Weird Universe Blog — January 20, 2025
Miss Giftware of 1952
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 20, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests | Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues | Gifts, Presents, Tributes, and Other Honoraria | 1950s
January 19, 2025
The Minges Method of Growing Tall
In the first decade of the 20th century, K. Leo Minges heavily advertised his claim that he had discovered a technique to make anyone grow tall. He declared himself to be "to short men and women what the great wizard, Edison, is to electricity."His patent, below, reveals a contraption that allowed a person to stretch themselves by pulling their head up towards the ceiling while keeping their feet anchored to the floor.
More info: Kook Science Wiki; Patent No. 762,832
Boston Globe - Jan 10, 1904
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 19, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: Patents | Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil | 1900s
Hot Stuff
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 19, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Death | Destruction | Firefighting, Arson, Wildfires, Infernos and Other Conflagrations | Cartoons | 1970s
January 18, 2025
Dog Portholes
Cutting a dog porthole in the trunk of your car seemed to be a minor fad in the '60s and '70s.
Google translation: "A special dog kennel... is what this Cologne driver has come up with. He has installed two 'portholes' in the trunk lid, from which the two four-legged friends can look out over the landscape. As you can see, there is also room for luggage on the roof. If the family car is too cramped for a holiday trip, you just have to come up with something."
Source: classicdigest.com
Source: classicdigest.com
Vancouver Columbian - Dec 30, 1974
Greenville News - Dec 13, 1963
Toronto Star - June 4, 1970
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 18, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Dogs | Cars
Turtle Racing Track
With many kooky patents, the drawing provides a lot of visual humor. In this case, not so much. That task falls to the text.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 18, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: Animals | Inventions | Chindogu | Patents | 1950s
January 17, 2025
Malicious Enticement
Nov 1971: The mayor of Evansdale, Iowa left his wife to be with a city clerk. This prompted the mayor's wife to sue the clerk for "maliciously enticing" him away from his wife. The husband of the clerk simultaneously sued the mayor on the same grounds. Therefore the mayor and the clerk were potentially guilty of maliciously enticing each other.I hadn't been aware of 'malicious enticement' as a legal category. A search for the term mostly turns up uses in the business world, where a business could be held liable for maliciously enticing employees away from another business.
The Hollywood ad men missed an opportunity by not crowning a young woman 'Miss Maliciously Enticing'.
Davenport Quad-City Times - Nov 5, 1971
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 17, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Lawsuits | Divorce | 1970s
Follies of the Madmen #614
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 17, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: Food | Robots | Television | Advertising | Australia
January 16, 2025
AI-powered spice dispenser
Not all things benefit from being AI-powered.Now if this were part of a robot that could cook the meal, serve it, and then also spice it for you, that would be cool. But as a stand-alone gadget, it seems kinda useless.
More info: https://spicerr.com
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 16, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Food | Inventions | AI, Robots and Other Automatons
Orange-Pimiento Drink
Yum! I don't think that adulterating your OJ with mashed pimiento is too large a price to pay for shelf stability. It's a lot of work to keep taking your container of OJ in and out of the fridge every time you want a drink!Original patent here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 16, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Inventions | Patents | Crossovers and Mashups | Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages | 1950s
January 15, 2025
How many green beans would you eat for $1.50
A question for the ages.
Detroit Free Press - May 2, 1971
This raises the question of how many green beans would someone eat just to claim the world record for eating them? According to the site MajorLeagueEating.com, Crazy Legs Conti holds the record for eating the most: 2.71 pounds of them in six minutes.
That doesn't seem like that much to me. And in the video below "tannermancan" eats 5.125 lbs of green beans in less than 5 minutes. He doesn't acknowledge setting a new record. But it seems to me like he must have.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 15, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: World Records | Advertising | Vegetables | 1970s
