The Year in Stupid: Products

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The Year in Stupid: Products

Year in stupid products.

Stupid knows no boundaries. It's in Washington and overseas, in the air and in the water supply. And it's also plentiful around the world, in sufficient quantities that we can devote an entire edition to The Year in Stupid: Products.

HealthPartners, a healthcare non-profit that works with drug and pregnancy testing, introduced Petey P. Cup, a 6-foot-11 walking urine specimen vial, as its new advertising mascot. Petey even has his own Facebook account.

A Texas rattlesnake rancher placed dead rattlesnakes inside bottles of vodka and sold them as an "ancient Asian elixir." When arrested for selling liquor without a license, he protested that "it's almost a spiritual thing."

Tired of having your iPod and your Taser in two devices? Taser International introduced the Taser MPH -- the first combined mp3 music player and 50,000-volt Taser. They released it with several fashionable covers, including leopard print.

Danimer announced a deal earlier in March to make biodegradable packaging for Skittles candy. This week, the company said it's adding hundreds of jobs in Bainbridge.

ABC News reported that men in New York nightclubs were trying to make themselves look "ripped" by smearing their torsos with Preparation H, because it constricts blood vessels and may lead to a more muscular look.

CharcoCaps Homeopathic AntiGas Formula pills purported to help users control their flatulence. The ingredient: Activated charcoal. "Just five grams of activated charcoal has the same surface area as an entire football field," their web site touted. Good to know.

St. Paul, Minn., got its first Sonic fast food drive-in. For days after it opened, thousands of cars waited in lines more than an hour. Sonic had to have police control traffic. Yes, that Sonic.

Warner Bros., which owns the copyright to Scooby Doo, sent a cease and desist letter to a company making sports bras. The bras were being sold under the name Booby Doo.

Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett challenged his city to lose a total of 1 million pounds. To help publicize it, he brought on a sponsor: Taco Bell, a fast food icon, go figure.

Bowing to strong protests, Woolworths in England withdrew its "Lolita Midsleeper -- a bed that was being marketed to young girls. The company said it had not been aware the name Lolita comes from a famous novel about a 12-year-old girl who is coerced into sex by her pedophile guardian.

Fredric J. Baur, designer of the Pringles potato chip can, was so proud of his design he asked to be buried in one. When he died at age 89, he was cremated and some of his ashes were placed in a Pringles can and buried.

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Stupid knows no boundaries. It's in Washington and overseas, in the air and in the water supply. And it's also plentiful around the world, in sufficient quantities that we can devote an entire edition to The Year in Stupid: Products.

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