One of AoM’s earliest and strangely most popular posts (people just pretend to like our serious stuff-they really want to know more about chest hair toupees) was a post we wrote called the 10 Worst Products for Men Ever Created. Since people had so much fun checking out the wacky products of yesteryear, we decided to look back into the archives to find some more hilarious and quite questionable inventions that were sold to men. The funny thing about these products is that most are advertised with a money back guarantee. It makes me wonder how these companies ever made money.
Enjoy.
A New Kind of Hat
Not only does this hat help you grow hair, it is also protects your brain from mind control. The Allied Merke Institute definiely should have invested more in their marketing department. They couldn’t even come up with a name for this thing except for “invention” and “new kind of hat.”
Glow-in-the-dark Kiss Me Tie
Do you often find yourself in the pitch black darkness? While wearing a tie? With a woman who will do whatever your tie tells her to? Well, sir, do I have the tie for you! If this tie doesn’t float your boat, the company also makes another equally suave design:
Glow-in-the-dark Striptease Tie
This is the mullet of neckties. Business during the day and a party at night.
The Dila-Therm
Prostatitis is the inflammation of the prostate gland and can cause your man junk to really hurt. But in the case of the Dila-Therm, the cure may be worse than the disease.
Carbo-Magno
What’s cooler than wearing a hat? Wearing a hat that can rehair your head of course!
The Lantz Supporter
The man can come back, both he’s apt to run screaming if he gets sight of this baby. Who knew that wearing a jockstrap or “suspensory,” could add two decades to your life? And someone better tell those male underwear models to stop stuffing; what they really want is a “refined appearance.”
Model 25 Nose Shaper
Why waste thousands of dollars on a rhinoplasty when you can simply smoosh your nose into submission. The ads says you can wear it day or night, but the former is only true if you’re Boo Radley.
Squirrel Lamp
Every man is looking for a cool, inexpensive hobby. Well sir, have you considered combining your passion for arts and crafts, your love for varmint hunting, and an interest in taxidermy? It will forever solve the problem of what to get your loved ones for the holidays. Mom? She’ll go nuts for a squirrel lamp. Dad? A frog-cum-ashtray is right up his alley.
Float-ees Swim Trunks
Making it to adulthood without learning to swim can be quite embarrassing for a man. You can’t very well put on some swimmies or a rubber ducky inner-tube. Float-ees is the solution! But make sure no one sees you blowing them up; they might give you a real funny look.
Paste-on Facial Hair
All men long to grow a manly mustache or sideburns. But it takes so damn long and wouldn’t you like to be able to wear some sideburns to work and then attach a cool handlebar mustache for your date that night? And sometimes you just want to rock the Satan Van Dyke. Choose your own adventure? Nah. Choose your own facial hair.
Fleischmann’s Yeast Acne Cure
There’s no beating around the bush here. No making you feel better because Puff Daddy breaks out too. But when you have a product that both clears up acne and makes bread rise, you’ve got to get your message out to the masses.
Weil Belt
You’ve probably knew these kinds of belts were sold to women, but they were apparently pitched to men as well. Surprising, but what was a man to do when strenuous exercise was “liable to strain your heart?” Unfortunately, no one had yet invented a cure for enormous striped underpants.
The Perfect Breather
What do you think are the causes of an early grave? Fatty foods, smoking, lack of exercise? Nope, it’s mouth breathing! So cut it out already! Not only will it permanently solve your snoring, it’s a final solution for pretty much every problem you’re having. Is it me, but does the guy in the ad eerily look like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction?
Ads taken from one of my favorite websites: Modern Mechanix
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
ok i want the squirrel lamp
Excessive Mouth Breathing throughout the teenage years and into adulthood has been known to produce various facial and jaw structure problems.
http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/facial-development.html
It was just a joke Mike. Kate had her adenoids out as a teenager because they thought she was too much of a mouth breather. I’m just not sure that covering up your mouth with a gag is a good solution……
Wow! Hey, you’ve got to give them credit for creativity. I want the paste on facial hair, lol
I dunno, I reckon those light-up ties would be a hit at the next office party!
Those ties are cool! Just what you need for Valentine’s Day …
I’m thinking my boss could use the Dila-Therm. Maybe an anonymous office party gift!
The one that’s been making me ROFL is this:
https://www.buynecklineslimmer.com/?MID=556727
The Dila-therm looks like the “time machine” uncle Rico bought in Napoleon Dynamite. “If only I could go back to 1982 man…”
Men will try just about anything to keep from going bald!
I just have to say, the yeast thing is something my grandfather grew up. The last time I went shopping with him he picked up a cake of yeast, and started to munch upon it. He ended up handing the wrapper to the cashier and no one said anything. He said he’d done it all the time since he was a little kid.
And in the mouth breathing photo, I immediately saw Hannibal Lector.
I’m guessing the dila-a-therm is one of those covert sex toys like the ones sold to women for “back massage.” Sure, some people probably used them for prostitatis (whatever that is), but I’m guessing many people just enjoyed vibrating butt plugs!
Methinks the worse product to come along lately is the “body spray” that advertisers have convinced young men to buy to hose over themselves in lieu of more complicated activities like bathing and washing one’s clothes.
I think the guy in the “STOP MOUTH BREATHING” ad is actually Hannibal Lecter.
Man, I can just see myself reading by the light of my Squirrel Lamp while my Model 25 Nose Shaper gently transforms my face from mug to magnet!
That and my Glow-in-the-dark Kiss Me Tie, and no lady stands a chance!
Woo-HOO! Thanks, Art of Manliness!
Bret B,
Prostatitis is a cronic or acute inflamation of the prostate. Having periodic episodes myself, I can attest to how uncomfortable it is (like having a golf ball under you skin and between your legs). As uncomfortable as it is, I would NOT even consider the dila-therm. I’d have to agree with the “back massage” comment above.
Brings to me, in the late 70’s, those gimmicks and ads in comic books for kids to get suckered in and buy – Gandalf Products – Honor House – _Johnson Smith_
There were better ways to say “ashtray made of a frog” than “frog-cum-ashtray,” assuredly? I don’t know if you really meant to say that(the double entendre of “frog-cum-ashtray”) or if it was an unfortunate side-effect of your word choice. Please say it isn’t the former.
Just cleaning out my RSS reader and came across this. Awesome! The Weil Belt is surprisingly similar to those Dr. Ho things.
The more things change, the more they stay the same -there is a ‘laser comb’ for sale now to regrow hair. Then there are the electronic exercise belts. A product named the ‘Aneros’, to massage the prostate. And since I live in Chicago, I’m gonna have to look up the ‘Glow In the Dark Tie Company’!