that there is
Speaker 1: a direct response Hall of Fame and she's in it.
Speaker 2: Yep. She was inducted in twenty fourteen and rightly so amazing.
Speaker 2: Take an early break or move on? No, we got
Speaker 2: to move on, Okay, so I say we move on
Speaker 2: to the pocket Fishermen and a little bit of a
Speaker 2: bio on rom Po Peel, one of the great salesmen
Speaker 2: of all time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Ron papill. If you had a TV in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and nineties and you have seen this, dude,
Speaker 1: he was the guy that you know. But wait, there's
Speaker 1: more that came from him. He originated that term. He
Speaker 1: was popular in the I guess even the like the
Speaker 1: fifties and early sixties when he made the first infomercial
Speaker 1: for the vegematic. Yeah it's vices, it dices like that
Speaker 1: was Ron Papeel. All these sort of tropes of infomercials,
Speaker 1: a lot of them come from the great Ron Papel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that vegematic infomercial that was like the world's first one.
Speaker 2: So yes, he was an infomercial god. And he got
Speaker 2: his start. He was always good at selling things. Apparently,
Speaker 2: by the time he was sixteen, he was selling his
Speaker 2: dad's inventions at flea markets and grossing about five hundred
Speaker 2: bucks a day, and that's in nineteen fifty one dollars,
Speaker 2: so that's like ten million dollars a day today. And
Speaker 2: within just a few years he was a household name
Speaker 2: thanks to television. And it was largely built on that
Speaker 2: vegematic that apparently his dad invented.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was you know, it's a veggie chopper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, manual food processor, that's it. But because he was
Speaker 2: he could get so excited about any wacky, weird invention
Speaker 2: and try to make you excited about it, and there
Speaker 2: was just no ignoring this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had the enshll egg scrambler, and that was
Speaker 1: a device where if you didn't want to crack your
Speaker 1: egg put it in a bowl and scramble it, you
Speaker 1: could use this little device that had a little bent
Speaker 1: pin that went inside the eggshell and spun around. Very
Speaker 1: interesting invention. And the GLH which stood for Great Looking Hair,
Speaker 1: the g LH Formula number nine hair system, which is
Speaker 1: basically spray paint for bald spots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like aerosol spray hair like product or
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: Remember when Rudy Giuliani sweated his sweated that stuff down
Speaker 1: the side of his face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It was like, what a time when he
Speaker 1: was on TV in front of like sweating what looked
Speaker 1: like shoe polish, and then standing in.
Speaker 2: Front of that huh for landscape.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a time to be alive. Amazing.
Speaker 1: It was like SNL come to life.
Speaker 2: It really moment after moment too, something new.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That Inside the Eggshell Scrambler too. By the way. So
Speaker 2: one of the other things about all these products are
Speaker 2: their ads are magnificent. Sometimes they're magnificently terrible or just
Speaker 2: so absurd or just unintentionally salacious. But this Inside the
Speaker 2: Eggshell Scrambler ad had a little kid sitting at a
Speaker 2: table and he had been served like runny eggs, and
Speaker 2: it's the TV announcer says, no more runny eggs, and
Speaker 2: the kid looks at his plate and kind of gags
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Good lord, I love runny eggs.
Speaker 2: Well this didn't, and apparently neither did Ron Pop Peel
Speaker 2: because he used it as a selling point.
Speaker 1: Well, his company, because he was Ron, was called Ronco.
Speaker 1: They've done a couple of billion in sales over the year,
Speaker 1: and part of that chunk is owed to the pocket
Speaker 1: Fisherman which is the one on the list here, and
Speaker 1: that's you can still get a pocket fisherman. It is
Speaker 1: a is exactly what it sounds like. It's a compact
Speaker 1: fishing rod that folds up very small. It has a
Speaker 1: little compartment in the handle to hold some stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's you know the problem with the pocket fishermen like
Speaker 1: it works. If you go on YouTube, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of examples of people using this thing and catching like
Speaker 1: a decent sized fish. Even it's just not I think
Speaker 1: you had in here. Maybe it was strickling. It said,
Speaker 1: it solves the problem that we didn't know existed, And
Speaker 1: that's kind of true, because you know, if you're going camping,
Speaker 1: let's say, or backpacking, and you pack up and break
Speaker 1: down a regular sized fishing rod, it straps on the
Speaker 1: outside of your backpack, no problem, and it's not really
Speaker 1: that big or in the way. So the pocket fisherman
Speaker 1: just took it a little further, I.
Speaker 2: Guess, yeah, and made it chunkier.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're cool looking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they look vaguely like a staple gun. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: that you break off the handle from and put between
Speaker 2: your legs and squeeze staples into your the insides of
Speaker 2: your thighs. That's what its like.
Speaker 1: I think we should definitely take that break now, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back with a few more
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, we're back, everybody. And next
Speaker 1: on the list, we have the shake weight, which is
Speaker 1: a you know, a semi legitimate piece of workout equipment.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a dumbell if you picture a dumbell,
Speaker 1: but instead of just lifting the dumbbell, you put both
Speaker 1: hands on it and move it. And there's a spring
Speaker 1: in the middle and the two ends of the dumbbell
Speaker 1: like move like when you shake it. A shake weight,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. But it became popular not because
Speaker 1: of it's how well it worked or how good of
Speaker 1: a piece of gear it was. It became popular because
Speaker 1: of the clearly obvious sexual innuendo that comes about while operating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't really need to explain it. Just go
Speaker 2: look at a shakewaight, ad, and you'll immediately understand what
Speaker 2: we're talking about. Yeah. The thing is, though, Chuck, is
Speaker 2: it does seem to have worked right, Like you're basically
Speaker 2: instead of you moving, the weight is moving, and what
Speaker 2: you're trying to do is stabilize it and what the
Speaker 2: shake weight makers were saying is like, hey man, this
Speaker 2: requires way more muscle exertion than traditional dumbbell lifting. And
Speaker 2: they commissioned some studies that basically said, yeah, this actually
Speaker 2: is is correct. Use something more like three hundred percent
Speaker 2: more muscle activity than you do with traditional dumbbells, and
Speaker 2: in like one sixth of the time too. And plus
Speaker 2: I think they had a two and a half pound
Speaker 2: version that was for women apparently, and then one that
Speaker 2: was double the weight for men. And the two and
Speaker 2: a half pound version burned as many calories as a
Speaker 2: twelve pound dumbbell. So all of this checked out. But
Speaker 2: again that's not really what people were buying the shake
Speaker 2: weight for.
Speaker 1: No, it was parodied sort of all over the place,
Speaker 1: obviously on stuff like SNL Ellen DeGeneres, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those funny things that hit like
Speaker 1: virally early on because of how it looked when you
Speaker 1: used it. You know, I imagine it was a pretty
Speaker 1: decent cardio workout. I don't think I've ever seen one
Speaker 1: in person. Are touched one?
Speaker 2: I don't believe I have either.
Speaker 1: I lived with one for a while.
Speaker 2: Did you know it was? It was a mean drunk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if these things had if they were
Speaker 1: like in actual gems.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like this is one of the things
Speaker 2: like when it comes to exercise equipment, like the thigh
Speaker 2: Master two. The Shakewaight was like there was article after
Speaker 2: article like it doesn't really work, it actually works, And
Speaker 2: from what I saw, the consensus seemed to be that
Speaker 2: it definitely did give you a workout, like you could
Speaker 2: feel it, but it for as far as strength training,
Speaker 2: which is what most people use dumbbells for, it wasn't
Speaker 2: going to help you very much for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably pretty good cardio though, like I said, and
Speaker 1: I imagine it was a pretty decent four arm workout, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right exactly. But yes, I'm sure most people wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been caught dead at the gym using one of
Speaker 2: those things. All right, Well that was the Shakeway. Oh
Speaker 2: one other thing I saw that in one year, I
Speaker 2: think this was two thousand and ten, they made something
Speaker 2: like forty million dollars off of it.
Speaker 1: Man, these things it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is pretty impressive. So what's up next, Charles?
Speaker 1: Well, we got to go with big mouth. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even say it, right, almost, said Billy big mouth. But
Speaker 1: that's just what I called mine. Big mouth. Billy Bass
Speaker 1: took the world by storm in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it
Speaker 1: is if you've ever seen a taxidermied fish mounted on
Speaker 1: a plaque on the wall like a big largemouth bass,
Speaker 1: imagine if that thing came to life and saying don't worry,
Speaker 1: be happy to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this thing had a real evil dead vibe to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Take Me to the River was
Speaker 1: the other one of the two original or not original songs,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, the first songs that
Speaker 1: the Billy Bass played, right.
Speaker 2: And this is in two thousand, when Billy Bass Spentett's
Speaker 2: year in the limelight. But the story goes back a
Speaker 2: couple of years earlier and the inventor, Joe Peltieri, and
Speaker 2: his wife Barbara, were out on a road trip. Joe
Speaker 2: was looking for the next big idea. He was a
Speaker 2: VP at a novelty company and he was trying to
Speaker 2: figure out, you know, what to do. I think he
Speaker 2: had kind of hit a dry patch and was a
Speaker 2: little concerned. And they ended up at a bass pro
Speaker 2: shop on the road trip and his wife, Barbara, knowing
Speaker 2: that he was trying to come up with a new idea,
Speaker 2: said why not a mounted fish that sings? And Joe said, Barbara,
Speaker 2: I could kiss you and she says, well, what are
Speaker 2: you waiting for? And they kissed.
Speaker 1: I wonder how that went down. Was she literally walking
Speaker 1: around a bass pro shop and saw a taxa dermat
Speaker 1: fish and said, wouldn't it be great if that thing
Speaker 1: sang don't worry to be happy?
Speaker 2: That's that's how I envision it.
Speaker 1: Just what a while? I mean, was she on Paoti?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, maybe she didn't even think of it.
Speaker 2: She saw it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a weird thing to conjure up, but
Speaker 1: I love it and it was a very very fun product,
Speaker 1: Like out of all these, to me, this is the
Speaker 1: most kind of fun thing that you might want to
Speaker 1: have on your wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's great. They went with don't
Speaker 2: worry be happy to take me to the river. You
Speaker 2: understand that's pretty funny, but don't worry be happy. That
Speaker 2: was like the smash It of nineteen eighty eight, Like
Speaker 2: it had been dead and gone for over a decade,
Speaker 2: and they brought that thing back with big mouth billy bass.
Speaker 1: Yes, hard to get that out in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. So.
Speaker 1: The thing was actually, for what it was was a
Speaker 1: fairly sophisticated piece of gear. They had a censor inside
Speaker 1: of it so when you walk by it, it would
Speaker 1: pick up on that and just automatically start singing. And
Speaker 1: he had some designs that he did over the years
Speaker 1: that he didn't love, but he really hit on it
Speaker 1: when I guess his wife Barbara probably said well, why
Speaker 1: don't you have the thing turn its head out and
Speaker 1: sort of look at the person they're serenading, And he
Speaker 1: was like, by god, Barbara, we've got a kiss.
Speaker 2: Again, right, And that was a big deal like that,
Speaker 2: Like you did not see things that did that, that
Speaker 2: turned away from the plaque and looked at you to sing.
Speaker 2: That put the novel in novelty for big mouth billy bass,
Speaker 2: if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like I was saying, though, it was a
Speaker 1: pretty sophisticated thing the way it all worked. And for
Speaker 1: twenty nine ninety five, you know, they took a long
Speaker 1: time to build. It wasn't cheap. It was a well
Speaker 1: made piece of gear. It was forty days to build one.
Speaker 1: So I think Jimmy G. E. M. M. Y was
Speaker 1: the company that which still owns the big Mouth Billy
Speaker 1: Bass that he was working for. But they didn't know
Speaker 1: it was going to be such a big deal. So
Speaker 1: and like I said, because it took so long to make,
Speaker 1: they ended up shorthanded. And these things were going on
Speaker 1: eBay for like three times the amount.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean twenty nine ninety five in two
Speaker 2: thousand was about fifty seven dollars today for a latex
Speaker 2: singing fish essentially. But it just it hit just right
Speaker 2: and it became like basically the big thing in two
Speaker 2: thousand in the United States, and in very short order,
Speaker 2: competitors came out and knockoffs came out, and then they
Speaker 2: showed up with different songs too. I Will Survive, Stay
Speaker 2: in Alive YMCA.
Speaker 1: Of course this was.
Speaker 2: During a disco revival, if you'll remember correctly. And I
Speaker 2: found I didn't send this to you, I don't think.
Speaker 2: But the Royal Palm shuffle Board Club, the Chicago location
Speaker 2: along one wall, they have more than seventy big mouth Billy.
Speaker 1: Bass Wow Nightmare Fuel that.
Speaker 2: They have choreographed, not even to do to sing in
Speaker 2: unison like one will sing the main part and the
Speaker 2: others will turn and like sing the chorus and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, but they sing Staying Alive. They sing talking
Speaker 2: Heads once in a lifetime, and then they sing Choices
Speaker 2: by E forty. So it's really something to see if
Speaker 2: you go look up the video.
Speaker 1: Wow, I gotta check that out. That took some pretty
Speaker 1: brilliant wiring, I imagine.
Speaker 2: I can't. I think it is just timing. I don't
Speaker 2: know how they did it, but it's really impressive. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it is a little haunting for sure, because they have
Speaker 2: dead eyes. I never really thought about it before. But
Speaker 2: that's the thing. One of the things that makes it
Speaker 2: so absurd is the fish looks dead still, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. They didn't try to make it look alive.
Speaker 2: It looks like a dead mounted fish come to life
Speaker 2: or come to reanimation, singing to you.
Speaker 1: I never really thought about that.
Speaker 2: I didn't either until just the second Chuck Well, he sold.
Speaker 1: About one hundred million dollars worth of these things. It
Speaker 1: was popular for about a year, which is all you
Speaker 1: need really, and they don't even advertise their products, so
Speaker 1: this was all word of mouth, like somebody would see
Speaker 1: it in someone's house, and you know, in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They would go to use a bathroom and this bass
Speaker 1: would start singing to them, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: they're buying four of them to give to their friends
Speaker 1: and so on and so on. And they don't realized
Speaker 1: when they buy it. Though, as you know, that motion
Speaker 1: sensor worked pretty well, and so you got sick of
Speaker 1: it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, for sure, in America as a whole
Speaker 2: got sick of it pretty quickly. So, like you said,
Speaker 2: a year is pretty much all you need and we
Speaker 2: moved on. But not before like it appeared in all
Speaker 2: sorts of different TV shows, and like it was parodied too,
Speaker 2: and I think it played a role in an episode
Speaker 2: of Murder. She wrote. Nope, it was on Sopranos, though
Speaker 2: there was a like a at least one episode where
Speaker 2: it showed up and it was kind of like a mcguffin.
Speaker 1: Maybe, Oh God, can we move on to the be Dazzler. Yes,
Speaker 1: this was a big deal. This was a came from
Speaker 1: a guy named Herman Brickman who was a protege of
Speaker 1: ron Papel, and he invented it in the late seventies
Speaker 1: and it was called the stud Setter, the Ronco rhinestone
Speaker 1: at first, and you know, it was like kids used
Speaker 1: it some of the eighties, But in the nineties it
Speaker 1: became a really big deal because people like Paris Hilton
Speaker 1: and Britney Spear. It became like a fashion thing because
Speaker 1: people would be dazzle. Like there's a lot of denim,
Speaker 1: like denim jackets and jeans and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Just to kind of get across what you're doing here.
Speaker 2: This is pretty involved. But you take say a pair
Speaker 2: of jeans, maybe around the pocket, and you slide that
Speaker 2: bit of fabric in between the backstop, the bottom of
Speaker 2: the thing, the base of the thing, and the plunger,
Speaker 2: and under the plunger you put a setter and the rhyinestone.
Speaker 2: You plunge it down and all of a sudden, you've
Speaker 2: just bedazzled your genes. Well you yeah, you've put one
Speaker 2: bedazzle onto your jeans and you have a lot of
Speaker 2: work ahead of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think you need to put at least five
Speaker 1: things for it to truly bedazzle.
Speaker 2: That seems like the minimum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it looks kind of like a
Speaker 1: stapler and Mental Floss. You've got some stuff from Mental
Speaker 1: Floss on this one. And apparently Ron Pappeel at one point,
Speaker 1: as a selling point, said it can make an eight
Speaker 1: dollars pair of jeans worth up to fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: The thing that kills me from that is worse up
Speaker 2: to fifty.
Speaker 1: Dollars, Like, are you gonna get sell them or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so, I think that's what he was suggesting.
Speaker 1: I think people did that actually.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's identified as a Y two K fashion
Speaker 2: trend that came from millennium optimism. I don't remember optimism
Speaker 2: of the millennium to you, I remember like fear in dread.
Speaker 1: Hmm uh, I don't remember. I remember the fear in
Speaker 1: dread about the Y two K bug. But maybe after
Speaker 1: that there was optimism because we were now like living
Speaker 1: in the future or something. I don't know, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe I'll.
Speaker 1: Pretty out of it at the time for sure.
Speaker 2: But well, I'm talking more about like the whole X
Speaker 2: Files zeitgeist. You know, it was a lot really paranoid
Speaker 2: and just kind of dark. I don't know. I always
Speaker 2: think of it as like a people were just kind
Speaker 2: of worried on a really unconscious level about what was
Speaker 2: going to happen. That's just you buddy, Yeah, maybe it was.
Speaker 2: So it's made a comeback chuck. If you go on
Speaker 2: to TikTok or Instagram and you say bedazzle in the
Speaker 2: little search bar, I'll bring up like little videos of
Speaker 2: people bedazzling stuff. They don't use the bedazzler machine anymore
Speaker 2: because you can. I think people still bedazzle clothes here there,
Speaker 2: but this is more like the current trend is more
Speaker 2: about like bedazzling objects instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've definitely seen bedazzleed cell phone cases and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Uh, and I know that. I guess you've
Speaker 1: seen vasoline jarsdests where you see these.
Speaker 2: I saw it on man, I can't remember where I
Speaker 2: saw it, but somebody took a little mini vasoline brand
Speaker 2: vasiline petroleum jelly jar just redid the whole thing in
Speaker 2: different colored rhinestones and it looks like a it's a
Speaker 2: bedazzled vasiline jar. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you need, if you
Speaker 1: need to grease yourself up, you might as well have
Speaker 1: on doing it.
Speaker 2: And so the thing is, though, it is like, since
Speaker 2: you can't use the bedazzling machine, you're just kind of
Speaker 2: like kind of tediously like applying one after the other
Speaker 2: with an adhesive. It's not the whole satisfying plunge of
Speaker 2: applying them. So it's a little more of a craft
Speaker 2: these days, like a kind of a meditative, tedious craft,
Speaker 2: as opposed to like the whole rock and roll ethos
Speaker 2: of the original Bedazzler that was in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the origami of you know, blingy crafts.
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, we're down to our last two, if
Speaker 2: you can believe it or not. I think we're gonna
Speaker 2: end up doing eight total, because remember we're not including
Speaker 2: the form and grill. That's not silly, and it was
Speaker 2: the intro. Everybody, don't get confused here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I guess we need to take the break then.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, thank you for thinking of that, because Jerry
Speaker 2: would have killed us.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be back right after this with Oh boy,
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna say, you just gotta wait and see.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, we're back, and you wouldn't say what was
Speaker 2: coming up next. You left it to me, So I'll
Speaker 2: just tell everybody we're about to go dive into the
Speaker 2: flow bee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what episode did we talk about the flow bee? On?
Speaker 2: Doesn't ring? A bell.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it at some point, because I remember
Speaker 1: mentioning that we almost bought one in our college house late,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of late night one night, like you do.
Speaker 1: You're up late doing god knows what, and you see
Speaker 1: the infomercial come on, and you're all like, we should
Speaker 1: get one of those and cut each other's hair. But then,
Speaker 1: true college passion, no one ever follows up on that
Speaker 1: and does it.
Speaker 2: Yep. That's because no one had a credit card that
Speaker 2: they were willing to bust out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. I had that college MX.
Speaker 2: That's uh. Yeah, I had college Capital one. Huh that
Speaker 2: that's uh. That's how it works. Though, like those late
Speaker 2: night commercials, essentially, I would guess probably fifty sixty percent
Speaker 2: of sales of all these products come from people ordering
Speaker 2: them while they're drunk. Yeah, probably, So it's got to
Speaker 2: be like that explains quite a bit of it. So
Speaker 2: the flow bee this is like a humble, legitimate invention. Oh,
Speaker 2: by the way, we must have talked about it in
Speaker 2: our how Vacuum Attachments Work episode? Yeah that was but
Speaker 2: this guy, this was invented by a guy named Rick Haunts,
Speaker 2: who I saw the original infomercial for this, and he
Speaker 2: said that he was dissatisfied with the haircuts he was
Speaker 2: getting and that they grew out too fast, and wouldn't
Speaker 2: it be great if he could keep up with it himself.
Speaker 2: And he wasn't in the salon hairstyle industry, he wasn't
Speaker 2: in the vacuum industry. He was a carpenter who owned
Speaker 2: a cabinatry company out in California. So he was a
Speaker 2: California cabinet carpenter. That would have been better if all
Speaker 2: of it had rolled off the ton. And his name
Speaker 2: was Rick Hunts. I don't know if I said that
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a humble carpenter, much like Jesus and Harrison Ford.
Speaker 1: So he gives up. He believes in this thing so
Speaker 1: much he gives up his carpentry business. He sells it,
Speaker 1: in fact, to help fund it. Went around to county
Speaker 1: fairs demonstrating this thing. He called it the vacuum cut
Speaker 1: at first, but eventually renamed it the flow bee because
Speaker 1: it makes like a buzzing sound, like a bee. And
Speaker 1: he colored it thustly. It was like a yellow and
Speaker 1: black and it's you know, if you don't know what
Speaker 1: this thing is, it attaches to a vacuum cleaner, and
Speaker 1: so you got to have one of those, of course,
Speaker 1: and it engages the vacuum and pulls your hair into
Speaker 1: a you know, they have these like recessed hair trimmers
Speaker 1: blades in there, and they had different attachments to cut
Speaker 1: it at different links. So it just sucking your hair.
Speaker 1: So you know, I saw a guy went on YouTube
Speaker 1: today to see it demonstrated in modern times, and I
Speaker 1: guess this is during COVID because the guy was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: these are great things to have around right now during COVID. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you just sort of suck some up and
Speaker 1: then push it back down and pull it out and
Speaker 1: push it down all over your hair evenly, and it
Speaker 1: supposedly does a decent job of cutting your hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know when you go to you know,
Speaker 2: Great Clips or Van Michael or something like that, the
Speaker 2: hairstylist will put their fingers through your hair and pull
Speaker 2: up and put tension on your hair to make it
Speaker 2: easier to cut. That's what the vacuum suction does to
Speaker 2: your hair. So that means that you don't need to
Speaker 2: have somebody with extra hands to cut your hair. Technically,
Speaker 2: you can do yourself. This thing you just run over
Speaker 2: your head. And that was always essentially the big selling
Speaker 2: point for the flow be is well two of them.
Speaker 2: One you can cut your hair anytime you want. Well
Speaker 2: three two you're gonna save a ton of money. The
Speaker 2: flow he's gonna pay for itself in a couple of months,
Speaker 2: depending outside of your family. And then three no clippings
Speaker 2: to pick up because it all gets sucked right into
Speaker 2: your shop back.
Speaker 1: No muss, no fuss. Uh. The problem for me is
Speaker 1: I love getting a haircut.
Speaker 2: Oh me too. I get to go hang out with
Speaker 2: my buddy Michael, who does my hair.
Speaker 1: I get to hang out with my friend Robin, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's always good. It's fun, it's a it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of like I don't do spa treatments much, so this
Speaker 1: is sort of like a spa treatment for me. Get
Speaker 1: my hair washed by somebody. It's the best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice. Do you get a hot towel
Speaker 2: and like a little lavender essential oil?
Speaker 1: Uh no, she doesn't do like it's not like one
Speaker 1: of those men's barbershops where they offer you a whiskey
Speaker 1: and no, no in the hotael treatment. But she does
Speaker 1: a great job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, neither's mine. It's a salon for sure. Uh so,
Speaker 2: uh let's see. Oh so I wanted to say also,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons the flow gets to me is
Speaker 2: Rick Kant's like he was kind of the person I
Speaker 2: was referencing at the beginning, where like he really I
Speaker 2: think you might have said he sold his cabinetry business
Speaker 2: to fund this, and he started pounding the pavement. He's like,
Speaker 2: I've got a great idea here and I've got to
Speaker 2: just get it out there. He went to Nialko, he
Speaker 2: went to con Air, he went to Remington. I saw
Speaker 2: there was a great article on mental floss that really
Speaker 2: kind of covered the flowbee. But he was getting nowhere.
Speaker 2: He went to salons, and salons are like, no, we
Speaker 2: don't want to sell this. It's going to cut into
Speaker 2: our business. So he did what most great silly inventors
Speaker 2: have done. He took it directly to the consumer. He
Speaker 2: created a direct response infomercial. He ponied up thirty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars of his own money to produce a thirty minute
Speaker 2: infomercial and it first aired in nineteen eighty eight, and
Speaker 2: the premise of it is it's a fake show. The
Speaker 2: show is new products and ideas which doesn't exist. It
Speaker 2: was just for the show and it was hosted by
Speaker 2: Lenny mcgil no one knows who that is, had a
Speaker 2: synth soundtrack, and the guests just happened to be Rick
Speaker 2: Hunts and like, he just demonstrates the flowbe and you
Speaker 2: could get it directly through that infomercial and it just
Speaker 2: started to take off from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a thirty minute infomercial for something that takes ninety
Speaker 1: seconds to describe is and demonstrate too. Probably we haven't
Speaker 1: seen patting like that since probably this episode of ours.
Speaker 2: That was that was a low blow, but pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1: They sold between seventy dollars and one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars a piece. He sold about two million of them,
Speaker 1: so they sold a ton of these. And if you
Speaker 1: go on YouTube to you know, and type in flow
Speaker 1: B if you want to see a demonstration, one of
Speaker 1: the top things that'll come up is George Clooney because
Speaker 1: he's been on I saw him on Kimmel, I know,
Speaker 1: he's been on CBS Sunday Morning. Apparently has been non
Speaker 1: ironically using the FLOWB for decades on himself is what
Speaker 1: he says.
Speaker 2: At least, Yeah, he said listen, man, it works, yeah,
Speaker 2: he was. Yeah, non ironically is a great way to
Speaker 2: put it. So that's it for the Flowbe hats off
Speaker 2: ra Kunts for sticking to your your dreams, your vision.
Speaker 2: I think recunts demonstrates a lesson for all of us.
Speaker 1: Agreed.
Speaker 2: And then last up, Chuck, we have one that's a
Speaker 2: little dear to my heart. The Snuggie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never had a snuggy. The snuggie is a blanket
Speaker 1: with sleeves, full stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can wear it. Essentially, it's a blanket you
Speaker 2: can wear. It's opening in the back like a hospital gown. Basically,
Speaker 2: I don't remember what.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: I think the current snuggies are made of fleece, but
Speaker 2: the original ones were definitely not fleece. They were like
Speaker 2: the most chemically chemical fabrics you can possibly imagine, oh man,
Speaker 2: and you would get them at like drug stores, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. But they originally started as a direct
Speaker 2: response TV campaign and they made a splash, like almost
Speaker 2: out of the gate. They were just this talked about item.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight and nine twenty ten, I
Speaker 2: saw there was a blogger who I could not find
Speaker 2: the name of. If this was you write in and
Speaker 2: let us know because it was great. They said that
Speaker 2: the people in the Snuggie commercial who are just doing
Speaker 2: like everyday stuff but wearing this blanket, he said, they
Speaker 2: all looked like members of a laid back satanic cult.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's pretty good. That's a cult I wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind being in. Actually, the only cult that appeals to.
Speaker 2: Me, this snuggy cult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they sold a ton of them, though, like all
Speaker 1: of these, that seems to be a recurring theme. They
Speaker 1: sold twenty five million Snuggies, so not twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's about five hundred million bucks. And they did that
Speaker 1: generally between two thousand and eight and topped out at
Speaker 1: that number by twenty thirteen. So it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: a one year wonder. It was a you know, I
Speaker 1: had a little bit of staying power.
Speaker 2: It did. And Snuggie wasn't the first one. Apparently, the
Speaker 2: very first blanket with sleeves was called the slanket, which
Speaker 2: was invented by a freshman at University of Maine and
Speaker 2: I think nineteen ninety eight. It's name was a course
Speaker 2: and that made its a splash, I guess on QVC
Speaker 2: and I think it enjoyed like a resurgence during the
Speaker 2: Snuggy era. But even before the Snuggie and after the Slanket,
Speaker 2: there was the Freedom Blanket, the Book Blanket, the Cuddle Rap,
Speaker 2: the Toasty Rap. The difference was Snuggie went all in
Speaker 2: on their direct response TV campaign and they I think
Speaker 2: the cute name really helped too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you never know when you're you know,
Speaker 1: something is just going to hit the zeitgeist. It just
Speaker 1: in just the right way, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I said it had a place in my heart.
Speaker 2: The Snuggie did that. It's because for Halloween two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, which is the best Halloween I've had as
Speaker 2: an adult in my life. You me went as a
Speaker 2: Snuggie and it was a lot of fun. We walked
Speaker 2: around New York and then went to a friend's party,
Speaker 2: our friend Adam's party, and just had a great night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: So I think that said Chuck, forty minutes of high
Speaker 2: quality stuff. You should know podcasting has just been completed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, forty two and a half minutes. If you want
Speaker 1: to get technical.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I guess I started after you. Oh now
Speaker 2: it says forty one fifteen.
Speaker 1: Now, Oh my god, I hope this is a big
Speaker 1: edit job for Jerry.
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck worried about the edit job for Jerry,
Speaker 2: I think that means it's listener mail time, don't.
Speaker 1: You That's right? Instead of listener mail, though, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do an Instagram comment, okay, because I couldn't find a
Speaker 1: get into listener mail. But I went to our Instagram page,
Speaker 1: which is I think that's HYSK podcast, correct is the
Speaker 1: name of it. And you know we're going to start
Speaker 1: doing some more fun stuff over there by the way,
Speaker 1: if you want to give it a follow. But this
Speaker 1: is from a J gree six a J g r
Speaker 1: e E six okay, and this was following up on
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Meat Shower short stuff episode.
Speaker 2: Oh good good.
Speaker 1: I haven't listened yet because I'm on vacation, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure you mentioned it's coming up on the Meat Showers anniversary. Guys,
Speaker 1: and Bathco was supposedly re enacting this event crying laughing emoji.
Speaker 1: This could be a fun way to do listener mail
Speaker 1: moving forward. Actually, I always geek out when you two
Speaker 1: talk about Kentucky. I've gone to your past four Seattle shows.
Speaker 1: My one question, if I had the chance, was always
Speaker 1: going to be do you love Kentucky or are we
Speaker 1: just really weird? And we're talking about a bit of both,
Speaker 1: I'm sure and AJ gree six now remembering we've done
Speaker 1: a few Kentucky based episodes now that I think about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, remember the Beverly Hills supper Club fire in northern Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Blue People, right.
Speaker 2: Were they out of Kentucky? You're right, You're right. Kentucky
Speaker 2: wasn't great memory, sure, and how jack Hammer's worked that
Speaker 2: was Kentucky heavy.
Speaker 1: Oh, we probably we had to mention Kentucky in our
Speaker 1: Thoroughbreds episode.
Speaker 2: Definitely. Man, we really have to done a lot of Kentucky. Sorry, Iowa,
Speaker 2: we need to do a show in Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I've always on it. Just Lexington or Louisville is the
Speaker 1: big question, so let us know.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. Well who was that again?
Speaker 1: R J gree six, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot our J gree six or something like that.
Speaker 2: We appreciate you hanging out on our Instagram page. We
Speaker 2: have that Instagram page. I think we have a Facebook
Speaker 2: page too. We're on X Blue Sky TikTok we're even
Speaker 2: on TikTok Chuck. Is't that nuts?
Speaker 1: I did not even know that.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure we are. A shout out by the
Speaker 2: way to Spencer, our social media friend who helps us
Speaker 2: big time with that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we'll shout those guys out. If you're
Speaker 1: looking to hire someone to do your paid professional social media,
Speaker 1: you can do a lot worse than hot Dog Sandwich.
Speaker 1: Those guys are great.
Speaker 2: They are great, and they're fun to work with and
Speaker 2: they just know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, super cool dudes.
Speaker 2: So yeah, keep an eye out on our social media
Speaker 2: stuff for I guess some more things from us than
Speaker 2: you're probably used to, and then you can also, as always,
Speaker 2: contact us via email at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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