Inventor: Charles Miller
Patent number: 258243
Filing date: Jan 10, 1882
Issue date: May 23, 1882

Mamma Mia! That’s a spicy meatball… Mustache Guard patents are always fun and popular here at the desk. They seem like quaint relics from a bygone era when men took care of grooming with great pride… …and when you’ve spent the time this gentleman has working on your facial hair the last thing you want is to get Minestrone soup on your lip tickler!

Previous mustache post: Mustache Guard

Inventors: Giorgetto Giugiaro / John Z. DeLorean
Assignee: Delorean Motor Company
Patent number: D283882 / 4378658
Filing date: Jun 12, 1981 / Feb 4, 1981
Issue date: May 20, 1986 / Apr 5, 1983

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads! Stainless steel, gull-wing doors, grey hair, drug trafficking, 88 mph… All the stuff of legend. John Z. DeLorean was a fascinating but ultimately flawed man. He said he had more than 200 patents including designs for tennis rackets and monorails. Every car built in the world today contains at least one of his creations. Brash and charismatic he left behind a successful career with General Motors to form his own DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) in 1974. The company would only produce one car before collapsing, however the DMC-12 was an instant classic and it’s influence would ripple throughout history.

Designed by Italdesign’s Giorgetto Giugiaro. The car entered into production as the DMC-12, but is generally known as the DeLorean. A stainless steel body, gull-wing doors. and the “Douvrin” V6 engine set it apart. The manufacturing plant to build the new car was built in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, with substantial financial incentives from the Northern Ireland Development Agency of around £100 million. A great boost to a troubled Northern Ireland, the factory employed over 2000 workers from early 1981, but by February 1982 the company was in receivership. It turned out around 9,000 cars over 21 months before the British government ordered its closure in November 1982.

From the mid 80’s onward things got messy for DeLorean becoming involved in a bizarre cocaine bust that involved the FBI and Larry Flynt. DeLorean successfully defended himself with a procedural defense, arguing that the police had asked him to supply the money to buy the cocaine. His attorney stated in Time, “This was a fictitious crime. Without the government, there would be no crime.” The DeLorean defense team did not call any witnesses. DeLorean was found not guilty due to entrapment on August 16, 1984. The car is of course fondly remembered today as the Time Machine from Back To The Future.

Inventor: Frederick W. Nagel, Jr.
Patent number: 4473945
Filing date: Jul 23, 1982
Issue date: Oct 2, 1984

Darlin’ don’t you go and cut your hair. The suck and cut is a revolution in home hair cutting. Clean, efficient and relatively safe. You just sit there and put it on your melon while it sucks as it cuts. It certainly does suck!

Inventor: Walter Frederick Morrison
Patent number: D183626
Filing date: Jul 22, 1957
Issue date: Sep 1958

Everybody knows that Marty McFly invented the Frisbee back in 1885 when he threw his Frisbie’s pie tin at Mad Dog Tannen to save Doc Brown during the Hill Valley town celebration. However it wasn’t until the Space Age that Frisbees caught on as a recreational toy. Walter Frederick Morrison (January 23, 1920 – February 9, 2010) got the idea from playing with a metal cake pan on the beach in California. He originally called his toy the Pluto Platter and sold it at local fairs. In 1957 Morrison sold the rights to the California firm Wham-O, which renamed the disk after discovering East Coast college students were were calling the toy a “Frisbie” after the name of a well-known pie.

Inventor: William J. Westerman
Patent number: 4089542
Filing date: Aug 16, 1976
Issue date: May 16, 1978

It’s a romantic life but sometimes you feel like one of those clipper ship captains; married to the sea. You’ve been out for a long time. Days of horizons, stormy weather and horse masks begin to take their toll and you start thinking of dry land again. Not even your fisherman’s ‘Swiss Army Knife’ can cheer you up with it’s light, magnifying glass and clock. It’s time to come back ashore.

Inventor: William J. Westerman
Patent number: 4089542
Filing date: Aug 16, 1976
Issue date: May 16, 1978

Check it out. This is like something out of Magnum P.I. Season 1. What colour do you think would look good? Salmon pink? Pastel green? Neon blue? Makes me want to become a private deceive and travel around solving crimes in my fold up car. Then back to the truck for more adventure!

Inventor: Irma J. Luque
Patent number: 4974761
Filing date: May 10, 1989
Issue date: Dec 4, 1990

When it comes to gambling it takes dedication, commitment and total concentration. You don’t need anything getting in the way of your big break. You chomp on your cigar and skillfully pump quarters into the one armed bandit, you’re a winner! That’s where the slot bag comes in. Pop your coin cup in there and work away. As video arcade magnate Noah Vanderhoff said “kids know dick. I watch ‘em in my arcades. They stand like laboratory rats hitting the feeder bar to get a food pellet. But as long as they keep pumping in the quarters, who gives a shit, right?”

Inventor: Russell M. Stanley
Patent number: 2613667
Filing date: Aug 8, 1951
Issue date: Oct 1952

The nails of primates and the hooves of running mammals evolved from the claws of reptiles and serve a multitude of functions including climbing, digging, and fighting! So like I go into this like salon place, y’know… and I wanted like to get my toenails done… and the lady like goes, oh my God! Your toenails are like so GRODY… It was like really embarrassing. She’s like OH MY GOD! Like BAG THOSE TOENAILS! I’m like sure… She goes, uh, I don’t know if I can handle this, y’know… I was like really embarrassed… Barf out, gag me with a spoon!

Inventor: Julius L. Wolf
Patent number: 1713584
Filing date: Jan 14, 1928
Issue date: May 1929

I find this sad and intriguing. Julius Wolf’s patent for a novelty display for neckware, handkerchiefs and other articles of apparel and merchandise comes from a bygone era. The end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the Great Depression. A time when kids knew how to dress. Such a good boy, such a good boy… Puttin’ on the Ritz? (Fig. 6)

Inventors: Thomas T. Washington, Sr.
Patent number: D401202
Filing date: Feb 20, 1998
Issue date: Nov 17, 1998

I don’t care if it rains or freezes, ‘long as I’ve got my plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car. Comes in colors pink and pleasant, glows in the dark cause it’s iridescent. Take it with you when you travel far. Okay, let get spiritual-minded! Have you ever heard of Rolling for Jesus? Their mission is to reach the unreached through the ministry of ‘Sign boards’ and ‘Gospel Tracts’. The ministry is specifically focused to reach people who neither attend the church regularly nor are interested in knowing the way of God through any medium. In reaching this neglected lot, “Rolling for Jesus” ministry was launched. God’s Word is spread via sign boards on moving vehicles and gospel tracts distribution on street corners of different cities. They need to put a bulk order in now! With the praying hands hood ornament they can’t fail.

Inventor: Curtis B. Bascom
Patent number: US 2005 / 0097655 A1
Issue date: Jul 14, 2004

Hulkamania is over tough guy and ponytails are out! Wikipedia says ‘In the late 1980’s, a short ponytail was seen as an edgy, “in-your-face” look for men who wanted to stand out from the crowd, but keep their hair flat and functional. Steven Seagal’s ponytail in “Marked for Death” is an example of such’… In-your-face? The whole thing reeks of yuppie… Anyway, sometimes you just want to wear a brimless lined elastic head covering and watch monster truck.

Inventor: Aaron Powell
Patent number: 4130951
Filing date: Sep 9, 1977
Issue date: Dec 26, 1978

From September 1977, the year Disco peaked with the release of Saturday Night Fever. Aaron Powell’s dancing shoes with flashing lights and translucent name label were perfect for the self-absorbed, status-obsessed disco boy. Leave his hair alone, but you can kiss his comb.

Inventor: Joseph E. Johnston
Assignees: Lucasfilm, Ltd.
Patent number: D277214 / D277215
Filing date: Sep 30, 1982
Issue date: Jan 15, 1985

Back in the day there used to be two types of kids; those who played with their Star Wars figures and those who blew them up! The Kenner toy company produced and sold over 300 million Star Wars action figures between 1977 and 1984, most of which have long since been blown up or chewed to bits by the dog…

Ewoks are everybody’s favorite fictional species of space-teddy-bear-like-hunter-gatherers that inhabit the forest moon of Endor, a tribe of primitive creatures that bring down the technological Empire. The Ewok are named after the Miwok, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Redwood forest in which the Endor scenes were filmed for Return of the Jedi… …and they love to drink and moonwalk!

Inventor: Oskar Uxa
Patent number: 2620061
Filing date: Oct 14, 1949
Issue date: Dec 1952

Curtis Allina, the man who put heads on Pez passed away recently aged 87. Patent numbers play an important role in the serious world of Pez collecting. Located on the bottom left side of the dispenser the patent number can be used to determine how old the dispenser is.

Pez was invented in 1927 in Vienna, Austria by Edward Haas III. Hass intended Pez to be an adult breath mint and an alternative to smoking, the first Pez dispenser from 1947 was designed to resemble a cigarette lighter. If your new year resolution is to give up smoking I’m not sure Pez works… …but Edarem says sunflower seeds do!

Inventors: Bruce L. Johnston, Bill D. Raines
Patent number: 4409695
Filing date: Jul 7, 1981
Issue date: Oct 18, 1983

Wesley Willis was right: ‘McDonalds will make you fat. They serve Big Macs. They serve Quarter-Pounders. They will put pounds on you’… It’s the new year! Christmas is over and I’m sure we all over did it just a little… Don’t lie to me butterbean! Mince pies, pudding, stuffing and gallons of booze. But this year is going to be different… …no messing about, I’m serious, your serious, let’s get busy, feel the burn, push it to the limit, let’s do this… Have a Scanwitch!