Some Silly Inventions That Became Wildly Popular

7:10Josh Clark:I've never even heard of that show.

7:12Chuck Bryant:It was the kind of show that would come on at 3.30 p.m. Saturday, right after reruns of Mama's Family.

7:20Josh Clark:Okay. Yeah, I've really never heard of She's the Sheriff. I take it she was the sheriff.

7:24Chuck Bryant:She was the sheriff. Okay. It was a good show. But yes, of course, Three's Company, Chrissy, is who she is vastly, far and away, better known for. But, I mean, that was like the late 70s, early 80s when she left Three's Company. Apparently she was making$120 ,000 less an episode than John Ritter. So she's like, I'm out of here. And there was kind of a lull in her career between then and, I guess, 1991, when she came back with a vengeance on TV pitching this Thighmaster.

8:01Josh Clark:Yeah, pitching the V-bar. That's what it was originally called when a Swedish physical therapist named Dr. Anne-Marie Benstrom invented this thing in the 60s. But they tweaked it a little bit. They made it look cooler. They made it a little more colorful and brought it into the 80s slash early 90s and approached her to, like you said, like, hey, you know, you're a very recognizable face and you're into fitness. And you're a smart lady. She played a dingbat on Three's Company, but Suzanne Somers is a very smart woman. Yeah. As evidenced by the perhaps$300 million she made on Hawken, the Thighmaster, and eventually buying out the partners to where she outright owned it.

8:43Chuck Bryant:That's awesome. So you said that this is an existing device, right? The V-Bar?

8:49Josh Clark:Yes.

8:50Chuck Bryant:So what it was, we should just say real quick, the Thighmaster or the V-Bar was this kind of device. What would you liken it to? You know those paper chip clips?

9:03Josh Clark:Yeah, I'm just ready for you to confuse everybody. Go ahead.

9:06Chuck Bryant:Okay. It's like a giant paper chip clip, but it doesn't open up so you couldn't clip it to anything. It's just the squeezing part. So go to your kitchen right now, get a paper chip clip, break off the part that opens up, and then put the little remaining part that's like a V, the V bar, between your legs and squeeze. And what you're doing is using a mini Thighmaster right now.

9:31Josh Clark:That's right. You do the same thing with your fingers if you wanted to.

9:35Chuck Bryant:Right. So they made it pop. And, like, they hid the spring in the middle and they gave it some great coloring. And this was now the Thigh Master that Suzanne Somers was now demonstrating on some very famous TV ads, again, starting in 1991.

9:52Josh Clark:That's right. And I guess the only other thing we should mention is that there was a physician on a lot of these commercials. There was a guy wearing a lab coat, Dr. Herbert L. Gould, who was there to, you know, recommend the thing and saying that he uses it. And the cherry on top is that Dr. Gould was an ophthalmologist.

10:12Chuck Bryant:Isn't that great?

10:13Josh Clark:Not that that doesn't, you know. I mean, still a doctor, still used the thing, I guess.

10:18Chuck Bryant:For sure. Yeah, it's not illegitimate. It's just funny.

10:21Josh Clark:Clearly knew Suzanne Somers somehow, probably.

10:25Chuck Bryant:Or they just started picking doctors at random.

10:28Josh Clark:No, I think he was probably her ophthalmologist would be my guess.

10:31Chuck Bryant:Yeah, you're probably right. I feel like there is one more thing we should mention about the ad, and that is the fact that Suzanne Somers appeared in it wearing a leotard, like you would think for working out, but also pantyhose and high heels, which is a specific kind of look.

10:49Josh Clark:Yeah. Oh, actually, there is one more thing because this is we buried the lead. The probably most interesting thing about all of this is that there is a direct response hall of fame. and she's in it.

10:59Chuck Bryant:Yep. She was inducted in 2014 and rightly so.

11:03Josh Clark:Amazing.

11:05Chuck Bryant:Take an early break or move on?

11:08Josh Clark:No, we got to move on.

11:09Chuck Bryant:Okay. So I say we move on to the pocket fisherman and a little bit of a bio on Ron Popeil, one of the great salesmen of all time.

11:19Josh Clark:Oh, yeah. Ron Popeil, if you had a TV in the 1980s and 90s, then you have seen this dude. He was the guy that, you know, but wait, there's more. That came from him. He originated that term. He was popular in the, I guess, even like the 50s and early 60s when he made the first infomercial for the Vegematic. It slices, it dices. Like that was Ron Pupil. All these sort of tropes of infomercials, a lot of them come from the great Ron Pupil.

11:52Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that Vegematic infomercial, that was like the world's first one. So yes, he was an infomercial god. And he got his start. He was always good at selling things. Apparently, by the time he was 16, he was selling his dad's inventions at flea markets and grossing about 500 bucks a day. And that's in 1951 dollars. So that's like 10 million dollars a day today. And within just a few years, he was a household name thanks to television. and it was largely built on that vegematic that apparently his dad invented.

12:27Josh Clark:Yeah, it was, you know, it's a veggie chopper.

12:30Chuck Bryant:Yeah, manual food processor. And that's it. But because he could get so excited about any wacky, weird invention and try to make you excited about it, there was just no ignoring this guy.

12:44Josh Clark:Yeah, he had the in-shell egg scrambler, And that was a device where if you didn't want to crack your egg, put it in a bowl and scramble it. You could use this little device that had a little bent pin that went inside the eggshell and spun around. Very interesting invention. And the GLH, which stood for great looking hair, the GLH Formula No. 9 hair system, which is basically spray paint for bald spots. Yeah, it was like aerosol spray hair-like product or something like that. Remember when Rudy Giuliani sweated that stuff down the side of his face?

13:25Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I do. It was amazing. It was.

13:29Josh Clark:What a time when he was on TV sweating what looked like shoe polish and then standing in front of that eye.

13:38Chuck Bryant:Four Seasons landscape.

13:40Josh Clark:Oh, my God. What a time to be alive. Amazing. It was like SNL come to life.

13:45Chuck Bryant:It really was. It's moment after moment, too, something new. Yeah. Inside the eggshell scrambler, too, by the way. So one of the other things about all these products are their ads are magnificent. Sometimes they're magnificently terrible or just so absurd or just unintentionally salacious. But this inside the eggshell scrambler ad had a little kid sitting at a table, and he had been served like runny eggs. and the TV announcer says, no more runny eggs. And the kid looks at his plate and kind of gags a little bit.

14:24Josh Clark:Good Lord. I love runny eggs.

14:26Chuck Bryant:Well, this kid didn't. And apparently neither did Ron Popeil because he used it as a selling point.

14:32Josh Clark:Well, his company, because he was Ron, was called Ronco. They've done a couple of billion in sales over the year. And part of that chunk is owed to the pocket fisherman, which is the one on the list here. And you can still get a pocket Fisherman. It is exactly what it sounds like. It's a compact fishing rod that folds up very small. It has a little compartment in the handle to hold some stuff. And it's, you know, the problem with the Pocket Fisherman, like it works. If you go on YouTube, there are plenty of examples of people using this thing and catching like decent sized fish even. It's just not, I think you had in here, maybe it was Strickland that said it solves a problem that we didn't know existed.

15:15Josh Clark:And that's kind of true because, you know, if you're going camping, let's say, or backpacking, and you pack up and break down a regular size fishing rod, it straps on the outside of your backpack, no problem. And it's not really that big or in the way. So the pocket fisherman just took it a little further, I guess. Yeah.

15:33Chuck Bryant:And made it chunkier.

15:35Josh Clark:Yeah. They're cool looking. Yeah.

15:37Chuck Bryant:They look vaguely like a staple gun. Oh, okay. That you break off the handle from and put between your legs and squeeze staples into the insides of your thighs. That's what it looks like.

15:50Josh Clark:I think we should definitely take that break now.

15:52Chuck Bryant:Okay.

15:53Josh Clark:All right. We'll be right back with a few more right after this.

16:10Josh Clark:Hey, everybody. We got to tell you, it's Way Day at Wayfair. From April 25th through the 27th, you can score the best deals in home, like up to 80 % off with free shipping on everything.

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16:32Josh Clark:That's right. Upgrade your space with quality pieces that work within your budget. And you know what? The best part? Like I mentioned, everything ships fast and free during Wayday.

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17:16Josh Clark:I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really started making money. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating While Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what? Today, now, obviously, it's like 100%. They believe everything, but at first it was just like, you gotta go get a real job.

17:51Josh Clark:There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by fail is they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids. They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math & Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.

18:24Josh Clark:Math & Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This season of Math & Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate, Mike Milken, Take-Two Interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick. If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business. Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and her own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey.

18:59Josh Clark:Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top. Listen to Math & Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:29Josh Clark:All right, we're back, everybody. And next on the list, we have the Shake Weight, which is a, you know, a semi-legitimate piece of workout equipment. It's kind of like a dumbbell. If you picture a dumbbell, but instead of just lifting the dumbbell, you put both hands on it and move it. And there's a spring in the middle and the two ends of the dumbbell like move like when you shake it, a shake weight. That's what it is. But it became popular not because of its how well it worked or how good of a piece of gear it was. It became popular because of the clearly obvious sexual innuendo that comes about while operating.

20:11Chuck Bryant:Yeah, we don't really need to explain it. Just go look at a Shake Weight ad and you'll immediately understand what we're talking about. Yeah. The thing is, though, Chuck, is it does seem to have worked, right? Like you're basically instead of you moving, the weight is moving and what you're trying to do is stabilize it. And what the shake weight makers were saying is like, hey, man, this requires way more muscle exertion than traditional dumbbell lifting. And they commissioned some studies that basically said, yeah, this actually is correct. Use something more like 300 percent more muscle activity than you do with traditional dumbbells.

20:52Chuck Bryant:And in like one sixth of the time, too. And plus, I think they had a two and a half pound version that was for women, apparently. And then one that was double the weight for men. And the two and a half pound version burned as many calories as a 12 pound dumbbell. So all of this checked out. Yeah. But again, that's not really what people were buying the shake weight for.

21:17Josh Clark:No, it was parodied sort of all over the place, obviously, on stuff like SNL. Ellen DeGeneres. And, you know, it was just one of those funny things that hit like virally early on because of how it looked when you used it. You know, I imagine it was a pretty decent cardio workout. I don't think I've ever seen one in person or touched one.

21:40Chuck Bryant:I don't believe I have either. But I live with one for a while. Did you? No. It was a mean drunk. Yeah.

21:50Josh Clark:I wonder if these things had, if they were like in actual gyms.

21:55Chuck Bryant:I don't know. I like, this is one of the things like when it comes to exercise equipment, like the Thighmaster 2, the shake weight was like there was article after article. Like it doesn't really work. It actually works. And from what I saw, the consensus seemed to be that it definitely did give you a workout. Like you could feel it, but for as far as strength training, which is what most people use dumbbells for, it wasn't going to help you very much for that.

22:21Josh Clark:Yeah, probably pretty good cardio, like I said, and I imagine it was a pretty decent forearm workout, you know?

22:28Chuck Bryant:Right, exactly. But yes, I'm sure most people wouldn't have been caught dead at the gym using one of those things. All right, well, that was the shake weight. Oh, one other thing. I saw that in one year, I think this was 2010, they they made something like 40 million dollars off of it.

22:47Josh Clark:These things. It's crazy.

22:49Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it is pretty impressive. So what's up next, Charles?

22:54Josh Clark:Well, we got to go with Big Mouth. I couldn't even say it right. Almost said Billy Big Mouth, but that's just what I called mine. Big mouth billy bass took the world by storm in the early 2000s. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it is if you've ever seen a taxidermied fish mounted on a plaque on the wall, like a big large mouth bass. Imagine if that thing came to life and saying, don't worry, be happy to you.

23:21Chuck Bryant:Yeah, this thing had a real evil dead vibe to it.

23:25Josh Clark:Yeah, I think so. Take Me to the River was the other one of the two original or not original songs, but you know what I mean, the first songs that the Billy Bass played.

23:34Chuck Bryant:Right. And this is in 2000 when Billy Bass spent its year in the limelight. But the story goes back a couple of years earlier. And the inventor Joe Pelletieri and his wife, Barbara, were out on a road trip. Joe was looking for the next big idea. He was a VP at a novelty company. and he was trying to figure out, you know, what to do. I think he had kind of hit a dry patch and was a little concerned. And they ended up at a Bass Pro Shop on their road trip. And his wife, Barbara, knowing that he was trying to come up with a new idea, said, why not a mounted fish that sings? And Joe said, Barbara, I could kiss you.

24:13Chuck Bryant:And she says, well, what are you waiting for? And they kissed.

24:17Josh Clark:I wonder how that went down. Was she literally walking around a Bass Pro Shop and saw a taxidermied fish and said, wouldn't it be great if that thing sang, don't worry, be happy.

24:27Chuck Bryant:That's how I envision it.

24:30Josh Clark:Just what a while. I mean, was she on peyote? I don't know.

24:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah, maybe she didn't even think of it.

24:36Josh Clark:She saw it, you know. Yeah, it's such a weird thing to conjure up, but I love it. And it was a very, very fun product. Like out of all these, to me, this is the most kind of fun thing that you might want to have on your wall.

24:48Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and I think it's great they went with, don't worry, be happy too. Take me to the river. You understand that. pretty funny. But Don't Worry, Be Happy, that was like the smash hit of 1988. Like it had been dead and gone for over a decade. And they brought that thing back with big mouth Billy Bass.

25:05Josh Clark:Yes. Hard to get that out, isn't it?

25:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it is.

25:09Josh Clark:So the thing was actually, for what it was, it was a fairly sophisticated piece of gear. They had a sensor inside of it. So when you walk by it, it would pick up on that and just automatically start singing. And he had some designs that he did over the years that he didn't love, but he really hit on it when, I guess, his wife Barbara probably said, well, why don't you have the thing turn its head out and sort of look at the person they're serenading? And he was like, by God, Barbara, we've got to kiss again.

25:38Chuck Bryant:Right. And that was a big deal. Like you did not see things that did that, that turned away from the plaque and looked at you to sing. That put the novel and novelty for Big Mouth Billy Bass, if you ask me. Yeah.

25:50Josh Clark:So like I was saying, though, it was a pretty sophisticated thing, the way it all worked. And for$29.95, you know, they took a long time to build. It wasn't cheap. It was a well-made piece of gear. It was 40 days to build one. So I think Jimmy, G-E-M-M-Y, was the company that he, which still owns the Big Mouth Billy bass that he was working for, but they didn't know it was going to be such a big deal. So, and like I said, because it took so long to make, they ended up shorthanded and these things were going on eBay for like three times the amount. Yeah.

26:26Chuck Bryant:And I mean,$29.95 in 2000 was about$57 today for a latex singing fish, essentially. But it just, it hit just right. And it became like basically the big thing in 2000 in the United States. And in very short order, competitors came out and knockoffs came out. And then they showed up with different songs, too. I Will Survive, Stayin' Alive, YMCA. Of course. This was during a disco revival, if you'll remember correctly. And I found, I didn't send this to you, I don't think, but the Royal Palm Shuffleboard Club, the Chicago location. Okay. Along one wall, they have more than 70 Big Mouth Billy Bass.

27:10Chuck Bryant:Wow.

27:11Josh Clark:Nightmare fuel.

27:12Chuck Bryant:That they have choreographed.

27:14Josh Clark:Uh-huh.

27:15Chuck Bryant:Not even to sing in unison. Like one will sing the main part and the others will turn and like sing the chorus and stuff like that. But they sing Stayin' Alive. They sing Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime. And then they sing Choices by E40. So it's really something to see if you go look up the video. Wow.

27:35Josh Clark:I got to check that out. That took some pretty brilliant wiring, I imagine.

27:39Chuck Bryant:I can't. I think it was just timing. I don't know how they did it, but it's really impressive. But, yeah, it is a little haunting for sure because they have dead eyes. I never really thought about it before, but that's the thing. One of the things that makes it so absurd is the fish looks dead still. You know what I mean? They didn't try to make it look alive. It looks like a dead mounted fish come to life or come to reanimation singing to you.

28:07Josh Clark:I never really thought about that.

28:09Chuck Bryant:I didn't either until just the second, Chuck.

28:12Josh Clark:Well, he sold about a hundred million dollars worth of these things. It was popular for about a year, which is all you need, really. And they don't even advertise their product. So this was all word of mouth. Like somebody would see it in someone's house and, you know, in the bathroom, they would go to use the bathroom and this bass would start singing to them. and before you know it, they're buying four of them to give to their friends and so on and so on. And they don't realize when they buy it, though, is, you know, that motion sensor worked pretty well. And so you got sick of it pretty quickly, I think.

28:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah, for sure. And America as a whole got sick of it pretty quickly. So like you said, a year is pretty much all you need. And we moved on, but not before like it appeared in all sorts of different TV shows. And like it was parodied, too. And I think it played a role in an episode of. Murder, She Wrote? No. It was on Sopranos, though. There was at least one episode where it showed up, and it was kind of like a MacGuffin, maybe?

29:10Josh Clark:Oh, God. Can we move on to The Bedazzler?

29:14Chuck Bryant:Yes.

29:14Josh Clark:This was a big deal. This came from a guy named Herman Brickman, who was a protege of Ron Papil. And he invented it in the late 70s. It was called the Studsetter or the Ronco Rhinestone at first. And, you know, it was like kids used it some in the 80s. But in the 90s, it became a really big deal because people like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, it became like a fashion thing because people would bedazzle like it was a lot of denim, like denim jackets and jeans and stuff like that.

29:43Chuck Bryant:So just to kind of get across what you're doing here, this is pretty involved, but you take, say, a pair of jeans, maybe around the pocket, and you slide that bit of fabric in between the backstop, the bottom of the thing, the base of the thing, and the plunger. And under the plunger, you put a setter and the rhinestone, plunge it down, and all of a sudden, you've just bedazzled your jeans. Well, you, yeah, you've put one bedazzle onto your jeans and you have a lot of work ahead of you.

30:15Josh Clark:Yeah, I think you need to put at least five things for it to truly bedazzle.

30:18Chuck Bryant:That seems like the minimum, yeah.

30:20Josh Clark:Yeah, but yeah, it looks kind of like a stapler. And Mental Floss, you got some stuff from Mental Floss on this one. And apparently Ron Popeil at one point, as a selling point, said it can make an$8 pair of jeans worth up to$50.

30:35Chuck Bryant:The thing that kills me from that is worth up to$50.

30:40Josh Clark:Like, are you going to go sell them or something?

30:42Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I guess so. I think that's what he was suggesting.

30:45Josh Clark:I think people did that, actually.

30:46Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So it's identified as a Y2K fashion trend that came from millennium optimism. I don't remember optimism of the millennium. Do you? I remember, like, fear and dread.

31:01Josh Clark:Hmm. I don't remember. I remember the fear and dread about the Y2K bug. But maybe after that, there was optimism because we were now like living in the future or something. I don't know. I don't remember.

31:14Chuck Bryant:Maybe, maybe.

31:15Josh Clark:I was pretty out of it at the time.

31:17Chuck Bryant:For sure. But I'm talking more about like the whole X-Files zeitgeist, you know, it was a lot really paranoid and just kind of dark. I don't know. I always think of it as like people were just kind of worried on a really unconscious level about what was going to happen.

31:34Josh Clark:That's just you, buddy.

31:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah, maybe it was. So it's made a comeback, Chuck. If you go on to TikTok or Instagram and you say bedazzle in the little search bar, it'll bring up like little videos of people bedazzling stuff. They don't use the bedazzler machine anymore because you can, I think people still bedazzle clothes here or there, but this is more like the current trend is more about like bedazzling objects instead.

32:00Josh Clark:Yeah, I've definitely seen bedazzled cell phone cases and stuff like that. And I know that I guess you've seen Vaseline jars. Yes. Where you seeing these?

32:12Chuck Bryant:I saw it on and I can't remember where I saw it, but somebody took a little mini Vaseline brand Vaseline petroleum jelly jar and did just redid the whole thing in different colored rhinestones. and it looks like a, it's a bedazzled Vaseline jar. It's pretty impressive. Yeah.

32:32Josh Clark:I mean, I guess if you need, if you need to grease yourself up, you might as well have fun doing it.

32:37Chuck Bryant:So the thing is though, is like, since you can't use the bedazzling machine, you're just kind of like, kind of tediously like applying one after the other with an adhesive. There's not the whole satisfying plunge of applying them. So it's a little more of a craft these days, like a kind of a meditative, tedious craft. as opposed to like the whole rock and roll ethos of the original bedazzler that was in the 90s.

33:05Josh Clark:Yeah, it's like the origami of, you know, blingy crafts.

33:11Chuck Bryant:All right, Chuck, we're down to our last two, if you can believe it or not. I think we're going to end up doing eight total. Because remember, we're not including the Foreman Grill. That's not silly. And it was the intro, everybody. Don't get confused here.

33:24Josh Clark:Yeah, well, I guess we need to take the break then.

33:27Chuck Bryant:Oh, boy. Thank you for thinking of that because Jerry would have killed us.

33:30Josh Clark:All right. We'll be back right after this with, oh, boy. I'm not even going to say. You just got to wait and see.

33:48Josh Clark:I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating While Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what? Today, now, obviously, it's like 100%. They believe everything, but at first it was just like, you gotta go get a real job.

34:23Josh Clark:There's an economic component to community thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by fail is they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids. They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math & Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.

34:56Josh Clark:Math & Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This season of Math & Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate, Mike Milken, Take-Two Interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick. If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business. Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and her own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey.

35:31Josh Clark:Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top. Listen to Math & Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

35:48Chuck Bryant:When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts at everything. Here at the Nick, Dick, and Paul show, we're not afraid to make mistakes.

36:01Josh Clark:What Coogler did that I think was so unique, he's the writer-director.

36:06Chuck Bryant:Who do you think he is? I don't know. You meet the president? You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? The La Cruzette. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time. I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it at night. It's like the old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus. It was a good one. I like that saying. It is an actual Polish saying. It is an actual Polish saying. Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Yes. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually thought it was. I got that wrong. Listen to The Nick, Dick, and Paul Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

37:02Chuck Bryant:Okay, Chuck, we're back. And you wouldn't say what was coming up next. You left it to me. So I'll just tell everybody we're about to go dive into the Flowbee. Yeah.

37:13Josh Clark:What episode did we talk about the Flowbee on?

37:16Chuck Bryant:It doesn't ring a bell.

37:18Josh Clark:We've talked about it at some point because I remember mentioning that we almost bought one in our college house. You know, kind of late night one night like you do. You're up late doing God knows what and you see the infomercial come on and you're all like, we should get one of those and cut each other's hair. But then in true college passion, no one ever follows up on that and does it.

37:40Chuck Bryant:That's because no one had a credit card that they were willing to bust out.

37:44Josh Clark:Yeah, that's true. I had that college Amex.

37:47Chuck Bryant:That's, yeah, I had college capital one. That's how it works, though. Like those late night commercials. Essentially, I would guess probably 50, 60 percent of sales of all these products come from people ordering them while they're drunk. Yeah. probably so it's got to be like that explains quite a bit of it so the flow bee this is like a humble legitimate invention oh by the way we must have talked about it in our how vacuum attachments work episode yeah but this guy this was invented by a guy named Rick Hunts who I saw the original infomercial for this and he said that he was dissatisfied with the haircuts he was getting and that they grew out too fast and wouldn't it be great if he could keep up with it himself.

38:34Chuck Bryant:And he wasn't in the salon hairstyling industry. He wasn't even in the vacuum industry. He was a carpenter who owned a cabinetry company out in California. So he was a California cabinet carpenter. That would have been better if all of it had rolled off the tongue. And his name was Rick Hunt, so I don't know if I said that or not.

38:57Josh Clark:Yeah, just a humble carpenter, much like Jesus and Harrison Ford. So he gives up. He believes in this thing so much, he gives up his carpentry business. He sells it, in fact, to help fund it. Went around to county fairs demonstrating this thing. He called it the vacuum cut at first, but eventually renamed it the flow bee because it makes like a buzzing sound like a bee, and he colored it thusly. It was like yellow and black. And it's, you know, if you don't know what this thing is, it attaches to a vacuum cleaner. And so you've got to have one of those, of course. and it engages the vacuum and pulls your hair into a, you know, they have these like recessed hair trimmer blades in there and they had different attachments to cut it at different lengths.

39:40Josh Clark:So it would just suck in your hair. So, you know, I saw a guy went on YouTube today to see it demonstrated in modern times. And I guess this is during COVID because the guy was like, hey, these are great things to have around right now during COVID. And yeah, you just sort of suck some up and then push it back down and pull it out and push it down all over your hair evenly. And it supposedly does a decent job of cutting your hair.

40:05Chuck Bryant:Yeah, so you know when you go to, you know, Great Clips or Van Michael or something like that, the hairstylist will put their fingers through your hair and pull up and put tension on your hair to make it easier to cut. That's what the vacuum suction does to your hair. So that means that you don't need to have somebody with extra hands to cut your hair, which technically you can do yourself, This thing you just run over your head, and that was always essentially the big selling point for the Flowbee is, well, two of them. One, you can cut your own hair anytime you want. Well, three. Two, you're going to save a ton of money.

40:42Chuck Bryant:The Flowbee is going to pay for itself in a couple of months depending on the size of your family. And then three, no clippings to pick up because it all gets sucked right into your shop vac.

40:53Josh Clark:No muss, no fuss. The problem for me is I love getting a haircut.

40:59Chuck Bryant:Oh, me too. I get to go hang out with my buddy Michael, who does my hair.

41:03Josh Clark:I get to hang out with my friend Robin. And it's always good. It's fun. It's sort of like I don't do spa treatments much. So this is sort of like a spa treatment for me. Get my hair washed by somebody. It's the best.

41:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it is nice. Do you get a hot towel and like a little lavender essential oil?

41:20Josh Clark:No, she doesn't do like it's not like one of those men's barbershops where they offer you a whiskey and.

41:26Chuck Bryant:No, no.

41:26Josh Clark:And the hot towel treatment. But she does a great job.

41:28Chuck Bryant:Yeah, no, neither is mine. It's a salon for sure. So let's see. Oh, so I wanted to say also, one of the reasons the phobia gets to me is Rick Hunt's like, he was kind of the person I was referencing at the beginning where like he really, I think you might've said he sold his cabinetry business to fund this and he started pounding the pavement. He's like, I've got a great idea here and I've got to just get it out there. He went to Norelco. He went to Conair. He went to Remington, I saw. There was a great article on Mental Floss that really kind of covered the phobia. But he was getting nowhere.

42:08Chuck Bryant:He went to salons, and salons are like, no, we don't want to sell this. It's going to cut into our business.

42:14Josh Clark:Yeah.

42:15Chuck Bryant:So he did what most great silly inventors have done. He took it directly to the consumer. He created a direct response infomercial. He ponied up$30 ,000 of his own money to produce a 30-minute infomercial. And it first aired in 1988. And the premise of it is it's a fake show. The show is New Products and Ideas, which doesn't exist. It was just for the show. And it was hosted by Lenny McGill. No one knows who that is. Had a synth soundtrack. And the guest just happened to be Rick Hunts. And, like, he just demonstrates the flowbee. And you could get it directly through that infomercial. and it just started to take off from there.

42:57Josh Clark:Yeah, a 30-minute infomercial for something that takes 90 seconds to describe and demonstrate too probably. We haven't seen padding like that since probably this episode of ours.

43:11Chuck Bryant:That was a low blow but pretty hilarious.

43:15Josh Clark:They sold between$70 and$150 a piece. He sold about two million of them. So they sold a ton of these. And if you go on YouTube to type in Floby, if you want to see a demonstration, one of the top things that will come up is George Clooney because he's been on, I saw him on Kimmel. I know he's been on CBS Sunday morning. Apparently has been non-ironically using the Floby for decades on himself is what he says at least.

43:44Chuck Bryant:Yeah. He said, listen, man, it works. Yeah. He was. Yeah. Non-ironically is a great way to put it. So that's it for the Flowbee. Hats off, Rick Hunts, for sticking to your dreams, your vision. I think Rick Hunts demonstrates a lesson for all of us.

44:04Josh Clark:Agreed.

44:05Chuck Bryant:And then last up, Chuck, we have one that's a little dear to my heart, the Snuggie.

44:10Josh Clark:Yeah, I never had a Snuggie. The Snuggie is a blanket with sleeves, full stop.

44:16Chuck Bryant:Yeah, you can wear it, essentially. It's a blanket you can wear. It's open in the back like a hospital gown, basically. I don't remember what, like, I think the current Snuggies are made of fleece, but the original ones were definitely not fleece. They were like the most chemically chemical fabric you can possibly imagine.

44:41Josh Clark:Oh, man.

44:41Chuck Bryant:And you would get them at like drugstores, that kind of thing. But they originally started as a direct response TV campaign. And they made a splash like almost out of the gate. They were just this talked about item in 2008, 2009, 2010. I saw there was a blogger who I could not find the name of. If this was you, write in and let us know because it was great. They said that the people in the Snuggie commercial, who are just doing like everyday stuff, but wearing this blanket, he said they all looked like members of a laid back satanic cult.

45:17Josh Clark:That's amazing. That's pretty good. That's a cult I wouldn't mind being in, actually. The only cult that appeals to me.

45:23Chuck Bryant:The Snuggie cult.

45:25Josh Clark:Yeah, they sold a ton of them, though, like all of these. That seems to be a recurring theme. They sold 25 million Snuggies. So not 25 million dollars. That's about 500 million bucks. And they did that generally between 2008 and topped out at that number by 2013. So it wasn't a one-year wonder. It had a little bit of staying power. It did.

45:48Chuck Bryant:And Snuggie wasn't the first one. Apparently, the very first blanket with sleeves was called the Slanket, which was invented by a freshman at University of Maine in, I think, 1998. His name was Gary Plague. And that made its splash, I guess, on QVC. And I think it enjoyed like a resurgence during the Snuggie era. But even before the Snuggie and after the Slanket, there was the Freedom Blanket, the Book Blanket, the Cuddle Wrap, the Toasty Wrap. The difference was Snuggie went all in on their direct response TV campaign. And I think the cute name really helped, too.

46:28Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. And you never know when you're, you know, something is just going to hit the zeitgeist in just the right way, you know?

46:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And I said it had a place in my heart, the Snuggie did. That's because for Halloween 2009, which is the best Halloween I've had as an adult in my life, Yumi went as a Snuggie. And it was a lot of fun. We walked around New York and then went to a friend's party, our friend Adam's party. Oh, I know. And just had a great night. Yeah. That's awesome. So I think that's it, Chuck. 40 minutes of high quality stuff you should know podcasting has just been completed.

47:04Josh Clark:Yeah. 42 and a half minutes if you want to get technical.

47:07Chuck Bryant:Oh, God, I guess I started after you. Oh, no.

47:11Josh Clark:Mine says 41.15 now. Oh, my God. I hope this isn't a big edit job for Jerry.

47:18Chuck Bryant:Well, since Chuck worried about the edit job for Jerry, I think that means it's listener mail time, don't you?

47:27Josh Clark:That's right. Instead of listener mail, though, we're going to do an Instagram comment.

47:31Chuck Bryant:Oh, okay.

47:31Josh Clark:Because I couldn't find a good listener mail, but I went to our Instagram page, which is, I think, SYSK Podcast. Correct. Is the name of it. And, you know, we're going to start doing some more fun stuff over there, by the way, if you want to give it a follow. But this is from AJGree6. AJGree6.

47:51Chuck Bryant:Okay.

47:52Josh Clark:And this was following up on the Kentucky Meat Shower short stuff episode.

47:56Chuck Bryant:Oh, good, good. I haven't listened yet because I'm on vacation, but I'm sure you mentioned it's coming up on the Meat Showers Anniversary, guys,

48:04Josh Clark:and Bath Co. was supposedly reenacting this event. Crying laughing emoji. This could be a fun way to do listener mail moving forward, actually. I always geek out when you two talk about Kentucky. I've gone to your past four Seattle shows. My one question, if I had the chance, was always going to be, do you love Kentucky, or are we just really weird and we're talking about? A bit of both, I'm sure. And AJGree6, I'm now remembering we've done a few Kentucky-based episodes, now that I think about it.

48:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah, remember the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in northern Kentucky? Yeah, and the blue people, right? Were they out of Kentucky? You're right. I think it was Kentucky, wasn't it? Great memory. Sure. And how jackhammers worked? That was Kentucky heavy.

48:51Josh Clark:Well, we probably, we had to mention Kentucky in our Thoroughbreds episode.

48:56Chuck Bryant:Definitely. Man, we really have done a lot of Kentucky. Sorry, Iowa.

49:03Josh Clark:We need to do a show in Kentucky. I've always wanted to, just Lexington or Louisville is the big question. So let us know.

49:10Chuck Bryant:Okay, there you go. Well, who was that again? RJGree6?

49:16Josh Clark:Yeah, something like that.

49:17Chuck Bryant:Thanks a lot, RJGree6 or something like that. We appreciate you hanging out on our Instagram page. We have that Instagram page. I think we have a Facebook page, too. We're on xBlueSky, TikTok. We're even on TikTok, Chuck. Isn't that nuts?

49:34Josh Clark:I did not even know that.

49:36Chuck Bryant:I'm pretty sure we are. Shout out, by the way, to Spencer, our social media friend who helps us big time with that stuff.

49:44Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, we'll shout those guys out. If you're looking to hire someone to do your paid professional social media, you can do a lot worse than hot dog sandwich. Those guys are great.

49:54Chuck Bryant:They are great. And they're fun to work with and they just know what they're doing.

49:57Josh Clark:Yeah. Super cool dudes.

49:59Chuck Bryant:So, yeah. Keep an eye out on our social media stuff for, I guess, some more things from us than you're probably used to. And then you can also, as always, contact us via email at stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.

50:16Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

50:32Josh Clark:Peace to the planet. Charlamagne Tha God here. And listen, we are back. The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back in Atlanta on April 25th at Pullman Yards. Yeah. And the full lineup is nuts. We got the Grits and Eggs podcast, Deontay Kyle and Big Ice Cup Cat. We got Club 520 with Jeff Teague and the gang. Don't call me white, girl. Mona will be there. Keep it positive, sweetie, with Crystal Renee. We got Reality with the King with Carlos King. And yes, Drink Champs will be in the building. Plus, you know, we're going to have a lot of guests. So you need to join us. And we got the Black Effect Marketplace, the picture podcast, and everything you expect from the Black Effect Podcast Festival.

51:11Josh Clark:Tickets are on sale right now. Go get yours at blackeffect.com slash podcast festival. Don't play yourself, okay? Pull up.

51:21Chuck Bryant:Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person? Welcome to the Boys and Girls podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family? I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition hoping to find love the right way. And instead, I found chaos, comedy, and a lot of cringe. Listen to Boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

51:52Josh Clark:On a recent episode of the podcast Money and Wealth with John O 'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budgenista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here? We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never, ever taught.

52:18Chuck Bryant:If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.

52:24Josh Clark:Listen to Money and Wealth with John O 'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. time.