BS: Products that Never Caught On

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: raredance
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 12:17 AM

Jerry, I had at least one and maybe two of those liquid lead pencils in grade school. You're right, it didn't erase. However as a lefty who drags his hand across what he has just written, the top of my fingers on my left hand did not end up as black as with a conventional pencil. I hated fountain pens. Had a junior high English teacher that required all formal writing be in ink and forbid the use of ball points. A fountain pen is meant to be pulled acrosas the page, not pushed.

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: John Hindsill
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 08:17 PM

How's about RCA Video Disks? They played with a needle like a visual phonograph record. Too much wear and tear on the medium.

Jello once, late 1960s, made a dessert that automatically separated into layers (ala petroleum cracking towers) after mixing. But it was not reliable and did not last very long.

Did 8-tracks and Beta really not catch on?

8-track tape lasted nearly a decade. Only after dolby(@) technology made audio cassettes sound half-way decent did the smaller format take over.

Beta, a superior technology to VHS, was the victim of Sony's refusal to widely license its format. By the time Sony did, VHS had taken over the market. A similar mistake was made by Apple Computer, so they remain number two with an arguably better product.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:27 PM

Amphicar. Here ya go!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 10:20 PM

Hi, Genie: I didn't mean that Parker Pen didn't survive. They have just been bought out a couple of times and no longer are produced in my home town. The erasable lead pencils didn't survive, though. I still see Parker pens around... they sell them at Walmart, so they've lost a certain amount of their prestige. They always advertised that the document of surrender by the Japanese was signed with a Parker. So was my homework..

And yes, the memory of Sen Sen has survived. I also happen to have a pack tucked away that I bought with great forsight, many years ago..I just watched The Music Man again a couple of weeks ago. I also have a pristine copy of Captain Billy's Whiz Bang which was also referred to in the movie. Kinda the Playboy magazine of the 30's, minus any photographs, centerfolds, cartoons or risque jokes. I picked up a perfect copy many years ago in an antique store. For the life of me, I couldn't see what was so racy about it, but as Professor Hill pointed out, you could get in trouble using words like "Swell" back in those days. :-)

And by the way, Genie, you have not e-mailed me your address so I can keep my promise to mail you something you asked for. You can reach me at [e-mail].

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Genie
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 09:16 PM

Yes, Walrus, that's the name I couldn't think of: Amphicar! And it did have fins!

Jerry R., I didn't know the Parker Co. didn't survive. I could swear I've bought some of their pens (the roller-ball and other types, not fountain pens) within the last year.

And, Jerry, I don't know if I'd say Sen Sen never caught on. It was, in fact, immortalized in Meredith Willson's "The Music Man," which was set in the early 1900s, and it was still on the market when I was a kid (at least 20 years later *G*).

Ranger Steve, I think I saw that story about the stranded Amphicar on the news.

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: RangerSteve
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 07:43 PM

There was an Ampicar tooling around in the Delaware River between New Hope, PA and Lambertville NJ about a month ago. The water level was low due to the drought we've been having, and the car got hung up on a rock. After about a week of trying to get it unstuck, someone finally came up with the idea of putting a large inflatable bag under the car and lifting it up. It worked. I prefer driving on land, where the hazards are visible.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 02:57 PM

Amphicar. That's the one!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 02:25 PM

And for the smokers in the audience, anyone remember Sen Sen? Sen Sen was licorice flavored and came in the form of teeny weeny black squares that looked like miniature charcoal brickets. They ostensibly were to freshen your breath, but my older sisters and their friends always carried Sen Sen to hide the smell of cigarettes before they came home. Now let's see, you could have a licorice popsicle, chew some black jack gum and then take some Sen Sen. Those were the days...:-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 02:11 PM

hey...this is the internet/WWW. right?...EVERYTHING is there somewhere...a little creative searching and VOILA!

here is a page specifically about tailfins on cars...with pictures...maybe the one you remember is here!

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 02:04 PM

Genie...when the Cadillac fins became a hit, several cars toyed with fins...including the Henry J-by Kaiser ..not exactly a runaway hit!...As far as I remember Nash did not use fins...

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: NicoleC
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 01:52 PM

I think someone tried to bring back Fizzies recently. I was in the local discount/close-out store (it's Big Lots around here), and they were selling instant soda... just add water. I didn't catch the brand, but if it was there, the product fizzled again.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 01:50 PM

I hestitate to mention this, and I'm petty sure any photos were destroyed, but in my earliest motorbiking days (c 1965-6) I dabbled with a circular visor, fitted with fins that made it REVOLVE, to throw off the rain. How it ever came to be sold legally I don't know, but as far as I am aware, nobody died.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 12:38 PM

I don't know, Pilot makes V pens, fountain pens, for about 3 dollars, and they are pretty good, at least the ink doesn't smear, for us lefties. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 12:38 PM

The swimming car, could that be the "Amphicar"?
Try looking Here (here's hoping the blickie works).

Walrus (who alwas wanted an amphicar as a kid)

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 12:19 PM

Hi, Don:

I still have a few Parker Pens. The Parker Pen company was right alongside the railroad tracks, about ten blocks from where I grew up and when we headed out to open country on the tracks, we'd always check the dump behind the factory to see what they'd thrown away. The had a policy back then of keeping parts in stock for a long time, so the pens they were throwing out were realllly old. My Mother would also bring home working fountain pens that they were finally disposing of and gave to the employees. My personal take on Parker Pens is that the company was killed because they never developed a clean-writing ball point. I never liked the way the Jotters wrote. Left little balls of ink every now and then. I have a beautiful matched seet of a Parker Pen and Pencil my Mother gave to me a few years ago, and treasure it, even though I write more commonly with a calligraphy pen now.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 11:55 AM

Thanks for the link, Bill. The Metropolitan was a neat little car. I never had one, but a lady friend did. Ahh, that brings back memories…..

Speaking of pens, how about the Reynolds Rocket? They were, I think, the first ball-point pens. It took about ten starts to get the ink flowing (it was real gummy and you had to press hard), and then you'd write about two words and it would start to skip. Sometimes they would go to the other extreme and turn your shirt-front blue (pocket protectors got real popular about then). When you could get a pretty decent fountain pen (e.g., Parker 45) for about $5.00, they wanted $12.00 for those things. "Put a Rocket in your pocket" was the advertising blurb. That could have killed the ball-point pen right there, but then everybody went to work on it and the ball-point pen took off.

I've always loved fountain pens. I still have two Parker 45s, and they still make ink cartridges for them, but these days a five-pack costs your first-born and the deed to your ranch and you can't get them very many places. Hard to get a decent fountain pen these days. A good one costs at least fifty bucks and you have to buy them at a specialty store. The ones you can get in the drug store, sealed in a plastic bubble, for a couple of bucks really stink. Penmanship is a thing of the past. Pity.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 09:01 AM

Two good ones Genie:

Back in th fifties, a kid I knew in school told me that Parker Pen was going to revolutionize the industry. His Father worked in product development and they had made a startling invention (but he couldn't tell me what it was.) A few months later it came out. My Mother worked at Parker Pen so she brought a few home... liquid lead pencils. You were supposed to be able to write with them like a pencil, and erase what you'd written as easily if it was written by a lead pencil. The concept was alright, but the product didn't work. By the time you got the "lead" erased you could see through the paper. It was just lead-colored ink. The product stayed one the market such a short time that I doubt if anyone else ever even heard of it.

Now, this is a story about a product that didn't catch on the first time, because it didn't do what it promised. By the time my kids were in school, they had erasable pens, and they worked reasonably well.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Genie
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 03:49 AM

"While riding in my Cadillac, much to my surprise,
A little Nash Rambler was following me, about one third my size.
The guy must have thought his car had more spunk, 'cause he kept on tooting his horn.
I'll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn!"

'Beep! Beep!
Beep! Beep!
His horn went 'Beep! Beep! Beep!' "

§;- )

How about Billy Beer and Jolt Cola?

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 02:10 AM

A lot of great, weird stuff here. CatsPHiddle: I know that Hubba Bubba bubble gum still exists, but have you seen any cans of Hubba Bubba soda? Didn't think so? When it comes to food products, you could have a companion thread of stuff that has been around forever. Then you could talk about Bazooka Joe cartoons... the comic strip equvalent of Willeam Shatner. But, that would be thread drift. :-)

And in case people think this isn't a music thread... there was a Nash Rambler plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin when I was in my twenties:

"Over in Kenosha where the Ramblers grew
They had themselves a tough old crew
And Friday night, when the work was done
They liked to have a little fun

Friday night, at the Evergreen Bar
Pickin' out a tune on my old guitar
When you walk through the door you don't make no noise
Or you'll go dancin' to the tune of the Rambler Boys"

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Genie
Date: 16 Aug 02 - 01:30 AM

Nice picture, Bill, but the one I remember -- which I saw a clip about on TV recently -- had fins. Was that a Nash, too?

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: GUEST,Elaine
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 11:17 PM

Bill D--That's a GREAT website! Had to email it to everybody!

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 10:56 PM

the real 'bathtub Nash' was the Ambassador The Metropolitans were, as you say, a little two seater. Cute little thing...wish I had one today.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 03:19 PM

No, the Nash Metropolitans did look like a bathtub (upside down), but they weren't amphibious. They were an inexpensive little two-seater (but not a sports car), and people who had them really liked them. I know the one Genie means, but I can't recall who made them or what they were called. Some years back, the owner of one cause a near-panic when he took a look at the Mercer Island floating bridge across Lake Washington (east of Seattle) and saw that traffic was bumper to bumper and going nowhere. He left the streets, found access to the lakefront, and putt-putted across the lake while people on the bridge sat a stared. Somebody called the police and soon rescue boats were all over the lake, accompanied by the news media. The report was that someone had driven their car into the lake--which was sorta true, but by then the amphibous car and its driver were across the lake and home. Considering the current state of traffic on the Lake Washington bridges, that should be the wave of the future.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Oaklet
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 03:02 PM

Genie, Nash Metropolitans? Hi Genie.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Genie
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 01:46 PM

Cute, Bill D!

Anyone remember the name of those cars that are also boats? They were introduced (by Nash?) in the 1950s, I think, and a few are still around, but they never really caught the mass public's fancy.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 01:32 PM

You can still get Hubba Bubba bubble gum and the bubbles you can blow with it can be pretty impressive!!!

Catwhoistryingtofeelnotsooldonherbirthday!

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 01:26 PM

Fizzies, o mi god. I remember those -- tasted really, really bad. The one I never figured out, and that just keeps going is PEZ. The candy tastes terrible: can it really be just the wierd dispenser all these years?

I always thought the choice of names and flavours of stuff made no sense. Why not "Michelangelo" flavoured potato chips? There are all these strange flavours of potato chips out there now -- no one ever ate anything like them before, why not really break out? Did anyone ever eat anything at a Bar-B-Que that tasted like Bar-B-Que chips? (By the way, Barbeque is one of the few words handed down to us by the now extinct Carib Indians).

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 10:24 AM

right...get dyslexic me, while I last...(well, the link works...)

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 10:22 AM

hey...here are some new products you may want to grab before they disappear!....

get 'me while they last!

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 09:06 PM

Great story, Don:

When I was a little kid, we had to rent out half of our house in order to pay the $8 a month mortgage. Tommy Pope and his wife rented out the other half (of a five room house.) Tommy was an alcoholic and his wife stopped his credit at every store you could imagine. But, she didn't think of the corner grocery store. There are many products that are high in alcohol. Tommy drank Extract Of Vanilla. Not only was he slightly, pleasantly drunk all the time, he had the sweetest smelling breath in town. Wrote a song about him with the lines:

"He'd send me to the corner store, with a dollar in my hand
For extract of vanilla, and never mind the brand
As long as it was alcohol, it was all the same to him
It helped to pass the time away, back in Tommy's room

It didn't take Tommy's wife long to catch on, though. And every Monday morning when I hauled the bottle out for pickup, we had a whole washtub full of empty extract of vanilla bottles.. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:52 PM

Hadacol provided a lot of material for comedians.

Prior to Hadacol was Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, a tonic for various and sundry women's ailments (This makes this a music thread). Actually, it did catch on, and for many years running, they sold oceans of the stuff. Anyway, years ago, my dad ran into an old schoolmate, and we were invited to her house for dinner (I can't recall the occasion because I was pretty young at the time). Dad and the old school chum were standing in the kitchen reminiscing, when the chum reminded dad of once when, as kids, they went to some kind of temperance meeting where they signed a pledge never to let alcohol cross their lips. The chum ask dad, "Did you keep your pledge, Bob?" Dad responded that, no, he guessed he hadn't. She raised herself to her full height and said stuffily, "Well, I can proudly say that I kept mine. I have never touched a drop of alcohol in my life!" Dad noticed a bottle of Lydia Pinkham's tonic on the counter, picked it up, and said, "Do you take this?" "Well, yes, I do." Dad pointed to the label. 20% alcohol. That shut her up.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Willie-O
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:42 PM

I just read a biography of the ill-fated Hank Williams. In the last year of his life, he was a headliner on "the last, greatest medicine show", something called the Hadacol Caravan.

Hadacol was an allegedly medicinal product which was developed and marketed by a Lousiana hustler and sometime gubernatorial candidate named Dudley Leblanc. In 1952 it was the second-most heavily advertised product in the U.S., after Coca Cola. Leblanc told a friend once, when asked what was actually in it, "enough alcohol to make you feel good (12%) and enough laxative to give ya a good bowel movement." The alcohol was key: the stuff was a hot seller in the numerous dry counties and towns of the South.

The significance of Hadacol is not the vile stuff itself, but how it was marketed. The Hadacol Caravan was a huge traveling country music revue featuring Hank and other major country stars of the era. Admission to a show was two Hadacol labels per person. Leblanc took the show to places where Hadacol wasn't distributed, and the drugstores would suddenly get hundreds of requests for it.

At peak they were spending a million dollars per month on advertising, but selling a million per day of product. It didn't last, of course. The whole scheme crashed and burned as the AMA and the Food and Drug Administration took an interest in Hadacol, and the Caravan suddenly had no money to pay its big-ticket performers or Hadacol's many creditors. (Hank himself was dead a few months later.)

Leblanc had been using the Caravan as a funding & public exposure springboard to run for Governor of Lousiana again. Didn't work out so well for him, thus Lousiana was deprived of having this colourful character as its leader...

W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:28 PM

That's a danged shame. With a little luck he could have gone on to be President, and we could all be guzzling Hadacol daily...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Willie-O
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:18 PM

I just read a biography of the ill-fated Hank Williams. In the last year of his life, he was a headliner on "the last, greatest medicine show", something called the Hadacol Caravan.

Hadacol was an allegedly medicinal product which was developed and marketed by a Lousiana hustler and sometime gubernatorial candidate named Dudley Leblanc. In 1952 it was the second-most heavily advertised product in the U.S., after Coca Cola. Leblanc told a friend once, when asked what was actually in it, "enough alcohol to make you feel good (12%) and enough laxative to give ya a good bowel movement." The alcohol was key: the stuff was a hot seller in the numerous dry counties and towns of the South.

The significance of Hadacol is not the vile stuff itself, but how it was marketed. The Hadacol Caravan was a huge traveling country music revue featuring Hank and other major country stars of the era. Admission to a show was two Hadacol labels per person. Leblanc took the show to places where Hadacol wasn't distributed, and the drugstores would suddenly get hundreds of requests for it.

At peak they were spending a million dollars per month on advertising, but selling a million per day of product. It didn't last, of course. The whole scheme crashed and burned as the AMA and the Food and Drug Administration took an interest in Hadacol, and the Caravan suddenly had no money to pay its big-ticket performers or Hadacol's many creditors. (Hank himself was dead a few months later.)

Leblanc had been using the Caravan as a funding & public exposure springboard to run for Governor of Lousiana again. Didn't work out so well for him, thus Lousiana was deprived of having this colourful character as its leader...

W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:17 PM

Back in the mid-Seventies, Kraft Foods, Inc. came out with "Koogle"—flavored peanut butter. It came in four flavors: chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and banana. I understand that Koogle, like the Edsel, was a product that grew out of extensive consumer research. Launched with lots of TV commercials, it sank like a rock. I understand the Jif Peanut Butter (Proctor and Gamble) is planning on trying it again.

I'll stick with my jar of Adams peanut butter (no lard added, just peanuts) and my jar of grape jelly. I love the classics.

I keep an X-Acto knife handy to fillet the TV Guide when it comes. You know, all those stiff cardboard pages inserted among the newsprint, so they'll pop open every time you pick it up to see how to waste some time? Invariably they're ads for kitch doo-dads and dust-catchers, like a ceramic figurine of Princess Di or Elvis Presley under a glass dome, or a little doggie with sad eyes, or a plate commemorating Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Five easy payments of $39.95 each," and the ad always says something like "Limited Edition Collectors' Item." I heard someone on "Antiques Road Show" say, "If it's advertised as a collectors' item, it isn't!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:04 PM

Here's another one my Dad was peripherally involved in...

Remember back when the movie industry was doing all these films about animals going crazy and attacking people? It really started with "Jaws". Then we had movies about grizzly bears, piranhas, flying piranhas, birds, frogs, worms, rats, chinchillas, whatever...

So, during the 80's sometime a Hollywood filmmaker comes to my Dad's design company with a script about alligators going crazy and attacking people en masse in the Everglades. The script was the usual terrible schlock, with lots of blood and explosives and action. The gators were to be led by a gigantic King gator who was about as long as a Greyhound bus and far meaner. The hero gets to battle it out in the climactic scene with the King gator. Uh-huh.

Well, in due course of time a truck arrived with about 30 fiberglass alligators in the back, including one monster specimen. These were to serve as the initial models on which to base a few actual working robots that would swim, open their jaws, roll their eyes, and so on.

This would have been an enormous project, quite beyond the capabilities of my father's company, in my opinion. Fortunately, the deal fell through, as Mr. Hollywood failed to secure necessary funding.

The fiberglass gators remained, stacked in a huge pile at the back of the model shop area. They got really dusty after awhile, but never failed to attract the attention of visitors.

My father finally closed the whole thing down in the early 90's, and was faced with the problem of what to do with the leftover machinery and other stuff. He sold most of it in an auction, but the gators remained.

He finally went to the Indian Band Office (Rama Reserve), on whose property the business had been located, and offered to give them the alligators.

They accepted!!! Most of the gators disappeared into people's back yards, and have served to amuse many children, but the King gator was displayed proudly on the front lawn of the chief's house for a number of years.

I kid you not.

There's a new chief now in Rama, and I'm not sure just where the gator is...but I daresay he's still around there somewhere.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 01:48 PM

Someone mentioned the skateboard craze. I was around for the first one (mid-60s), and the general feeling was that you just made your own board. Mine was a foot and one half of 1x10 with the front and back portins of a standard metal clamp-on street skate. It was fast, but not highly maneuverable. The metal wheels also tended to develop flat spots. In the second wave of the craze (early 80s?), the manufacturers were on top of it, cranking out factory-made boards by the thousand. I still look down with scorn on these new boarders with their helmets, pads, and plastic wheels. They don't have any idea what its like to hit a sidewalk seam at 40 mph and have your metal wheels come to a complete stop, and you wearing nothing but a pair of cut-offs.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 01:16 PM

Wow! Maybe they could make a Museum out of all this stuff. I wouldn't include stuff that was just a fad... like Cabbage Patch Dolls. They caught on like wildfire for awhile. Now, you might think that lava lamps should be in this thread because they appeared and disappeared along with tie-dyed shirts. We thought. At least over here, lava lamps are all over the place, along with tie-died shirts. I even saw a chair set out for trash with a peace sign painted on the back. Some fads do come back, at least for a little while. For food products over here, they re-issued (but not re-mixed, I hope) Black Jack and Teaberry gum, which was made by Clark, from what I remember. It hasn't really caught on, but it's been back on the market in a limited way for at least ten years. Black Jack gum was licorice gum. The perfect follow up to a licorice popsicle. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: SharonA
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 09:00 AM

A couple of years ago, Mattel (makers of the Barbie doll) came out with Barbie's "friend", the Rosie O'Donnell doll. It looks pretty much like her – complete with the sneering smile – or at least it looks like Rosie looked then, before she gained even more weight. But why Barbie would be palling around with Rosie is anybody's guess!

Of course the doll sold very poorly, if it sold at all. It's so bad that it'll probably be a collector's item one day (along with that Gerry Garcia doll!).

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 09:00 AM

1-Up
2-Up
3-Up
4-Up
5-Up
6-Up
ya gotta admit it, that guy was sure persistant.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: GUEST,Foe
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 08:48 AM

Flag Flyer shoes in the 50s, "Flip they're open, Snap they're shut"

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Genie
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 02:29 AM

How about Rudi Gernreich's topless bathing suit, introduced in the 1960s? The prototype I saw was like a one-piece maillot made of a stretchy material but cut off just below the bosom and held up by a one spaghetti strap that went around the neck. On some beaches in Europe some women did start going topless some time during the 60s or 70s, but I don't think there were more than a handful of the topless suits sold.

Then there were the paper dress and the paper underpants, which were also introduced in the early 1960s and never really became big sellers.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:54 PM

Here's one...

OS2

More's the pity...

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:43 PM

They haven't been out long enough to know for certain, but if the Cadillac and Lincoln pickup trucks don't turn out to be the first "Edsels" of 21st Century I'll eat my fingerpicks. In five years Bubba amd Claude will be totin' their lawn maintenance equipment around in what were originally $40,000.00 vehicles.

I can just imagine a couple of old guys sitting around reminiscing twenty years from now.....

"John, what's the stupidest thing you ever did?"

"Well, Bill, it pains me to remember, but I once bought a Cadillac truck."

"Damn, John! That was stupid!"

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:30 PM

My father created a modular building called a Q'bik. (cubic) It was made of triangular sheet metal panels which formed a one room building. Even the door and the windows were triangular. The floor was plywood. It was supposedly quite easy to build. His advertising literature said that all you needed to put it up in an afternoon was "2 men and a pole".

I said to him, "You should add to that...or 1 man, a dog, and a Hungarian". He was NOT amused.

The sheet metal turned out to be the biggest problem. It got bloody hot on sunny days! You could've roasted a hog inside there. This necessitated putting insulation on the inside...lots of it. Then it would get very cold at night...and the extreme temperature changes would cause the thing to shrink and expand, which led to other problems.

Add to this that the door (which was actually a hinged double triangle) was a real bastard to open and shut.

The windows were okay, but you couldn't open them.

In damp weather the thing would sweat like mad on the inside and get like the black hole of Calcutta in no time flat. This was somewhat alleviated by providing small vents, but not enough to prevent mushrooms from growing inside the storage areas under the bunk bed/sofa.

After about 3 years the plywood floor began to rot out from the moisture condensing and running down and the insulation got too damp to function properly.

2 of the things were built. One served as a tourist information kiosk for the City of Orillia for a couple of years, and then vanished mysteriously. I lived in the other one for about 3 years. It was an experience not to be forgotten.

I am still alive, so the idea was not a total failure, but it has never gone into mass production. This story is 100% true. If I were better at blue clickies and stuff, I could probably find a picture of the Q'bik somewhere.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: RangerSteve
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:09 PM

Gablinger's Beer. It was low calorie, but I don't believe it was non-alcohol. It tasted like beer-flavored soda. There was no fitness craze going on at the time, so no one cared.

Hoppin' Gator Beer - the guy who invented Gatorade sold the product to someone else and with the money he made, tried combining Gatorade with beer. Can't imagine why it failed.

Hereford's Cows - something like Baileys Irish Cream, but in flavors - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and (heaven help me) root beer.

I had Fizzies once, not bad, but then kids will eat or drink anything. They died out because they were made with the now banned sweetener Cyclamate. Other artifical sweeteners (and sugar) won't hold together in tablet form.

Kelloggs cereal with dehydrated strawberrys and bananas. The fruit had the same feeling as papier mache. By the time the fruit became rehydrated, the cereal was completely soggy.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 08:41 PM

the Austin Allegro with the square steering weel, the Austin Maestro with the talking dash bored.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 07:04 PM

in about 1962, in Kansas, there was an attempt to market canned, processed **WHEAT**...called it "Redi-Wheat" and touted it as a 'strecher' for hamburger, and a substitute for rice..etc... It lasted about a year....wish I had saved the one can I bought...*grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 06:45 PM

Pet rocks made a lot of money for a few people for a while which was the purpose for the whole thing. Their popularity just gave way to the next craze. Guess it depends upon what one means by not catching on. On the other hand, "New Coke". Millions of dollars in promotion. Absolute proclamations by the company that New Coke was here to stay. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but Pepsi sales in the concession stand I operated mushroomed. And then its gone. I nominate New Coke.

Subject: RE: BS: Products that Never Caught On
From: Banjer
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 06:44 PM

Makes my solar powered flashlight idea seem almost normal! I made up a 'gag gift' for a friend of mine who is ever alert for tropical storm warnings and wants to be always ready. It was simply a glass jar, empty of course, with a professional looking label on the outside. The label said "'Dehydrated Water' to use simply add tap water."