Fart O Tron was a 1960s gadget designed to mask entirely the existence of flatulence in female humans.
Unlike the Fart O Matic, which existed to amplify male human farts in the name of humour, the Fart O Tron worked to hide the individual elements that make up farts.
Dr. Robert Skinkiss was the mastermind behind the product. Skinkiss claims that it was 1958 when he realised the problem with farting was actually the work of two problems combined.
While balanced precariously on his roof one summer’s afternoon, Skinkiss slipped and fell. Managing to snatch hold of the guttering at the last minute, the educated gentleman said a whole heap of thoughts just whizzed through his mind – like a kaleidoscope on caffeine.
Of those thoughts, the two that stuck were related to farting. Dr. Skinkiss had recognised that farts could be broken into exactly two, equally embarrassing portions: The noise and the smell.
He realised that if he could invent something, anything, that would eliminate both the smell and the noise of the fart simultaneously, he would be a winning inventor. What’s more, he would be rich, not to mention ‘The man’.
The Fart O Tron was of extremely simple, but elegant design. Shaped like a modern-day air freshener can, the Fart O Tron had an extremely loud air-horn on the end. The premise was a simple one: Eradicate all sound for the duration of the fart, then eradicate all odour for the duration of the resultant stench.
Gone were the days of horrible farting women. Women were free to eat what they chose. And the myth that “girls don’t fart” was truly underway.
Ladies began air-horning their way through the sixties. Fart O Tron was the best thing since sliced bread came on the market and stopped people from accidentally slicing their fingers off all the time. They were like miniskirts: no woman was seen without one.
Fart O Tron’s demise occurred at the end of the decade. Literally at the end. It was new year’s eve 1969 and a man named Ron Blackman was getting ready to go out with his partner Jane.
As Jane walked down the stairs, the urge to fart hit her. As her swinging sixties street training had taught her, she deployed her Fart O Tron without the action even requiring her concious thought. Sounding its trademark air-horn sound and releasing a puff of fresh lavender into the atmosphere, Jane continued her descent.
“What the fuck was that?!” said a startled Ron, glaring up the stairs at her in the manner of wolf who has just been subjected to 12 hours of non-stop audio-bondage in an aviary. “What, darling?” said a naive Jane. “The fucken steamship sounding as you came down the stairs!” Ron replied, a bit baffled.
Jane hadn’t realised, but despite nine months together, that was Ron’s first experience of the Fart O Tron. In fact, since Ron was from the Orkney Isles, on the remote northern tip of Scotland, he had never experienced a Fart O Tron before. And Jane hadn’t realised this.
News of their break up soon hit the papers, the media finding the Fart O Tron an easy scapegoat. People soon started consciously hearing the air-horn sound and immediately recognising what it meant. Using a Fart O Tron soon became more taboo than just a silent, foul gassing of one’s peers. Indeed, if reports in some papers were to be believed, the Fart O Tron was responsible for both communism and immigration.
One British newspaper even blamed it for the events of “Black Wednesday” on September 16, 1992.
Since Fart O Trons were disposable, only a few examples remain. One working relic still survives in the technology gallery at The Science Museum in London.
Have you ever used a Fart O Tron? What was the experience like? Have you, or anyone you know, been adversely affected by a Fart O Tron? Tell us your story.
Fuel, Oil and Petrol were the original names of the three mascot characters for a certain crispy rice cereal, which, for legal reasons, cannot be named here.
In the late 1800s, shortly after fuel, oil and petrol were invented and developed into commodities, oil companies were busy developing strategies for what they referred to as “the global dependance on oil”. One company’s initial idea for infiltration of the home was to name the company’s off-shoot cereal business mascots ‘Fuel, Oil and Petrol’. The idea chimed well with company executives and the board. The idea’s owner, Heinriech Friedman, was offered an instant promotion. The company was really pleased with itself: It was not only going to get Fuel, Oil and Petrol into people’s houses; It was going to get Fuel, Oil and Petrol onto the breakfast table!
Several thousand packets of rice-based crispiness were produced and sold in the first week alone. The good customers could not get enough of the product. People loved the bright packaging of the cereal. They also loved the snapping noises of the cereal when topped with milk.
The success, however, was short-lived. It seemed that people were combining the slogan on the box that read “Enjoy any way you like!” with the names of the mascots. People, mainly children, were being admitted to hospital with large amounts of ricey cereal and motor car engine oil in their stomachs.
The company was forced to pull the mascots from the box immediately. It was several months before the slightly more helpful, onomatopoeic mascot names of ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ were added to the packets. They were named after the sounds the cereal made when milk was poured onto a bowl of the cereal.
As a company precaution, numerous tests, lasting several weeks, were carried out on the sounds the cereal made when topped with various grades of engine oil.
Sir Fart a Lot was the name of a humorous character in the popular children’s cartoon series. “Arthur: & The Nights of the Ring Of Fire”
Arthur: & The Knights of the Ring Of Fire aired on Australian television from Thursday April 11th 1996 (weekly) but was cut short after just 21 of it’s 46 planned episodes.
After an investigation by the Australian Profanity Watchdog Alliance (APWA), the show was deemed offensive due to its continuous references to bowel movements.
In the first episode Sir Fart a Lot was stuck over a river with the inability to swim due to water being infested with sharks.
Using wood gathered from the surrounding forest he constructed a small vessel and used his own form of wind power to propel to the other side.
The creators of the TV series, Dennis and Donny Goldblum, insisted that the show had been made crass by the production company and that their original plans did not even include the Fart a Lot character.
The biggest enemy of The Knights of the Ring Of Fire was a brown mud like creature that rose from pipes in the ground. It was never specified what the creature was composed off but many believe this was the inspiration for the character known as the “Sh*t” Demon” in Kevin Smith’s movie ‘Dogma’.
Never officially released on DVD, the series has become a cult classic with fans paying way over asking price for bootlegged copies of all 46 episodes.
Fudge Dogs is the 1957 acclaimed movie based on the working husky packs that worked to supply North America with sweet treats during the early 1800s. Starring O.J O’Brien and Melissa Germany, the movie highlighted the extreme conditions the fudge delivery dogs and their owners were faced with on a daily basis.
In one infamous scene, a delivery contract is nearly lost after three fudge dogs break in to a satchell containing fudge and lose the load. The scene initially brought complaints from animal rights activists around the world, who were concerned for the fudge dogs welfare should they accidentally eat a batch of fudge.
These complaints were exposed as little more than PR for the movie, however, after one canny cinema-goer commented “This is a movie. They didn’t really feed them fudge. Besides, it’s chocolate that’s bad for dogs. Not fudge!”