Back in 1898, when radium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie, it only took a couple of years for it to be considered a magical substance with curative powers. What is now known to be one of the most toxic and dangerous chemical elements on earth, was once considered healthy, and doctors and companies added radium to a number of health products.
From water, cosmetics and toothpaste, to suppositories, heating pads and even medicine to treat impotence, radium could be found everywhere. Sadly, it took a very unfortunate incident for health professionals to finally understand the dangerous of radioactive products. During the 1930s, a man was taking a high dose of Thor-radium powder, which was supposed to help increase libido. The man took 1,400 small bottles of the medicine and his entire lower jaw rotted and fell off. From this point on, people started to seriously suspect radioactive health products. Thank God!
Hannah Montana Cherries
In 2009, everybody loved Miley Cyrus, especially Disney, but it seems like they took putting her face on things a little too far. It’s unclear what the reasoning was behind this decision, but the character of Hannah Montana became the brand representative for cherries.
The decision raised more than a few eyebrows and soon headlines emerged saying it was inappropriate and simply put, a bad idea. Cherries remained on the market, but from then on have been Hannah Montana free.
AIBO
A robot dog sounds like something everyone can get behind. Sony sure thought so when they came out with AIBO in 1999. It was a robotic dog that could respond to 100 different commands and speak. The first batch, which included 3,000 units, sold out in half an hour, but even though Sony kept making them until 2005, AIBOs never made any real money.
Turns out people prefer real-life dogs and in 2006 Sony announced that they would no longer support man’s robotic best friend. This saddened many AIBO owners, especially in Japan, who are trying to keep their pets “alive” without the support or spare parts.
The Flying Tanks
At first, the idea of a flying tank sounds pretty cool. Your mind immediately goes to some kind of sci-fi war movie that becomes a blockbuster hit. But, in reality, this failed experiment ended up being far less glamorous. It was in the early 1930s when J. Walter Christie, an American engineer, started experimenting with the idea, which was originally intended as a way to help infantry troops on the ground by providing them with tanks.
The Soviets and the Japanese experimented with different patents, but it proved useless in the end. The grand plan was to tow the tanks behind the aircraft that carried new troops into battle, so the tanks could be readily accessible to soldiers. However, the problem was that there wasn't any aircraft in existence that was powerful enough to carry the weight of a full-sized tank. Also, it was extremely difficult and laborious to land a tank on the ground without damaging it. Oh well, it was a nice idea in theory.
The Bonnet Hair Dryers
Even though this invention wasn't technically a complete fail, since you can still buy bonnet hair dryers on Amazon for $25, it still wasn't a glorious success story. The 1950s was a decade ripe with inventions and crazy ideas, and in 1951, the bonnet hair dryer was one of them. As dolled-up housewives were a huge percent of the consumerist market back then, it only made sense that hair dryers would sell like hot cakes.
The bonnet dryer that was introduced in 1951 consisted of a dryer, that was placed in a small portable box, which was connected to a tube that went into the shape of a bonnet, with holes, that was then placed on a person's head. The trick was that the invention distributed an even amount of heat to the whole head. Hair dryers have evolved a lot through the years, and it's probably safe to say that this 50s tube bonnet model was probably the most impractical of them all.