Strange Vintage Products That Left Us With Big Questions For Their Inventors

The ’70s were a strange time, and that couldn’t be more evident than when you take a look at sauna pants. These were basically blow-up shorts that would make the wearer’s thighs get so warm that they start sweating profusely. The conceit of Sauna Pants was that you could seemingly lose weight simply by wearing them... "seemingly" being the operative word.

What’s your favorite flavor of Jell-O? Strawberry? Orange? You can’t go wrong with blackberry, and maybe a left-of-field — but still very good — choice might be lime. These flavors are well and good, not to mention classics. But have you considered… celery?

Certain fashion trends of the ’90s have made a bit of a comeback in recent years, but one thing that probably won’t return are glasses like these. Between 1995 and ’97 Nike was peddling the Magneto line of eyewear, but it never exactly took off. Leaving aside how ridiculous they looked, these things also required wearers to attach a magnet to their heads.

How anyone thought this was a good idea is baffling, but all the same, Creepy Crawlers was marketed to kids during the ’60s. Basically, this gadget allowed children to create plastic toys in the shape of bugs and frogs. The problem? The "Plasti-Goop" used to make these creatures was as insidious as it sounds.

In 1998 Kellogg’s brought out Breakfast Mates, a product the company seemed to imply would be revolutionary. In the end, it wasn’t. It was basically a single package containing cereal, milk, and a spoon made from plastic, which was meant to cut down on the hassle of breakfast time. The issue, though, was that having the milk and spoon in the same package as the cereal didn’t really make any difference at all.

Everyone knows McDonald’s fare isn’t intended to take the place of broccoli, but the company has still repeatedly made a point of promoting its nutritional credentials. One arguably misguided attempt was when the McLean Deluxe Burger was introduced. Ads for this thing claimed it was “91 percent fat-free,” which was all well and good until customers tasted it.

There’s nothing better than a hot cup of Joe to set you right first thing in the morning. But while lots of people enjoy going through the ritual of preparing the beverage, others don’t. So, in 1990, Maxwell House released a product to appeal to that latter group. It was basically pre-brewed coffee contained within a carton, which was ostensibly meant to be convenient.

The Easy-Bake Oven is a charming idea, and plenty of people have fond memories of using one as kids. The problem is, though, that allowing children to play with a toy that can burn their skin is an accident waiting to happen. And plenty of incidents have occurred over the years, with lots of kids getting hurt.

Plenty of Americans love Life Savers’ range of minty and fruity candies, but in 1920 the company brought out an experimental new flavor. It was Malt-O-Milk, which as you can imagine was neither as refreshing nor as zesty as some of the other flavors. It's not often that anyone thinks, "A malt-flavored candy would really hit the spot right now!", and this wasn't the case in the '20s, either.

Home computing has come an awfully long way since the ’90s, but the progress hasn’t always been smooth. Its history is littered with failed products such as Microsoft Bob. This was an operating system interface that presented itself as a home. But if you thought it was anything like today's Google Home devices, then you put too much faith in ol' Bob.

Another failed tech product from the ’90s came from Apple. Hey, you can't win them all! And the Pippin definitely wasn't a winner. It was a gaming console, and at first, it was a fairly good one. Compared to other consoles available at that time, the Pippin was actually quite powerful. The problem, then, was one Apple still grapples with to this day.

In 1979 Clairol introduced a new product to the market: Touch of Yogurt shampoo. No, not to eat — to wash your hair with. It seems consumers weren’t quite ready for this innovation. In fact, lots of people didn’t seem to be quite aware of what it was. And some reports suggested that quite a few people tried to eat the stuff.

The future looked bright for Fizzies in the early ’60s. These tablets — which were added to water to make it carbonated and flavored, a concept that continues to be a hit today — were selling well when they first hit the market. But then, things started to go wrong. You see, in order to make the tablets actually taste like cola, root-beer, cherry, and its other popular flavors, they were produced using artificial sweeteners.

Gaming has definitely changed a lot over the last 50 years. Rather than playing with PlayStations or Xboxes, kids in the ’70s had to make do with toys such as Clackers. This basically involved smashing plastic balls together, and it was an exciting, albeit loud, good time... until the spheres reportedly exploded. Clackers weren't nearly as innocuous as they seemed.

You know Reddi-Wip? Allow us to introduce Reddi-Bacon. Lots of people love bacon in the morning, but if you’re in a rush it can be a little too arduous to rustle up. But what if we had bacon we could prepare in the toaster? Surely that would be a roaring success, not to mention a huge time-saver?

How’s this for a board game concept? You and your opponent try to bulldoze as much garbage as you can onto each other’s side of the board... and that’s about it. It may sound like the perfect time-waster for a bored 5-year-old, but the lack of strategy, conflict, or design left more grown-up board game players, well, bored.

Nowadays, our smartphones can give us access to an unfathomable amount of audio content as we’re walking around with our earphones in place. But back in the day, it wasn’t so simple. The Man-from-Mars Radio Hat, though, was an attempt to give people of the late ’40s and early ’50s the chance to listen to the radio as they wandered around. And they looked cool as heck, too!

This nightmarish face mask was introduced in 1999, and it was aimed at people hoping to tone their facial muscles. The fact that it looked so freaky when people put it on is bad enough; it was, reportedly, also incredibly painful. One person who tried it once supposedly claimed it felt like “a thousand ants are biting my face.”

Everyone knows now that asbestos is a massive health risk, but back in the day, everyone loved the stuff. It was stuffed in our walls, used to prevent heat in kitchen hot pads, and even used on movie sets. People even used it to decorate during the holiday season, as it looked very like snow... can you see where we're going with this?

Orbitz was a beverage containing colorful balls made from gelatin. It looked like a lava lamp, and judging by this groovy description, it must have felt pretty unsettling to drink. The marketing campaign made it all sound pretty lofty, though, describing it as a “texturally enhanced alternative beverage.” But as it turns out, the last thing people want in their water is texture.

The LaserDisc had a lot going for it in the realm of home video entertainment. It was supposed to revolutionize entertainment forever! Mainly, it offered a far better picture than its competitor, the VCR. But as the manufacturers and consumers alike quickly realized, LaserDisc's issues far outweighed its benefits.

The food industry is always looking to innovate, but sometimes it just goes off the rails in terms of its ideas. Of all the food industries out there, you'd think that baby food manufacturers would be the least likely to experiment. Gerber learned the downsides of experimentation in 1974 when they released a line of products that was basically tantamount to baby food for grown-ups.

Pez candies are generally a big hit, and kids love the colorful dispensers used to dole them out. They've even become major collector's items! But in the late ’60s, the company undertook an experiment in flavor that didn’t exactly set the world alight. It introduced a flower-flavored candy, which, as any sane person might have predicted, wasn’t terribly popular.

Apple products are pretty much synonymous with contemporary life, but the company’s early days were no stranger to dud products. A whole bunch of its products failed to take the world by storm, like, for example, the Apple Lisa. The intent behind the product was clear: to create a mainstream PC that anyone could use. This isn't exactly what happened, however.

Have you ever taken a sip of an energy drink and thought to yourself, "Hmm, this needs a little something extra — maybe a little radium?" No, of course you haven’t. That would be crazy. And yet, in 1918 a "medicinal" drink called RadiThor was on the market, and it really did contain the chemical element.

Another soft drink with a doomed trajectory was Pepsi A.M., which was aimed at the “breakfast cola drinker." After all, we all know someone who has soda alongside their morning coffee. Well, this drink was supposed to combine the two beverages. The beverage was absolutely loaded with caffeine, offering an alternative to drinking coffee first thing in the morning.

Marketed as the “car of the future,” the Ford Edsel ultimately proved to be anything but. It definitely looks like a car from the past, these days! Within two years, the vehicle had failed spectacularly, with Ford losing millions of dollars in the debacle.

Execs at Persil thought they’d stumbled onto a winner in the mid-’90s. The company introduced Persil Power, a detergent containing a special, patented formula for removing stains called Accelerator. And at first, Accelerator worked... but it worked a little too well.

It’s fair to say kids love blowing bubbles. It’s a simple joy that doesn’t really age. However, the company Wham-O started messing with the idea with the introduction of its Super Elastic Bubble Plastic product. This basically amounted to a tube containing a gloop that kids could use to blow up bubbles. These bubbles were thicker and tougher than regular bubbles, which made them even more fun for kids.

Glass blowing is a highly specialized craft that takes years to perfect. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, then it can actually be really dangerous. With that in mind, you’d think the last thing you’d want to do is let untrained children try their hands at it. But during the ’50s, Gilbert Toys brought out a blowing set for kids.

Back in the ’40s, DDT was used for a variety of purposes. Perhaps at the top of the list was its usage as a pesticide to keep people’s homes free from nasty insects. It sounds all well and good... until the truth about DDT was uncovered. In reality, the chemical compound is extremely dangerous and can lead to a whole host of health issues for people exposed to it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A simple maxim, but one Coca-Cola — and Pepsi, and many other soda brands with a penchant for experimentation — would have done well to remember over the years. In 1985 Coca-Cola introduced New Coke, which was an alteration of its normal recipe.

Jarts (or Lawn Darts) were basically big, weighted darts that players could throw in their backyard. What could go wrong? Well, quite a lot, it turned out. As consumers soon discovered, allowing children to toss a bunch of heavy spikes in their air can actually lead to some serious injuries. Who possibly could have predicted that?

Wow! Chips were introduced by Frito-Lay back in 1998, and honestly, things went well at first. The product was made from Olestra, which was an alternative ingredient to the fats you’d normally find in chips. Sounds like a ground-breaking product, right? Well, not exactly. Consumers initially liked Wow!, but soon the problems with Olestra became evident.

Everyone loves reclining in a hammock, but it’s not necessarily as safe as you’d think. Accidents can happen, which is why mini-hammocks aimed at kids were such a bad idea. These things were pushed throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and even ’90s, but with some tragic results.

Colgate is synonymous with toothpaste, which means trying to apply the brand to something else was always going to be a problem. That’s probably why the company’s Kitchen Entrees range failed so spectacularly. We have a feeling that Colgate's whole motivation behind the products — to sell more toothpaste, maybe? — also turned people off.

Some pet owners probably take their animals’ lifestyles a little too seriously, but this takes things to another level. Thirsty Dog! and Thirsty Cat! were flavored water products in a bottle aimed at our four-legged friends. The dog one tasted like beef, while the cat one was fish-flavored. So what went wrong?

Another misguided water product came from Coors back in 1990. The beer company introduced Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water, but it didn’t sell well. Gee, we wonder why! Consumers obviously associate the Coors name with beer, so they were never particularly likely to get their bottled water from the company.

The Betsy Wetsy doll of the mid-1930s looked like it came right out of somebody’s nightmares. The creepy toy was terrifying in appearance, plus its functions were pretty weird. Basically, it could drink, cry, and pee itself. Other dolls do those things, but given how strange this one looked, it all had quite a sinister feel.

Nintendo has released some of the greatest consoles in history, but the Virtual Boy was not one of them. This gaming system, launched in 1995, was a primitive attempt at virtual reality entertainment... "primitive" being the operative word. The appearance of the games wasn't nearly as high-tech as advertised, and the gameplay itself was clunky, to say the least.