STAN FREBERG HERE...The Recent Inventions Report
Stan Freberg here. A couple of recent inventions caught my eye: a recorded message you can send along with the flowers, and a free-standing cane. Can't knock it over. Be right back. [:60 SPOT BREAK]
Freberg here. Thomas Edison first recorded the human voice back in 1877, but he probably never envisioned a recent invention. Jeffrey Stern of Manhattan developed a way to send a recorded message along with a bouquet of flowers. The sender calls a toll-free number and leaves a recorded message, which is then downloaded by the florist into a card containing a voice chip, and delivered with the flowers.
But the florist had better make sure he puts the right message into the right voice chip. Say a wife gets the flowers and plays the recorded card: "I love you, Emily." "Emily?" she says to her husband. "Who's Emily?" "Why, don't you see," the husband sputters, "the florist obviously mixed up my message with somebody else's." "Don't speak to me!" she says. Hmm.
And Hammacher-Schlemmer sponsored a contest recently for inventors. The winners were a father and son who invented a self-righting cane. The weighted black graphite cane only weighs one pound, and can't be knocked over. Great for people who are tired of feeling around on the floor for their cane. This way, they only have to remember where they left it standing. Then they could put a recorded chip in the cane that said, "Over here!"
Even if, through some error, the cane said, "I love you, Emily," it would still give 'em a fix on where it was standing, you know.
Stan Freberg here.
Copyright (C)1996, Stan Freberg/Freberg, Ltd. (but not very) Distributed by Dick Brescia Associates and Radio Spirits, Inc.