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.
‘Make A Fart’ is the only ever feature on popular children’s TV show Blue Peter to have received a complaint.
By the time presenter Marvin Thompson had finished his introductory link, which mentioned the upcoming ‘how to’ feature, 16’000 angry parents had telephoned the BBC to express their disgust at the programme’s content.
A further two promotions for the ‘Make A Fart’ segment occured during the episode, angering even more parents. By the time Racqui Wand came to present the ‘Make A Fart’ instructions, which made use of Blue Peter’s famous ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ line, the Television Centre had received roughly 90’000 telephone calls. Around 5’000 of them were from overseas or areas where television signals could not be received, which astonished programme bosses somewhat.
By the end of the 25 minute broadcast, The Daily Mail had published a front page complaint on the matter, which ended by calling for the heads of those responsible, the BBC had received nearly 1 million complaints, around half in letter form and commuters on the train home, who clearly hadn’t even seen the show, were calling to complain.
The Six O’Clock News that night opened with Thompson and Wand resigning from the show. Their co-presenter, Adrian Wilkes, later told how the experience drove him to a £3000 a day drug habit.
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.
Lady Fart is a popular 21st century pop singer. Like all mediocre pop stars, her earlier work went largely ignored, but Lady Fart was propelled into the spotlight following the worldwide success of singles ‘Smoker Face’ (a song about the effects of cigarette smoking on the face) and ‘The Mame’.
Amongst the younger generation, Lady Fart has enjoyed huge success and this success looks to continue way into the next decade. Adults, however, are not so easily fooled, with one such-aged person commenting “She is crass. Her name is pure desperation for attention, her lyrics are pathetic and, to make matters worse, she’s freakin’ ugly! Hardly a role model for my child!”.
Jurrasic Fart was an original comedy sketch concept conceived in early 1997 by the Canadian stand up comic Marc Le Mark. Mark Le Mark had expressed a wish to give the sketch as a good will present to the producers of the BBC’s bi-yearly UK comedy/charity event Comic Relief.
He even claimed that he had enlisted the famous wildlife documentary presenter Sir David Attenburgh to play the role of John Hammock. The role of Hammock was based on the role made famous by his brother Richard from the original movie that the sketch paid homage to.
However early this year (2009) Mark Le Mark opted to sell the rights and script of the sketch on ebay after displaying disgust at the BBC’s use of advertisements on their website, outside of the UK.
A quote from the Ebay listing read:
“My Grandma was British and she went without heating year after year just so that she could afford to pay her Television License fee and keep the once great institution, that is the BBC, free to all!”.
The auction ended without any bids. However it is believed that the sketch rights have been purchased for an undisclosed sum by the independent adult art production house Longwise.
Longwise ‘allegedly’ plan to produce a feature length version of the sketch and edit the original storyline to include numerous adult orientated elements.