02x12 - Insane Inventions

[bunniefuu]

- Did you know that
there was once a time

when we put out house
fires with hand grenades?

- All these things really did

was introduce yet another
deadly gas into the situation.

- Oh, and hitting the road

meant climbing inside your tire.

- It feels like something
out of science fiction.

Why use a whole car
when you can just use

the one part that
moves, the wheel?

It's really kind of genius.

- Or when the first noise
canceling headphones

could end up canceling you.

- It's vaguely terrifying.

It looks somewhere
between a sock puppet

and maybe a thumb with eyes.

- It will put you to sleep,

mostly because you're
starving your brain of oxygen.

- These are the things
we used to do for fun,

for money, or maybe
out of boredom

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly!

Deadly?

Occasionally, but boy,
wasn't it exciting?

Ask people what invention
they'd love to see most

and many will say a jet pack.

Well, it turns out
in the late 1950s

we actually had one,

and it could send you
flying like Iron Man

with a few minor drawbacks.

- In 1947, Chuck
Yeager does something

that people thought
was impossible.

He flies a plane faster
than the speed of sound.

- Chuck Yeager becomes
a household name,

but they don't know the man

that's behind the development
of the technology.

- His name is Wendell
F. Moore,

an engineer at Bell Aerosystems,

the maker of Yeager's plane.

He's part of the design team

on these special thrusters

that allow Yeager to
control the aircraft

at high speed and altitude.

- So he wonders
about those thrusters

from Yeager's plane.

He wonders if they
could actually power

a one man flight system.

In other words, a jet pack.

- For three years,
Moore wrestles

with different
ways to build one,

but in 1961, he really
thinks he's cracked the code

and he calls it the rocket belt.

- The rocket belt consists

of an aluminum and
fiberglass frame

that has tanks on the back.

One of 'em is full of nitrogen

and two are full of
hydrogen peroxide.

- Hydrogen peroxide
is insanely volatile.

It heats to over 1,400 degrees

in less than 2/10
of a millisecond.

It sends supercharged vapor
out of the rocket belt

allowing the operator
to take flight.

- What it did was you
strapped it to you

with the fuel in the jets

and then it shot out super
heated air and exhaust

about two inches from
all your private parts,

and shot you through the
air for about 30 seconds,

and then you landed
the hard way.

- Moore spends months
testing the rocket belt

in a Bell hangar.

Pretty soon they moved
to free flight outdoors.

- It's not long before
these amateur testers

are getting the rocket
belt up over 100 feet

and going 80 miles per hour.

- This all seems cool and fun,

but it's still really,
really dangerous.

They're moving at immense speeds

with a very finite time of fuel.

If you misjudge your capacity,

you could fall dozens of
feet at a very high speed.

- So if that doesn't
k*ll him or hurt him,

he's got a 125 pound
rocket apparatus

strapped to his back

that's gonna come
crashing down upon him.

- But the dangers
don't stop the outdoor tests,

and for people who pass by
them, they are awestruck.

- So people driving
by these airfields

that see these tests,
it's a man flying.

They're thinking like,
"What is going on here?

What am I seeing?"

- The reaction is
complete astonishment.

It looks otherworldly.

- It's the late '50s,

most people don't
even have a color TV,

and there is jet
pack technology?

- The press catches wind
of the rocket belt tests,

and quite surprisingly,

the forces that be allow
public demonstrations.

One famously comes
in 1961 at Fort Bragg

in front of no other
than President Kennedy.

- The operator takes
off from a boat

and approaches the
area of the grandstand

where the dignitaries are,

lands directly in front
of President Kennedy,

throws him a salute.

President Kennedy salutes back

and it's a huge crowd pleaser.

- These crowds convince
Moore

that this is no
flash in the pan.

The public is hungry for
their own rocket belts.

- Pretty soon the
press is reporting

that rocket belts are
gonna be available

for civilian use in
about two or three years,

and Moore is telling
the newspapers

these things will be cheaper
than cars pretty soon.

- The hype even
reaches Hollywood.

Bell loans one of
the rocket belts

to the latest James Bond
production, "Thunderball."

- But despite big
crowds and Hollywood cameos,

Moore and his engineers

can't seem to fix a
few small problems.

- The jet pack is producing
about 130 decibels,

which is deafening.

That's the sound of a
B-52 airplane taking off.

Even with hearing protection,

long-term exposure is going
to have a negative effect

on the individual's hearing.

- Also, there's a lot of
exhaust that comes around.

So you take off in a
cloud of rocket exhaust.

Then you have these nozzles

that are just inches
away from your body

and they're incredibly hot.

- There are close calls

in these public demonstrations,

and the testers just keep
taking it higher and faster.

- In one case, Moore's neighbor

who he convinced
to be a test pilot

went careening into a
stage during an exhibition,

and there were
musicians on the stage

that he almost took out.

- But no one puts a stop
to this

because of the danger.

No, it's the fact that
Moore can never find a way

to make those flights
last any longer

than about 30 seconds.

And in the end,
that's what kills it.

It turns out people
don't just wanna fly,

they wanna be able
to fly long enough

to get somewhere.

- How, in 70 years
since this thing

has been boxed up,

nobody has improved on
the jet pack design.

There should be a team
of scientists out there

right now working on this.

- If flying around

with a rocket strapped to
your back sounds like fun,

how about straddling
a cruise m*ssile

just inches from your crotch?

- In the 1970s, a
military contractor

called Williams Research

designs a new machine
that's called the X-Jet.

- It's about three feet
wide, four feet tall,

and weighs about 235 pounds
without fuel or a pilot.

- Developers give it the
nickname the Flying Pulpit.

It's a waist high cylinder

kind of like you're flying
around in half a barrel.

There's a rocket
pointing straight down

and you control it by leaning

or using a hand throttle.

- It has an engine usually
used for cruise missiles.

So in terms of power,

it absolutely blows the
rocket belt out of the water.

It can fly roughly 45 minutes
at like 60 miles an hour.

- The Army does some test
flights in the early '80s

and they find that these things

are pretty impressive.

They can drift, they can
move around, they can fly.

- The dream of the
military

is they have a whole
bunch of these X-Jets

zipping around the b*ttlefield,

engaging in reconnaissance,

and maybe even hit and
run attacks on the enemy.

- The X-Jet could
reinvent the b*ttlefield

except that army accountants

would also have to
reinvent the budget.

- The military
abandons this project

because of costs.

Williams Research thinks,

"Well, listen, if it's not
gonna work for the military,

let's pivot to civilians."

And in order to win people over,

they give it a cool facelift.

They paint a nice logo on it,

they give it these
awesome looking colors

and they just try to
make it attractive

for people to purchase.

- You look a little bit
like Oscar the Grouch,

but you're still flying.

- But you're flying

if you can keep
the X-Jet upright.

- So there's a couple
issues with this thing.

It is pretty unstable.

If you lean a little too much

as you're trying to maneuver it,

you can just topple
the thing over.

So that's a big problem.

- One test pilot refuses
to go above 15 feet

because it's just too scary.

- It's also
incredibly loud

and the exhaust is so hot,

you know, you could
scorch concrete

with that thing.

- But maybe the biggest
issue

is that the pilot stands
astride the engine.

In most aircraft, the
engine is typically placed

somewhere at the extremes,

in the back, on the wings,

right above you
in the helicopter.

But in this case, you
have a turbofan engine

right between your legs.

- And you are straddling
a cruise m*ssile engine.

The thing they use
to destroy enemies

thousands of miles away.

- This thing is spinning at
tens of thousands of RPMs.

You don't want to think
about what would happen

if a fan blade broke off.

- If there's one tiny
problem,

if it kicks off one
of those turbofans,

just one little
blade, k*ll, see ya.

- And yet it's not the
dangers

that ground the X-Jet.

- Williams
was unable to go on

and create the X-Jet

because ultimately
no one wanted to pay

to actually produce them.

So really it's more of
like a financial issue

than, oh, there's a cruise
m*ssile between my legs.

- The Flying Pulpit was
a real leap of faith

and not a lot of people were
willing to take that leap.

- Today we are surrounded
by distractions,

but that's nothing new.

In the 1920s, one
inventor built a device

to shut out the world

and ended up in over his head.

- During the roaring '20s,

the U.S. is obsessed
with innovation.

One of the era's great thinkers

is a guy named Hugo Gernsback,

a writer, publisher,
and futurist.

- In 1925, Gernsback
has a problem

that people in 2025
will identify with,

and that is that he
feels overwhelmed.

He's editing multiple magazines,

he's constantly reviewing
new scientific gadgets.

He is beginning to
feel more and more

like there's so much going on

that I don't have a
great deal of time

during which I allow
my mind to disengage

and do what it does
best, and that is think.

- Between ringing telephones

and the constant hum of
civilization around him,

zeroing in at the task
at hand is impossible,

and this is before cell phones.

- Gernsback's solution:

He dives headfirst
into his new invention,

the Isolator.

- So the Isolator
basically looks

like an old school
diving helmet.

It's made of cork and felt

and it completely encases
the wearer's head,

leaving only two small
slits filled with glass

so you could see out of it.

- Gernsback says his
invention

eliminates 90 to


Think of it like a jazz age
noise canceling headphone.

- It's vaguely terrifying.

It looks somewhere
between a sock puppet

and maybe a thumb with eyes.

- At first, the Isolator works.

Slip on the helmet,

and the outside world
magically disappears.

- Gernsback seems
intent

on making this a
commercial enterprise.

He refines his drawings
and his patents

to produce what will look
like a consumer product.

- But Gernsback
soon discovers

that blocking out
the natural world

comes with some
unpleasant side effects.

- So Gernsback and
his other associates

that try the Isolator,
after about 15 minutes,

they all have one
common thing happening.

It's that they're
kind of getting tired,

like almost a little
lightheaded even.

- The Isolator is
poorly ventilated.

There is nothing there
that's protecting you

from the carbon dioxide
that you exhale.

And so the drowsiness
that he's feeling

is the beginnings of
a slow moving process

of asphyxiation.

- Oopsie, one
little design flaw.

It will put you to sleep

mostly because you're
starving your brain of oxygen.

- Sure, he may be suffocating
some people trying it,

but Gernsback does not give up

and he creates a solution.

He adds a hose
that runs directly

to a tank of oxygen.

- There's a legendary
photo of this updated model

and Gernsback unveils it

in a 1925 issue of his magazine,

"Science and Invention."

- Gernsback's just
sitting at his desk

and he's wearing the Isolator

with a hose to an oxygen tank.

You could just unplug the phone,

tell your secretary,
"Hey, I need 10 minutes.

I have to focus on
this one thing."

But oh no, he was like,

"I need to scuba,
but out of water."

- While the carbon
dioxide buildup is solved,

oxygen itself is very expensive

and these tanks only
last about half an hour.

And pure oxygen
is very flammable.

- In the modern workplace,

you can't mop a floor without
putting adequate signage

saying "Wet floor, piso mojado."

An isolation airtight helmet

with a direct line
of flammable oxygen

where the alternative
is suffocating people?

The Isolator is
an OSHA nightmare.

- Also, you wonder
about productivity

'cause you could just think
a person's really focused,

they're asleep under
the gigantic helmet.

- Despite all the hype,

Gernsback ultimately
scraps the invention

without any explanation.

And let's be honest,

we don't need any explanation.

It's ugly, stupid, unsafe

and will k*ll everyone
in the office.

- Maybe he can really
see into the future,

and what he saw was
lots of lawsuits.

- A new self-improvement device

always gets attention.

And in the 1950s, one
new exercise invention

was more electrifying than most.

- In the years
after World w*r II,

the idea of achieving
beauty or fitness

without much effort
really becomes popular.

Heat lamps to give you a tan,

vitamins to keep you
healthy and thin.

- An engineer
named William J. Browner

takes this idea
to the next level.

What if the hard work
of getting in shape

could be completely
replaced by electricity?

- Browner invented a device
called the Relax-A-Cizor,

which should kind of
tell you what it is

right in the name.

You relax while electrical
currents do the exercise.

- When you open it up,

it's all these knobs
and wires and dials,

and it kinda looks
like you're about

to administer a polygraph.

But instead, what
you're gonna do

is a no effort workout.

- If you look at this thing,
it screams 1950s, 1960s,

the pink color, the knobs
and things for intensity,

and various features.

- Each of these implements

is designed for a
different body part, right?

So you have the
back beauty belt,

there's an abdominal
beauty belt,

and then there's the
facial beauty belt.

I think for your double
and/or triple chins.

- The belief is this:

Once the juice is turned on,

the electrical
currents go to work

and they will make the
muscles continue to tense,

essentially doing
the reps for you.

But the belief is that
the electrical current

can shake loose fat cells

and tone these
specific body parts.

- Browner has early
success

marketing the Relax-A-Cizor

on the West Coast, and
in the early 1950s,

he goes national
with Relax-A-Cizors

regular folks can use
right in their homes.

- The ads have
aesthetically beautiful people,

buff guys with beautiful
women draped over them,

"Get a body like this, you'll
get a woman like this."

But also the ads are saying

that there's another enhancement

that women can get
from the Relax-A-Cizor

other than a good workout.

- The Relax-A-Cizor
even makes an appearance

on the TV show, "Mad Men."

- And you have everything when
you use the Relax-A-Cizor.

- Where it's marketing
around beauty, weight,

and women's attractiveness.

- People
can't wait to strap

into these new miracle devices

and relax their way
to a k*ller body.

- Over the course
of about 15 years,

people buy thousands
of Relax-A-Cizors.

- You have people
across the country

attaching these
electrodes to their body

and without any limits

on how much current
they can apply.

This gets dangerous
pretty quickly.

- You can actually dial
up the electricity.

So yes, you can go full
Spinal Tap, Nigel Tufnel,

and take your exercise to 11.

- Doctors begin seeing
people

with deep electrical burns

that match the shape
of a Relax-A-Cizor pad,

likely from turning
the current up too high

and/or applying it for too long.

- And it really doesn't work.

People have been
subjecting themselves

to repeated electric
shocks for nothing.

- The lengths that
people will go to to lose weight

without actually putting
in any effort is insane.

If they spent a
fraction of the effort

that they put into
not working out

into working out,

they'd be so much better.

- Eventually the FDA
takes a look at this.

They get a lot of complaints

and they decide
to sue the company

for this fraudulent product

that actually hurts people.

- 40 different witnesses
testified during the trial

about how the device
has harmed them.

- In the end, the
judge rules in favor of the FDA

and they order no more
manufacturing, no more sale.

And furthermore,

all existing Relax-A-Cizors
need to be destroyed.

They're that dangerous.

- Amazingly,
the thing even gets

its own wanted poster.

- The FDA goes the added step

and puts it up in
government buildings

all across the country,
"Beware this machine.

It will shock you and hurt you."

That is how bad and how
popular this machine was.

- Today, electric
stimulation devices are safer

and heavily regulated,

but we're all still
looking for the same thing,

a way to work out
without the work.

- Sometimes trying a
risky new invention

is like playing with fire.

Well, back in the
day, there was one

that actually did play with fire

and it was music to our ears.

- In the 1700s,
scientists discover

that if you put flame
into a glass receptacle,

it actually creates a sound.

But it's not until 1873

that a French chemist
named Georges Kastner asks,

"What if we actually use
this dynamic to make music?"

- So Kastner creates
a bunch of glass tubes

of different sizes

and attaches it to something

that functions
essentially like an organ.

Each key leads to a tiny burner

that's got a gas
valve inside the tube.

- The way the
instrument is played,

Kastner opens valves that
cause different levels

of combustion within
different sized tubes.

The hotter the flame,
the higher the note.

- He calls his
invention the pyrophone,

which in Greek translates
to "fire sound,"

and it's dazzling to
both hear and watch.

- Kastner, he hires
organists to play the pyrophone

and it's demoed in places
like London and Paris.

Now audiences, they are wowed

with these hypnotic
dancing flames

that jump in time to
the tones of the music.

Newspapers are calling
this the singing flames.

Reports describe this
haunting, otherworldly music.

It's like nothing
they've ever seen.

- The idea of a
musical instrument

that harnesses fire is
really kind of mind blowing,

but there's a reason

that we're not really
familiar with it.

It's really dangerous.

- The pyrophone is
volatile.

Uneven pressure in the tubes

can cause this
delicate instrument

to turn effectively into a b*mb.

- Reportedly, one of the
first models explodes

in the middle of
the performance,

injuring an organist.

- Kastner tries
to refine the design

to control the gas better,

but unfortunately,
he's playing with fire.

- This would be like today,

cracking open the gas line
that powers your stove

and trying to make a musical
instrument out of it.

It's crazy.

- Gas, at the time, is
hydrogen,

which is not so
easily controlled

and there are often leaks.

Hydrogen is also easy to ignite

and can cause large explosions.

- By the late 1880s, the
pyrophone is just relegated

to scientific demonstrations.

They're not using it
for music anymore.

- Believe it or not,

there are still some
versions of the pyrophone

that exist today,

but the modern versions
use propane or gasoline,

and the original glass
tubes have been replaced

with heat safe or safety glass

so that they could
actually contain the heat

more safely and not
explode and k*ll people.

- Starting fires was one thing,

putting them out was
something else entirely.

- Predecessors of modern
day fire extinguishers

do exist and the
principle is the same.

They spray chemicals
in the form of liquid

that rob the flames
of heat and oxygen,

but they're not common

and they have a lot of problems.

- They're cumbersome.

They can only spray a few feet,

which means you have to
get right up to the fire

to use one,

and the pressure's
really inconsistent

so you can't really
rely on them.

- So how are
you supposed to attack

an out-of-control blaze
in the late 1800s?

A Chicago company

decides the best answer
is a hand grenade.

- The hand grenade
fire extinguisher

is a glass orb filled
with chemicals.

So if a fire breaks out,

all someone has to
do is throw the orb

from a safe distance
to the flames.

The glass shatters and
releases the chemicals

and puts the fire out.

People snap these things up.

They not only work,
but they're pretty,

they look like
Christmas ornaments.

- Fire companies also
stock up on them,

and so do average homeowners.

Finally, a grenade that's
perfect for the home.

- The first hand
grenade fire extinguishers

are filled with water
and chemical salts,

which work pretty well.

But then in the 1890s,

manufacturers switch to
an even better substance,

carbon tetrachloride.

- The vapor that comes off
of it

works faster than the
water and salt mixtures

they've been using in fire
grenades up till then.

- Firefighters
and average citizens

rush to buy these
flashy inventions

only to discover
they're more dangerous

than the fires they're
supposed to put out.

- It turns out that
when you heat it up,

carbon tetrachloride breaks
down into phosgene gas

that is literally
a chemical weapon

that would be used
later in World w*r I

k*lling tens of
thousands of people.

- All these things
really did

was introduce yet
another deadly gas

into the situation that
is filled with heat,

fire, and deadly gases.

- There aren't a lot
of things you could add

to an out-of-control fire
to make it more deadly,

but it turns out
carbon tetrachloride

does exactly that.

- At the
turn of the century,

these grenades are
mounted in homes

and public buildings

quietly waiting to turn a fire

into a chemical attack.

- Sometimes when firefighters
use these grenades

in confined spaces, they
collapse on the spot.

Finally, a safety
bulletin warns,

"Carbon tetrachloride,
when exposed to flame,

may produce dangerous
decomposition gases

injurious to the lungs."

That's putting it mildly.

- I had the honor of
being

a New York City firefighter.

We had months and
months and months

of intense training
on how to fight fires

and not one of those lessons

contained taking a glass
bulb about this size

and trying to hit
the base of a fire.

It just doesn't work,
it's not sound science.

I mean, it looks cool
hanging on the wall,

but it's not gonna work.

- Back then, the best
way to stop a fire

was to break glass
and hope for the best.

- Ever since the first
car hit the road,

inventors have chased new
state-of-the-art features,

and in 1930, one man
delivered an idea

that seemed out of control.

What if the driver
rode inside the wheel?

- J.A. Purves, he's an engineer

but he's also a dreamer.

And one day he has
this eureka moment.

He sees a sketch by
Leonardo da Vinci

of his perpetual motion machine,

and he says, "My
God, this is it,

this is the car of the future,"

and he decides to
build it with his son.

- The car is christened
the Dynasphere,

but reportedly Purves
also calls it Jumbo.

The thing is 10-feet-tall

and it weighs 1,000 pounds.

Its top speed is reportedly


- The design is kind of
nuts.

There's a cabin that
sits inside the big wheel

and that's where the driver is.

A 2.5 horsepower engine
rotates the big wheel

around the cabin.

This design is basically made

so that the cabin
stays stationary

while the big wheel spins.

- Purves thinks
that driving around

with one simple wheel

is going to be
cheaper and easier.

Why use a whole car
when you can just use

the one part that
moves, the wheel?

It's really kind of genius.

- Purves, he builds
different models

that run on gas and electricity.

He even builds multi
passenger Dynaspheres,

some that can carry
up to eight people.

- It feels like
something

out of science fiction.

In 1932, there's a
"Popular Science" article

that bills it as the
car of the future.

Newspaper articles predict

that roads will soon be filled

with these giant wheel vehicles.

- But Jumbo has
some very large flaws.

- In order to steer, you
actually have to shift

from one side to the other.

Not a good way to
go about steering.

Later models actually come
with the steering wheel,

but the handling of the
steering wheel is not easy.

- There's no
windshield,

there's no suspension.

So the line of
sight on this thing

is straight through

and you basically can
only really see clearly

when you're going fast.

So if you start to slow down,

it means that's opening
slower and slower

so you really can't see as well.

- So the problem with breaking

is sometimes the
outer ring stops

but the inner cabin does not.

And this is called gerbiling.

You're literally going around

in the inner cabin
like a gerbil.

- That's a real
tough selling point

'cause now everyone needs
to be like harnessed in.

You can't just casually
like hit the brakes,

now you're just tumbling around

like you got stuck in the dryer.

- And then what happens

when you're in the multi
passenger with eight people?

I mean, you guys are
gonna get injured for sure.

- Turns out like the
tumbling and the gerbiling

was just too much for people.

So team Purves is unable
to solve the problems

and the Dynasphere actually
never goes into production.

- It's pretty
interesting to imagine

if this had worked,
you go to the grocery

and there's just lines of these

one-wheeled gigantic things

that people hop inside of.

And to be honest, we would
brake check those people

all the time just to see
them...

- J.A. Purves wasn't
the only inventor

whose futuristic
vehicle made heads spin.

- Buckminster Fuller is this
really innovative architect

who has all of these
kind of grand ideas

about how to solve
societal problems.

For example, he wants
to mass produce homes

and have them airlifted,

kind of prefabricated
into neighborhoods

and just placed down.

- And he really believes

in kind of what we
call minimalism.

He fully believed in
doing more with less,

and that really becomes
kind of his catchphrase.

- In the 1930s, he sets
his sights on a vehicle

that could be both a
car and an airplane.

The car's fuselage
has to be airworthy

even if it's not quite
ready to take off.

Building the car
is the first step

before attaching the wings
and taking to flight.

- Fuller names his
new vehicle the Dymaxion,

combining three of
his favorite words,

dynamic, maximum, and tension.

- The Dymaxion body is
incredibly aerodynamic.

It's like 20-feet long

and shaped like a
silver teardrop.

It's powered by a Ford V8 engine

and able to carry
up to 11 passengers.

It has three wheels.

Two are in the front

that provide the drive mechanism

as well as stability.

And there's one in
the back for steering.

- To test it out, Fuller
takes it to a Bronx racetrack

and it ends up shattering
the course record,

reaching a speed of
over 90 miles an hour.

- Wherever he goes, the
Dymaxion causes a scene,

and it's not safe,
it steers terribly,

but that doesn't matter.

Look how cool it looks,
and the public love it.

- The Dymaxion
is on the fast track

to becoming a super-fast,

super-efficient vehicle

that can eventually
grow wings and fly.

But Fuller's dream
car has a fatal flaw

that is about to be
exposed on the world stage.

- Fuller is invited to
showcase the Dymaxion

at the Chicago World's Fair

and he has enlisted
a Gulf employee

by the name of Francis Turner

to drive the vehicle there.

- For the demonstration,

Fuller has Turner drive
the vehicle at high speed

around the perimeter
of the fair.

Before long, the
design flaw of this car

starts to rear its ugly head.

- Things go horribly wrong.

Eyewitnesses say it
starts to tip and roll

and at that point it's
hit by another vehicle.

So now, with that single
wheel in the back,

there's really nothing
to stop that thing

from just rolling and
rolling and rolling.

- The two passengers
onboard, they survive.

But Turner, the
driver, is k*lled.

- This accident
highlights the issues

with the Dymaxion's handling,

and this pretty much
ends it for Fuller,

so no one's interested in it.

He ends up only
making three of them,

and that's the end
of the Dymaxion.

- Today, the Dymaxion
lives in a museum.

Good, 'cause it
can't hurt anyone.

- Most inventions
solve problems,

but sometimes they
create new ones.

In the early 1900s,

one household device did both.

- Obviously, no one likes
wrinkled clothing today,

but back then, pressed clothing

isn't just a sign of neatness,

it's a reflection of character.

So a wrinkled collar

could actually cost
someone their job.

Irons at the time
are super primitive.

They're basically just
big hunks of metal

with a flat side..

They're really heavy,

they can weigh up
to eight pounds,

and you heat them up

by just kind of putting
them in the oven

and waiting until they get hot.

- Inventors try
various improvements

including electric irons,

which would be great,

except few houses
have electricity.

- Then in 1902, an
inventor comes along

and says, "I got this.

A design that's gonna
keep an iron heated

to a consistent temperature.

No more grabbing hot
irons off the oven.

This thing only
heats the flat part

that touches the clothes.

The handle stays at
room temperature."

It's a miracle.

- The heat comes from
an internal burner

inside the iron

that is filled with
a new wonder product

called gasoline.

- The self heating iron
is patented the next year

and pretty soon manufacturers
across the country

are picking up on the concept.

- One thing you notice
about this is that,

you know, to us
it might look like

a really quaint old timey thing.

At the time, this is absolutely

the most cutting-edge
piece of technology.

And like an automobile, the
gas tank is in the rear.

"Use only approved
fuel," gasoline.

I dunno if they have
unleaded in those days.

- One company reports
selling 850,000 units

over the next 17 years.

That's 50,000 gasoline
irons per year.

This is getting into the hands

of a lot of American women

and making their
jobs so much easier.

- But it turns
out this miracle appliance

is also a ticking time b*mb.

- A gas leak can cause
carbon monoxide to build up.

So it's sort of like
running a car engine

inside your home.

- Inside the iron,
pressurized fuel, the gasoline,

sits just a few inches
away from an open flame.

It's kind of like a
small camping stove.

- The system has no
regulators

or only these like kind
of crude small vents,

and it could kind of
explode at any time.

And women are standing

within very, very
close blast distance.

- Even if they don't
explode,

if you get a clogged
jet or a cracked seal

or an overfilled tank,

that can turn your little iron

into a miniature flame thrower.

- And all too often,

that's exactly what happens.

For years, headlines
show women dying in fires

after ironing.

- Fire officials blame
all of these incidents

on self-heating,
gas-powered irons.

- A handheld gasoline
powered object like this

obviously could not
be manufactured today,

but in this time
before electrification,

gasoline was the
way of the future.

So who cares if there's
a couple deaths?

Everyone's gonna look
really sharp at the office.

- By the late 1930s,
gas-powered irons

are pretty much phased out

by the advent of electric
irons and steam irons.

They work faster and
they're much easier to use.

So it's not actually
safety standards or hazards

that k*ll the gas iron,

it's just better
design coming along.

- By the 1940s, inventors
had a handle on machines

that generate heat like irons,

but cooling things down,

well, that was a whole new field

with its own set of perils.

- The great American
road trip is born

in the '40s and '50s.

I mean, you think
about it, gas is cheap,

people got cars, roads
are coming up everywhere.

They really want to
go out and explore.

So summertime especially,
people just hit the road.

- Problem with cars
in the '40s and '50s

is that they didn't
have air conditioning.

We all take air conditioning
today for granted,

like we believe that we
are owed air conditioning.

But not too long ago,

you had to drive
through 100-degree day

in a hot metal car
with your entire family

with nothing to cool you down

other than the windows.

- My dad and I would
go

from Birmingham, Alabama,
to Albuquerque, New Mexico,

and it was so hot

I thought we were driving
on the surface of the sun.

- Manufacturers
answer the call

with ingenious devices

you can pop right
on your vehicle

that actually cool off the
air inside, car coolers.

- They're these shiny
futuristic canisters

that are bolted or hooked

right onto the side
window of your car.

- Inside the device is a sponge

that's immersed in water.

As you drive down the
road at high speed,

air circulates
through the device

and into that sponge.

And beyond that, in the
interior of the car,

you feel cooler.

- For lots of families,
car coolers are a miracle.

I mean, they're
relatively affordable.

They're about $15 a pop,
which is $180 today.

They'll give you up to
three hours of cool air

before needing to be refilled.

- It seems like
one problem with road trips

has been solved, but
users soon discover

that beating the heat means
enduring something else.

- These devices smell real bad.

In the Southwest,

they've earned an unfortunate
nickname, swamp coolers.

- All of the wet rags
and stuff

that you're putting into it,

eventually mold, must,
and all that's blowing,

and it makes your car
smell like a swamp.

Now, some people
might have been good

about cleaning it
after every car ride.

I still have a chocolate
candy bar wrapper

on the floor of
my car from 2008.

There was no way a guy like me

was cleaning out
that swamp cooler.

- But this isn't
the end of the story.

- A stinky swamp odor

isn't the most dangerous
thing about this.

The way that it worked

was you hooked it onto
the side of your car

using these little metal hooks.

Hit 50, 60 miles per
hour on the highway,

the wind would lift it up

and sh**t it out behind you.

- Because you gotta fill
these things up with water,

all in, they can be
like 10 to 15 pounds.

So if that's suddenly
flying off your car

into the windshield
of the car behind you,

it's like chucking a
bowling ball out at 55.

- It was a disaster,

it was a safety
nightmare, they had to go.

- There's also a serious
problem with these coolers

blocking the driver's vision.

I mean, at one point,
Arizona State Police

begin ordering them removed

after the vision issue
causes seven accidents

in a short span,
two of them major.

- In the '60s and '70s,

air conditioning
became a lot more

of a standard feature in cars.

- I don't know who
invented air conditioning,

but I assume you're
dead, and prayers,

because there's nothing
better than air conditioning.

I would rather
live without bread

than air conditioning.

- The next time your car's
air conditioning breaks down

and it's expensive to fix,

just remember what the
alternative could cost you.

- Once we invented
the combustion engine

and automobiles,

we loved putting motors
on anything with wheels.

Some ideas like turning bikes
into motorcycles were great.

Others, not quite as amazing.

- In the 1950s, Detroit
is a happening place.

I mean, you got the fifth
largest city in the U.S.,

plus you got the big three there

making it all happen,

Ford, GM and Chrysler.

- Because of all this,

Detroit is this hotbed of
creativity and innovation.

There are all these
engineers there and inventors

and there's prosperity.

So people feel like the
technological edge is there

and they wanna be part of it.

- But one
Detroit inventor

has a very different vision

for keeping America moving.

- There's a GM mechanic
named Antonio Pirrello

and he wants to
really revolutionize

the way people get around.

He wants to make something
fast that'll stand out,

but also something that people

know and love already.

How can I make it better?

So he decides he's
gonna try to figure out

how to supercharge
some roller skates.

- Believe it or not, inventors
have been trying to do this

since the early 20th century,

but no one really
nails the design.

- Instead of having
individual motors on skates,

Pirrello decides to put
the motor and the gas tank

on a unit that is
worn like a backpack.

- So the idea is
that there's a cable

that's run on the engine.

It goes down to the
right rear wheel

of the roller skates
and it spins that.

So essentially, that's
your traction going forward

and you would use
your left roller skate

to steer where you want to go.

- There's a handheld
throttle as well as a clutch,

and these things can
get going really fast.

Pirrello hires a
professional roller skater

and they clock in at


On regular roller skates,

a professional can go maybe


so 40, that's really fast.

- Pirrello deems
his design a success.

Now, determined to sell
his skates to the masses,

he has to prove

that powered wheels on your feet

are not only fun, they're safe.

- Pirrello starts going around

Detroit neighborhoods himself

and going faster than
cars on the streets

using these crazy roller skates.

- Imagine being a normal
pedestrian in Detroit

and you just walk
outside of your house

and you suddenly
see this guy whiz by

at 40 miles an hour.

You'd probably think,

"Did I wake up in the future?"

- Pirrello gives interviews
to "Life magazine"

and "Popular Mechanics"

and he even makes appearances
on "The Today Show"

and "You Asked for It."

- These skates
are a real gasser,

and I mean that literally.

- Customers
start grabbing up

these high-powered skates.

But once someone
brings a pair home,

the hard part begins.

- It's hard to even
keep your balance

on regular roller skates,

but with these skates,

you're gonna keep going
faster and faster and faster,

and you know what
happens on skates,

you are going to fall.

- Safety wasn't a thing
really for roller skating.

So it's not like people
are wearing helmets.

I mean, he is cooking,


is real fast on roller skates.

- Essentially you're
going as fast as a car

but without the car
wrapped around you.

So you know, out in the street,

that is a disaster
waiting to happen.

- If the fall doesn't k*ll you,

there's also an
exposed fuel line.

So at any point, you
risk getting burned

by the exhaust or
catching on fire.

"How are the new roller skates?"

"They're pretty good.

I got 'em from that guy
that had 'em that died."

- So the invention sounds fun

and exciting and convenient,

but in reality, speeding
through your neighborhood

with a flammable backpack
and no safety gear,

it's not a good idea.

- After
strong initial sales,

accidents rise and sales drop.

- There's people that
said

that they were using these

and their clothes
caught on fire,

their skin got burned
from the exhaust.

I mean, that's again,
if you survive.

Like if you wreck at


- I love fast cars,

but even I don't want any
parts of this invention.

- Looking back on the inventions

we thought would
be groundbreaking,

like working jet packs
to high voltage workouts,

to putting out fires
with hand grenades,

sometimes we got
in over our head,

but it's that
outside-the-box thinking

that made our hazardous
history always a good idea.