Every inventor dreams that his or her inspiration will be a winner. Everything from the pen to the cell phone was once only a vision. Many of the items that we use every day are things that we can’t even imagine living without – from the simple toilet, fork and footstool to the more technologically advanced camera, coffee-maker and easy-chair.
There’s a process involved in getting an idea to the market. After you come up with your idea you need to create a prototype and test it. You’ll need a patent to ensure that your idea isn’t co-opted by someone else. You need to create samples of your product and market them. At any point, glitches could make it difficult to continue. But many inventors persevere until they see results.
What happens if the product is just plain weird? Sloto Cash Casino set out to examine what happens when inventors face the undeniable truth that their million-dollar ideas are the laughingstock of the marketplace?
Some of the wackiest products to hit the market include:
Spinal Tape
Spinal tape is a roll of tape that has an image of a spine (like a notebook spine) on it. People use it and then wait for the question “What is that?” They then respond, “This is spinal tape” and the opportunity to give that answer is the sole reason for using spinal tape – there’s no other reason. The joke gets worse if the person who asked the question never heard of the movie “This is Spinal Tap.”
Touch of Yogurt Shampoo
In 1979 Clairol came out with a shampoo for oily hair, Touch of Yogurt Shampoo. Not only did the idea of washing one’s hair with yogurt strike a bad chord among many customers, a few people thought that the shampoo was edible and got quite sick when they ingested some. Clairol returned to lemony, herbal, honey and fruited shampoo scents.
Cookies and Creame-flavored Oreos
Oreo enthusiasts were getting a little tired of Oreos’ different flavors but when Oreo released Oreos featuring cookies and creame flavor (creame, not cream), the jokes started and never stopped. The new brand tasted like … Oreos.
The Oreo-flavored Oreos basically just had chocolate specs in the creame and people were quick to pick up on the fact that the “new” launch was just, basically, old Oreos. The Nabisco parent company absorbed a lot of ridicule over their marketing campaign that launched the old-new product.
Anti-Stress Enter Key
As an anecdote to the stress that office workers and others who work on computers all day can feel, the USB-activated Enter Key is designed to give typists a big, hand-sized Enter Key to punch whenever they feel frustrated. The creation of the key was fueled by a study that shows that people at a keyboard punch the Enter Key when they’re feeling particularly upset.
The problem is that that type of stress-relief destroys the keyboard. The company that created the Anti-Stress Enter Key promotes their punch-key as “to try and reduce the growing mountain of broken keyboards….. the punch key plugs into the computer and actually acts as an Enter Key….or as a pillow for a powernap.
Hairy Chest Bathing Suit
There’s not much to say about this one – it’s a woman’s one-piece bathing suit that looks as though Bigfoot has swallowed her. It’s a hairy-looking tank top bathing suit for women but the print is that of a hairy chest on the front and a hairy back on the back. Not a great bathing suit to wear if you’re meeting future in-laws for the first time.
Pink Screw Gun
It’s hard to tell if this is a gag gift or a genuine attempt to encourage women to get more involved in household repairs but this genuine screw gun markets to the ladies. You can also buy Pink Power in other colors!
Tender Wings of Desire
It’s a bit hard to take a Victorian romance novel, written by Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders, seriously but the fact that it can be obtained on Amazon for free should help distribution. It’s not exactly a “product” but we include it on this list because it’s such an unusual item – a novel that the Colonel wrote to honor his mother with a storyline about a sailor with a mysterious past.
Baby Saver
If you’re sentimental – really sentimental – you’ll want the Baby Saver where you save your child’s baby teeth when they fall out and first locks of hair after the first haircut. If, however, you’re trying to cut down on your pack-rat tendencies, the Baby Saver might seem to be a bit unnecessary.
Banana Surprise
It takes a bit of doing to make natural fruit unhealthy but that’s Banana Surprise’s specialty. The gadget allows you to suck out the middle of a banana (after cutting off the tip) and filling it with some kind of jam, jelly, chocolate or other surprise taste. Kids might enjoy it but it kind of defeats the purpose of eating something natural.
Fried Chicken Phone Case
The Fried Chicken Phone Case is a phone case that has a piece of fake fried chicken glued to it. Why, you ask? It’s part of the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise’s tech accessories collection which includes water bottles, AirPod cases, a lanyard and two different types of phone cases – one a “finger lickin’ good phone case and the second a fried chicken melody phone case. The items are for marketing purposes and were meant to pay homage to KFC’s slogans, logos and signature red-striped bucket as inspired by the KFC legacy.
