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Thanks
to inventor Don Poynter, sprayed by the foam from a trick lighter,
the world got to enjoy the first basketball backboard for a wastebasket,
"The Thing" coin box featured on the Addams Family (14
million sold), Uncle Fester's mystery light bulb (also featured
on the show), crossword-puzzle toilet tissue and the Jane Mansfield
hot water bottle, which he spent six weeks sculpting in Hollywood.
Later, when the bottle aired on TV, Jack Parr covered part of
its "anatomy" with a handkerchief. Poynter also created
the world’s smallest working record player, sold with 39
tiny records that Poynter recorded with real orchestras, and a
Steer-N-Go landscape for Matchbox cars, which grossed $75 million
in its first year. |
Be
entertaining. As a youth, I was a voice on WLW radio for "Father
Flanigan's Boys Town" and also played with Doris Day. Years later,
when I invented a talking toilet seat, I was the voice (saying, among
other things, "Move over, you're blocking the light!").
Ignore the
pain. I was UC's drum major for three years and twirled flaming
batons and rode unicycles. One Thanksgiving, I marched in a loin cloth,
moccasins and Indian headdress, twirling a knife sharp enough to cut a
pumpkin in half. Unfortunately, the mud was so deep it sucked off my moccasins.
I kept marching, but when I leapt to swing the knife under my feet, I
slipped and slammed the knife into my foot. My feet were too cold to know
how bad it was, but I felt the thud. I finished the show, then rushed
to General Hospital.
Try the absurd.
My first big novelty product, around 1954, was whiskey-flavored toothpaste.
I needed $10,000, and fellow alum Bob Boeh (BusAd '51, current Alumni
Association business manager) gave me a bank loan, although his father,
who also worked at the bank, nearly killed him. It turned into the country's
biggest novelty seller at the time. Life magazine ran photos, and I was
featured on "What's My Line?"
Let people
laugh at you. My next novelty was the "Little Black Box."
When you turned it on, it vibrated and a little hand came out to switch
it off. Reps at a New York trade show kept asking what it did. I said,
"It does absolutely nothing, except switch itself off." Everyone
thought I was crazy, but I sold it to Spencer Gifts. In one month, it
became the hottest item they ever had.
Aim high.
ABC wanted to use the box on "The Addams Family," but I said
I had a better one; the hand snatched a coin. I gave them royalties, called
it "The Thing" and sold 14 million. Next, I created a light
bulb that lit when you put it in your ear or in your mouth. I called it
"Uncle Fester's Light Bulb," and they used it on the television
show.
Next page l Dr. Seuss sues Poynter for $10 million
