Inventor: Tai-Ning Tang
Patent number: 6053798
Filing date: Aug 26, 1998
Issue date: Apr 25, 2000

This chipper little guy knocks the socks off most carol singers. He was born like this, he had no choice, he was born with the gift of a mono-brow, cheeky tongue and a golden voice…

Inventor: Patricia Sessum O’Donnell
Patent number: 5957401
Filing date: Jun 23, 1998
Issue date: Sep 28, 1999

Christmas is here… …and between watching Trading Places and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation you’re probably busy decorating the house much like this guy… Pretty cool hair and a can do chipper attitude, not sure what he’s going to do with the ladder though, he looks about 7 foot tall and he’s got some reach with those arms! You’re going to have to work pretty hard to keep up with this guy!

Inventor: Basimah Khulusi
Patent number: 6386701
Filing date: Apr 3, 2001
Issue date: May 14, 2002

No more computer vision syndrome, you can now spend days on end surfing the internet without ever having to take a break… …gambling, porning, social networking, you name it! Computer vision syndrome (CVS) is a condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a computer screen for way too long… …causing your eyes to dry out, headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, fatigue, eye strain, dry, irritated eyes and difficulty refocusing… …but hey, when you look this cool who cares, right!

Inventors: Len-Sun Lai
Patent number: 6179088
Filing date: Mar 31, 1998
Issue date: Jan 30, 2001

Hey, lets go get some conveyor belt sushi… Miniature wooden “sushi boats” traveling small canals bring us value-minded consumers delicious treats! We don’t have time for a leisurely meal and we don’t want any leftovers! Small portions please…

From Wikipedia: Conveyor belt sushi was invented by Yoshiaki Shiraishi (1914-2001), who had problems staffing his small sushi restaurant and had difficulties managing the restaurant by himself. He got the idea of a conveyor belt sushi after watching beer bottles on a conveyor belt in an Asahi brewery. After five years of development, including the design of the conveyor belt and the speed of operations, Shiraishi opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958, quickly creating a chain of 240 restaurants all over Japan. However, the number of restaurants was down to 11 in 2001. Shiraishi also invented a robotic sushi, served by robots, but this idea has not had commercial success.

Inventor: H. Halvorson
Patent number: 213415
Filing date: Nov 1, 1878
Issue date: Mar 1879

This cool customer comes from 1878. H. Halvorson wasn’t about to get sunstroke, no sir! I love that Halvorson invented a sun helmet for keeping gentlemen in the shade on those sunny days but completely missed the rain umbrella market. Halvorson’s Sun Helmet never took off, however Sun Helmets or Pith helmets do have a pretty nasty history. Used by all European and colonial powers, and by the United States Army during the 1880s^, in the Southwest United States.

From Wikipedia: They were commonly worn by white officers commanding locally recruited soldiers in the colonial troops of France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Imperial Germany and the Netherlands, as well as civilian officials in their tropical territories. White troops serving in the tropics usually wore pith helmets, although on active service they were sometimes replaced by more comfortable and less conspicuous alternatives such as the wide brimmed slouch hats worn by US troops in the Philippines and by British Empire forces in the later stages of the Boer War.

During the Anglo-Zulu War, British troops dyed their white pith helmets with tea, mud or other makeshift means of camouflage. Subsequently khaki-coloured pith helmets became standard issue for active tropical service.

Pith helmets were widely worn during World War I by British Empire, Turkish, Belgian, French and German colonial troops fighting in the Middle East and Africa.

Helmets of this style (but without true pith construction) were used as late as World War II by Japanese, European and American military personnel in hot climates. Included in this category are the sun helmets worn in North Africa by Italian troops, South African Army and Air Force units and Germany’s Afrika Korps, as well as similar helmets used to a more limited extent by U.S. and Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

The entire military of the America’s colony the Philippines, which consisted of an armygendarmerie, used sun helmets. The U.S. Marine Corps first issued pith helmets called “elephant hats” to the 1st Marine Division’s deployment to Guantánamo Bay in 1940. They were worn in the South Pacific as well as worn by recruits in United States Marine Corps Boot Camp. The Axis Second Philippine Republic’s military, known as the Bureau of Constabulary, as well as other guerrilla groups in the Philippines was another user of sun helmets. The British Army formally abolished the tropical helmet in 1948.

The Ethiopian Imperial Guard retained pith helmets as a distinctive part of their uniform until the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. Imperial Guard units serving in the Korean War often wore these helmets when not in actual combat.

Inventor: Steve M. Brown
Patent number: 5161486
Filing date: Jul 17, 1991
Issue date: Nov 10, 1992

Sometimes you gotta go hands free when jogging around the park with your favorite canine buddy. Slap that sucker around your waist and go jogging till your boots go green. Camel Toe not included.

Inventor: Charles A. Steele Junior
Patent number: 927892
Filing date: Feb 17, 1909
Issue date: Jul 1909

Beautiful illustration for a mustache guard from 1909. At the time gentlemen would apply wax to help mold and shape facial hair. Of course this would cause problems when a hot drink was sipped, the steam would melt the wax causing it to drip into the cup and exotic drinks could stain the hair. Mustache cups usually had a ledge or guard across the cup, this model however is separate and can be clipped on to any cup or glass. During the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, John Lennon drank his tea from a mustache cup. At the time all four Beatles were sporting mustaches and the record even included a cardboard cut-out mustache designed by pop artist Peter Blake.

Inventor: Rodney Gilliard
Patent number: D344690
Filing date: May 21, 1992
Issue date: Mar 1, 1994

The Lord’s my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want… …well maybe a plastic statue of Jesus’ severed right hand with a nail through it and blood weeping out into a pool… …but then again who wouldn’t want that. You too can have the Hand of God on your mantelpiece.

Previous religious post: Religious lamp with fluid flow.

Inventor: Helen H. Malsed
Patent number: D179949
Filing date: Feb 28, 1956
Issue date: Mar 1957

Slinky week draws to a close with the classic Slinky Dog from the 50’s.  Helen (Herrick) Malsed of Washington sent the the James’ a letter and drawings for developing Slinky pull-toys. The company loved her ideas and saw the potential of the Slinky Dog and Slinky Train. Slinky Dog debuted in 1952. Malsted received royalties of $60,000 to $70,000 annually for 17 years on her patent for the Slinky pull-toy idea, but never visited the plant.

In 1995, the Slinky Dog was redesigned for Pixar’s Toy Story. James Industries had discontinued their Slinky Dog a few years previously. Betty James approved of the new Slinky Dog, telling the press, “The earlier Slinky Dog wasn’t nearly as cute as this one.” The entire run of 825,000 redesigned Slinky Dogs sold out well before Christmas 1995, 40 years after the debut of the original Slinky. I hope everyone enjoyed learning about the weird and wonderful world of the Slinky. For more Slinky fun why not track down a copy of the Slinky computer game published by Cosmi in 1984 on the Commodore 64 platform?

Inventor: Jon S. Cable
Patent number: 4800592
Filing date: Oct 28, 1987
Issue date: Jan 31, 1989

Ok. Doc is that a Devo suit? Never mind that now, never mind that now. Slinky week continues with a costume made from giant Slinky like materiel. The costume has a look reminiscent of Marty McFly’s yellow radiation suit from Back To The Future. It also has the retractable arms he had on his self drying jacket from the future. Coincidence? Well it’s from 1987, in between the first two movies. The description states: In recent years the public’s increasing fascination with high technology has led to a greater demand for “space-age” costumes which utilize new materials and which are futuristic in appearance. Typically, these costumes depict such characters as astronauts, robots, androids and various beings, both human and non-human, from popular science fiction books, movies and television programs.

Inventor: Richard T. James
Patent number: 2415012
Filing date: Aug 21, 1946
Issue date: Jan 1947

Years before moving to Bolivia to join The Wycliffe Bible Translators, a group his wife described as ‘a religious cult’, Richard T. James worked as a naval engineer in Philadelphia, PA. While developing springs that could support and stabilize sensitive instruments aboard ships in rough seas during World War II he accidentally dropped a torsion spring to the ground and noticed how the spring kept moving end over end after it hit the ground. It “stepped” in a series of arcs then re-coiled itself and stood upright. It was James’ wife, Betty, who realized the potential for a toy and named it Slinky.

The couple made 400 of the toys and managed to convince Gimbels department store in Philadelphia to carry the toy for Christmas 1945. Figuring the best way to sell the Slinky was to show it in motion, they set up a ramp and showed the Slinky walking down. These first models were all sold within 90 minutes at a price of $1 each, Slinky-mania had begun! In 1946, Slinky was introduced at the American Toy Fair and to keep up with demand Richard and Betty founded James Industries to manufacture and market their product. Richard invented machines that could coil 80 feet of steel wire into a Slinky in 10 seconds.

Life seemed pretty sweet for the family, inventors of a truly modern toy and living in suburban 1950’s America. But sometime around 1960 Richard got to thinking about the Lord, he became involved with The Wycliffe Bible Translators and began to donate large sums of Slinky profits to the religion. As a result the family got into financial trouble  and Richard took off to Bolivia. When Betty refused to move he told her he did not care what she did with the company. To support the family Betty James took over as CEO of James Industries and rescued the company from the debts left by her husband. She moved the company to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania and began an active advertising campaign, complete with the famous Slinky jingle and new products like the Slinky Dog and Slinky Train. Richard never returned from Bolivia and died in 1974. Betty James died in 2008, age 90. However the Slinky lives on and has had it’s own life outside of toy town, moonlighting as a teacher demonstrating the properties of waves, a mobile radio antenna used by US troops in Vietnam and working with NASA in zero-gravity physics experiments in the Space Shuttle.

Inventor: John J. Thomas
Patent number: 4504240
Filing date: Sep 20, 1982
Issue date: Mar 12, 1985

Mr. Potato Head is pretty cool but he’s got nothing on this guy, his nutty cousin? Potato’s too reserved, too straight, too square. While Mr. Head is going to work, Mr. Hand Puppet (with detachable facial elements) is out boozing, womanizing and scaring kids. He’s ugly no matter which way you assemble him, ugly as a bald Nosferatu style vampire potato, ugly with the hair and a nose combo, ugly with a side profile… …but that’s exactly what makes him so outrageous, so decadent, so wild!

Inventors: Paul J. Van Doren, Gordon C. Lee, Robert E. Diamond
Patent number: 4783909
Filing date: May 4, 1987
Issue date: Nov 15, 1988

Vans founder Paul Van Doren seemed to get off to a bad start. Dropping out of school in the eighth grade to hang out down at the local race track, Van Doren earned himself the nickname ‘Dutch the Clutch’ and for a buck he would give you odds on the race. This didn’t sit too well with his mother and she set him to work in Randy’s shoe factory where she also worked. Over the next twenty years he worked his way up the ranks and became the Executive Vice President. In 1966 Van Doren founded his own Van Doren Rubber Company and began producing shoes for different sports. By the mid 70’s young skaters had embraced Vans and the style had bled into the punk / hardcore scenes. Nevertheless overall sales were poor and in 1983 the company filed for bankruptcy.

By a stroke of luck Vans Slip-Ons started to gained international attention after Sean Penn wore his own pair in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The movie featured Penn’s character ‘Spicoli’ getting wasted and hitting himself over the head with checkerboard Slip-Ons. Three years later sales had doubled from $20 million to $40 million as a result of Penn’s exposure and Vans paid back all creditors and came out of bankruptcy.

This patent from 1987 shows a shoe with a reversible heel counter so the shoe can be selectively used as either a slipper or a regular shoe. With nice diagrams of the classic Vans Authentic and Slip-On, this would make the shoe a slip-on-slipper.

Inventor: Deloris Gray Wood
Patent number: 5727565
Filing date: May 26, 1995
Issue date: Mar 17, 1998

Between 1995 and 2004 Deloris Gray Wood was awarded at least eight patents for her kissing shield and a game which used the shield. The shield consists of a heart shaped flexible membrane and a frame or holder and is for preventing the exchange of microorganisms between two persons engaged in the act of kissing. I really want to give Ms. Wood the benefit of the doubt and say her heart is in the right place, but this shield completely sterilizes kissing and destroys any passion and spontaneity. The description presents the shield as not only a method to stop the spreading of AIDS and herpes by practicing ‘safe kissing’ but also for casual kissing ‘it can be used especially by a politician who kisses babies’…

Inventor: Marlon Brando
Patent number: 6410833
Filing date: Jun 8, 2001
Issue date: Jun 25, 2002

Marlon Brando was an avid bongo player since he got a set of drums from his old man when he was fifteen. Brando even appeared on The Edward R. Murrow Show in 1953 playing the Congas with Jack Costanzo, three days after he won his first Oscar for On The Waterfront. (That’s Conga, not to be confused with the Congo, where Colonel Kurtz would lose his mind). Bongo Drums were very popular and cool in the 1950’s, embraced by Jazz musicians and beatniks, they were a symbol of rebellion, freedom and exotic adventure. In his last years Brando had several patents issued in his name from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, all of which involve a method of tensing drum heads.