The goal of most inventors is to create things that will revolutionize the world -- and set themselves up financially for life in the process.It turns out that the whole "revolutionizing the world" part is completely optional, as inventors like Rich Bailey and Jonah White have shown.
The pair has made millions of dollars from a line of novelty products known as Billy-Bob Teeth. The concept behind their gimmick is both simply stupid and stupidly simple: Billy-Bob Teeth are prosthetic dentures that make their wearers resemble inbred hillbillies.
In honor of this massively unimportant contribution to mankind, let's take a look back at some of the most successful dumb inventions in modern history.
AirborneThis overhyped vitamin supplement, first marketed in 1997, may do nothing to prevent illness and has recently suffered quite a backlash, yet its creator, former schoolteacher Victoria Knight-McDowell, is now living it up like a virus lives it up inside Edward Cullen.
Antenna BallsEver since these smiling eyesores, originally the idea of gas station Union 76 but later made popular by hamburger chain Jack in the Box, took off in the mid-1990s, many savvy entrepreneurs have made oodles of cash simply by adding two cents' worth of paint to a foam ball.
Big Mouth Billy BassThis irksome plastic novelty, released in 2000 by the evil geniuses at Gemmy Industries, has made more money from a singing career than nine-tenths of Hollywood.
HeadOnThis hot-selling homeopathic headache reliever, whose belligerently repetitive ads went viral in 2006, illustrates one of the most important principles of holistic healing: You don't need any active, or even effective, ingredients to legally sell your product.
OxiCleanMade from an active ingredient anyone can buy at a pool supply store, OxiClean -- released in 1999 and popularized via famous infomercials featuring now-deceased pitchman Billy Mays -- proves that people who clean all day don't always understand science.
Santa MailFor roughly $9.95, your child can receive a "personalized" reply to his or her letter to Santa. If he wasn't so jolly, the real Santa would probably take offense to the many companies profiting from his good name (and penmanship) in this manner.
Slap Chop/ShamWow! (tie)These essentially useless products, hawked in ubiquitous infomercials since 2007 by actor Offer "Vince" Shlomi, show how far a good pitch can go. One is an expensive towel, the other actually adds a step to the process of cutting vegetables.
SnuggieWearing your clothes backwards has never been so marketable. Buy our new backwards sportcoats -- no need for a tie!
Pet RockTopping our list is the granddaddy of all successful novelty items: The pet rock, conceived of and sold by Gary Dahl beginning in 1975. Yes, a rock that you keep as a pet -- and over 5 million people bought it! Our parents were really stupid.


























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Tuesday 12 January
By ReaderX
You'll probably want to pull Airborne from the list. It's well established that a shock treatment of Vitamin C can definitely prevent certain common cold/flu. So, it works.
Sure, it MAY not do your laundry or fix your car or cure HIV, but that's not what it's for. It's for boosting your immune system to fight against getting sick. And it does it fairly well.
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Thursday 14 January
By oldephart
Lets not forget about the once adored 'mood' ring. It's various changing colors (supposedly) coincided with your current emotion and the dull green (around your finger) indicated that you were wearing it far too long. As for the pet rock? it beat the
h--l out of those gawd awful cabbage patch dolls...
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Thursday 14 January
By Jayebird
Hey Now.... I had me a pet rock. His name was Rocky Boy. Yep.... Rocky Boy was a good ole rock. He never did talk much, He was a country boy. I picked him up outta the driveway and drawed his eyes on. Sorry Mr. Dahl you didn't get my 10 bucks. Maybe I wasn't so stupid.... But then again.... It was the 70's. Ya Know?
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Thursday 30 September
By Imzadi
You should defiently pull HeadOn from the list. I have suffered migraines since I was a child and have suffered from a chronic headached since age eighteen. I barely finished high school because of all the time I missed due to the severe pain.
I have been just as hopeful about any treatment that I have tried. Some of which did help, others did not, all with the varying incidents and degress of side effects you would expect.
HeadOn Migraine (not the extra strength) works for me! I don't know why. And do you know what? I really don't care. Just like I don't really know how that first spark of life happened, I don't doubt that it did, cause obviously I'm alive.
I would really like to speak to the people who say this product doesn't work. Have they ever even had a migraine, let alone a chronic on? This product helps me and some writer's (not doctor, not scientist) opnion and guesswork about wether something should work or not is insulting. Suffer for a while, which your life pass away without getting to enjoy it for years then you can tell me wether something is a scam or not. Chemo doesn't help every cancer paitent, nor does antibiotics, surgery, asprain, or any other treatment or drug; Would you like to pull them off the market next?
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