One would hope that the inventors of the ballyhooed “Golden Goose” device that scrambles eggs inside their shells would acknowledge an intellectual debt to Ron Popeil, whose inside-the-shell egg-scrambler was heavily advertised on American TV several decades ago. The devices operate on different principles, but are clearly stops on the same technological history highway.
Mr. Popeil is so far reacting to the Golden Goose announcements with gentlemanly good wishes, on Twitter:
Here’s Mr. Popeil’s commercial, preserved on a portion of the Internet called “YouTube”:
Mr. Popeil, one of the era’s most prolific inventors, was awarded a 1993 Ig Nobel Prize in the field of consumer engineering, for redefining the industrial revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler. [REFERENCE: “The Salesman of the Century : Inventing, Marketing, and Selling on TV: How I Did It and How You Can Too!“]
Here is a promotional video for the new, non-Popeil invention:
BONUS: An old appreciation of an Ig Nobel-winning gadgeteer
BONUS: The wisdom of Ig Nobel winner Ron Popeil
BONUS [Unrelated, about a very different Ig Nobel Prize winner who, among many other things, made a commercial that harkens to the style of some of Mr. Popeil’s most riveting commercials]: The Yet Still Further Continuing Adventures of Troy (Chapter 310)