Bright Ideas

[ER]

I was reading about a man in the 1970s who took gravel, put it into little boxes, and marketed it as pet rocks. He actually sold millions! For....for actual money!

He got rich! Then he died. But before he died he got rich!

I been thinking, enough time has passed for people to forget pet rocks, and Millennnials are kinda gullible after growing up on fake news and such, so what if I eliminated the gravel and just sold the empty boxes themselves, and marketed them as Pet Air?

[ER]

I know, I'll bare every nook and cranny of my checkered past because I can't sleep. Yeah, good idea...

[dean]

There was a 'silly presents' type store back in the day that amongst it's items sold a 'jar of nothing' which was literally an empty jar with that labelled on it. I assume it's for those who tell you that they want nothing and you decide to be antagonistic about it.

On the flip side they had a jar of 'happy pills' which were little red and white medicine pills with happy faces and when you open it up it had an inspirational message in it which was kind of nice.

[indianasmith]

Some kid sold a taped up shoebox on EBay for $20,000 a few years back because it contained a "ghost" he had caught under his bed.

Then, there is this:
   For decades, students at Harvard would buy pies at a nearby pie store and when they had finished them, they would sail the pie pans back and forth and catch them on the college green.  Finally, one student got the bright idea to make a plastic replica pie pan and sell it as a toy to be tossed, thrown, and caught.  The name of the pie company:  Frisby's pies.  He changed the spelling to avoid a lawsuit.

And now you know . . . 

[javakoala]

Some kid sold a taped up shoebox on EBay for $20,000 a few years back because it contained a "ghost" he had caught under his bed.

Then, there is this:
   For decades, students at Harvard would buy pies at a nearby pie store and when they had finished them, they would sail the pie pans back and forth and catch them on the college green.  Finally, one student got the bright idea to make a plastic replica pie pan and sell it as a toy to be tossed, thrown, and caught.  The name of the pie company:  Frisby's pies.  He changed the spelling to avoid a lawsuit.

And now you know . . . 

That can't be. According to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics, the "frisbee" was invented when a couple of kids peeled the long dead and flattened cat Frisbee off the highway and started flipping him back and forth.

[LilCerberus]

In the early '90s, I had an idea for a twin wheel drive motorcycle. All I got from people was how stupid it was, to how hard to handle it might be, to "why would anybody want that?"

Now, go and Google something called "Christini AWD"
And,no, it's not the same thing as a Rokon.

[Trevor]

I had the bright idea to shave my head on Saturday for the CANSA Shavathon: now me look like plucked chiken. 

[ER]

When I was in sixth grade during the Persian Gulf War I had a cool teacher who assigned us an in-class mock science fair where we were supposed to come up with a wild idea for a science project and present that, and mine was that since petting a cat creates static electricity, and since most cats enjoy a certain amount of petting, why not end our energy worries by building giant power plants containing thousands of cats with tiny batteries on their collars, and people would come through and pet the cats and the sparks from that would get stored in the batteries, and when the batteries got filled up they could be switched for empty ones, and then those batteries would be plugged into the plant itself and, voila, cat-based electricity would come down the wires. No more pollution or fighting over oil.

I still think it'd work.

[Alex]

I think thats a shocking idea ER.

[ER]

Thank you, the spark just came to me.

[BoyScoutKevin]

There was a 'silly presents' type store back in the day that amongst it's items sold a 'jar of nothing' which was literally an empty jar with that labelled on it. I assume it's for those who tell you that they want nothing and you decide to be antagonistic about it.

On the flip side they had a jar of 'happy pills' which were little red and white medicine pills with happy faces and when you open it up it had an inspirational message in it which was kind of nice.

That sounds a bit like the British TV show from 1976 "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" w/ Leonard Rossiter and Pauline Yates, as he gets the idea of opening a chain of stores that sells useless items like his son-in-law's homemade wine, square hula hoops, etc., and he makes a fortune doing it.

[The Burgomaster]

Strange decade, the 70s.

* Pet Rocks

* Mood Rings (my mother had one . . . after the first day the stone was black most of the time)

* K-Tel records (where they would jam so many songs on each side of the album that they had to cut a minute or two out of each song to make them all fit)

* Pop Rocks (here, put these little candies in your mouth and wait for them to explode and ricochet off your teeth . . . good times . . . good fun)

Ah, memories.

[ER]

I'm thinking about earning extra Christmas money this year by renting myself out as a professional mourner at funerals, weddings, and thirtieth birthday parties.