Wednesday, May 03, 2006

American Inventor

Okay, this program is bullshit, but I'll admit to watching it. The premise is this: self-proclaimed inventors from across the country showed off their wares to a panel of four judges. The judges narrowed the field to twelve semi-finalists. The semi-finalists were each given $50,000 to polish up their invention. Based on what they accomplished in that round, the field will be narrowed to a final four and the ultimate winner will get $1 million.

For me the bullshit detector went off when I saw how many of the inventions involved bodily functions. Are people really that fixated on peeing, defecating and farting? There was a guy who had a cape that you could don so that you could pee into it if you couldn't find a toilet. There was another guy who had sanitary napkins with a carbon filter that were supposed to take away the stench from a fart.

Come on!

These people have to be ringers. They've got to be actors that were paid to look stupid. Who would honestly believe that they could win a million dollar completion with a toilet paper/hand lotion combo dispenser? Or a stick that's supposed to ward off mountain lions?

Now that they're working their way down to the final four, the inventions are a little more viable. There was a portable gym, a tool for rapidly making sandbags and a reversible umbrella, among other things. Unfortunately, none of the inventions shown is really worthy of a $1 million prize. Still, American Inventor is interesting enough to watch on a boring Thursday evening.

3 comments:

Jardena said...

toilet paper/hand lotion combo dispenser

Wow, that's almost a 'no comment' invention. Any guy with that in the house would catch some serious flack from friends.

I watched one episode and couldn't watch another

A Army Of (Cl)One said...

I think I read about the carbon filter thing. But it was japanese guy who had come up with it or I just fell for an urban myth. I haven't watched the show only a part of it (snadbag dude)

Michelle Pessoa said...

I thought the sandbag guy stood a good chance of winning, but he blew it. He refused to let the design team make any changes to his product, so to the judges it looked like he was either crazy arrogant or he wanted to pocket the $50,000.