Weird Universe Archive
July 2019
July 11, 2019
Shoo: The Deterrer of Pooping Dogs
Thirteen-year-old Noah De La Paz of California has invented a device to stop dogs from pooping on the lawn of his family’s house. It uses a camera and image-detection software. When a dog is identified, his device emits a high-pitched sound to encourage the dog to move on. Although still in the prototype stage, Noah hopes to eventually bring his invention to market.I can see some potential problems with his invention. Such as that it doesn't seem to differentiate between pooping and non-pooping dogs. But even so, it sure would beat the currently most popular method of preventing unwanted poopers, which is to put up angry, threatening signs on your lawn.
More info: Spectrum News
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 11, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Inventions, Excrement, Dogs
Sebastian Cabot’s “Like A Rolling Stone”
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 11, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, 1960s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
July 10, 2019
Death Awareness Cafe
It's a coffee shop that encourages you to contemplate the Grim Reaper while sipping your cup of Joe. Seems like a perfect place to serve those Decomposition Cupcakes we posted about a few months ago.The Death Awareness Cafe in Bangkok features mortuary-inspired decor and coffins placed for customers to spend time closed inside after their purchased beverages.
More info: upi.com
(You can find a transcript of what the guy in the video is saying here.)
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jul 10, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Death, Coffee and other Legal Stimulants
Signs of Health
Alas, this positive sign was not an accurate forecast of the fate of William Schroeder.
Article source.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 10, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Body, Death, Health, Surgery, 1980s, Alcohol
July 9, 2019
Wrong-Way Race
The runners must have been thinking that it seemed like the longest seven miles ever.
Sheboygan Press - Mar 23, 1970
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 09, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Sports, 1970s
Follies of the Madmen #433
Our zippers are for crazy people.
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 09, 2019 -
Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Fashion, 1950s, Brain Damage
July 8, 2019
Colgate Kitchen Entrees
One of the classic brand-extension blunders of all time has to be when toothpaste-maker Colgate decided to come out with a line of frozen dinners. The story is told in many places, and it's usually described as having occurred in 1982. For instance, here's the HuffPost's take on it:We suppose the idea behind Colgate Kitchen Entrees was the fact that you’d eat the Colgate frozen dinner and then brush your teeth with Colgate toothpaste, but this one just simply didn’t work. The frozen food market was already pretty saturated when these dinners were released in 1982, and when people think of Colgate they tend to think of clean teeth, not frozen Swedish meatballs.
Lots of other sites refer to this as having happened in 1982, such as here, here, and here. But when I took a closer look at the story I couldn't find any primary sources from 1982 about it. But there are several 1960s-era sources (Washington Food Report, Weekly Digest) that refer to Colgate having test-marketed a line of frozen dinners in Madison, Wisconsin in 1964. A 1966 article in Television Age magazine offered some insight into what inspired the company to do this:
To enlarge its business, now dependent almost entirely on soaps and toiletries against the P&G and Lever competition, Colgate has long wanted to get into the $4.2-billion convenience food field. Its efforts here have been fruitless. A line of dried chicken and crabmeat entrees under a Colgate Kitchen label was introduced and quickly withdrawn. An apple-chip called Snapples has been tested off-and-on over a two-year period, and one or two other food items are in various stages. The company has specialty foods operations in France and Italy, but evidently is finding it hard to duplicate their success here.
So, unless someone can find some primary sources that indicate otherwise, I'm going to assume that the Colgate Kitchen debacle actually happened in 1964, not 1982. And it was only a test-marketing trial run, not a full product roll-out. It would definitely be bizarre if, after the 1964 failure, Colgate tried the same thing again in 1982.
There's a couple of images of Colgate Kitchen entrees floating around the Internet, but I think they're all photoshops or mock-ups. For instance, the one below is a recent mock-up created by the Museum of Failure in Sweden.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 08, 2019 -
Comments (9)
Category: Business, Products, 1960s
Macho Cologne by Faberge
Does the bottle resemble a manly hammer?
Or does it resemble something else?
Entry at perfume database.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jul 08, 2019 -
Comments (3)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Innuendo, Double Entendres, Symbolism, Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink and Subliminal Messages, 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
July 7, 2019
Spontaneously Combusting Debit Cards
Police in Cheshire, England recently warned of an unusual scam letter being sent around. Apparently authored by officials at Barclays Bank, it informed people that their debit cards were at risk of spontaneous combustion and needed to be returned (to an address in India):Many of our bank costumers have reported that their debit cards have caught fire while they are in wallets and purses, so as a precushion we are issuing an URGENT safety recall. This is a matter of the uppermost emergency as your card could create a pocket fire at any given moment, burning your legs and stomach terribly. This is because of a fault in the factory process at our debit card facility in Molton Keynes.
News of this strange and obvious scam then made its way into various newspapers, such as the manchester evening news.
But the scam wasn't what it appeared to be. It was actually a case of satire being mistaken for news. The author of the letter was blogger Simon Harris who, back in 2018, had written and posted a picture of it as a joke.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 07, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category:
The Rockin’ Ramrods, “Don’t Fool With Fu Manchu”
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 07, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Literature, Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Music, 1960s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
