Worst Ideas Ever

by Daniel B. Kline

  Still, despite its occasional ability to cause the death of its driver (realistically that can be said of any vehicle) the Segway’s biggest fault comes in the fact that in most of the places you would want to use one, they are not legal to drive. Since no cities have Segway lanes and a vehicle which is essentially a stand-up bicycle is not safe for the streets, this leaves Segway riders to the sidewalks. In many places this is actually outlawed and in other it is simply not well-tolerated by actual pedestrians.

  This has left the Segway as a fairly innovative product with no constituency. A few police departments have put Segway into limited use but, let’s face it, the only thing less intimidating than a police officer on a bike is one driving a Segway. Mostly, Segways have been reduced to novelty vehicles that you can rent at various tourist destinations—like a less fun jet ski or motorcycle that goes slower than a fast bicycle.

  9

  The Hindenburg: People Plus a Balloon Filled with Gas and Oxygen Equals Disaster

  Before airplanes were a viable method of moving groups of people around, blimps (called airships at the time) were considered a reasonable way to travel. Airships were not particularly efficient vehicles and even in their heyday, only the very wealthy could afford to use them. The Hindenburg was a large airship that could carry seventy passengers, but to do that, the blimp required approximately forty crew members.

  Airships were essentially long, stretched-out versions of what we now call a hot air balloon. Instead of the balloon shape, the airship looked more like a football, and instead of the basket there was an enclosed passenger cabin. Unlike today’s blimps, which are essentially balloons, the huge Zeppelin transoceanic models like the Hindenburg actually had a rigid full skeleton supporting the balloon. The ship was steered with a mix of rudders and propellers. The size of a cruise ship (only eighty or so feet smaller than the Titanic), the Hindenburg remains the largest vehicle to ever fly, and before its horrifying end, it was meant to be the first of a huge fleet.

  The problem comes when you consider exactly how an airship like the Hindenburg stayed in the air. Basically, the Hindenburg was a giant balloon filled with hydrogen, and like any balloon, it was susceptible to popping. More importantly, in this case, the airship was a huge balloon made of flammable materials filled with hydrogen, which is also flammable. Then chairman of the company that built the Hindenburg, Zeppelin, Dr. Hugo Eckener actually had initially decided that the airship should be inflated with nonflammable helium.

  Unfortunately, that was impossible because Zeppelin, having undergone some tough financial times, had accepted money from Germany’s Nazi party. The Hindenburg and its sister ship, Graf Zeppelin, were adorned with Swastikas as they were both flown on a variety of propaganda flights over Germany. This made it impossible to obtain the necessary helium required for the vessel as the only suitable natural deposits of helium in the world were in the United States. Though the United States was not at war with Germany quite yet, more than a few Americans were not exactly trusting of Adolph Hitler, and Congress passed the “Helium Control Act,” which made exporting the gas illegal. So that basically left the Hindenburg as a giant flying bag of flammable gas housed in a flammable casing.

  All it would take was one spark to set the Hindenburg ablaze, and because of that, all lighters and matches were confiscated from passengers. Of course, since these were rich people and smoking was still allowed on board in a special asbestoslined smoking room, a convenient built-in lighter was provided in the passenger cabin.

  If you fill a giant bag with flammable gas and then allow people to smoke on board, it’s hard to imagine that something horrible won’t happen. Still, the Hindenburg had made numerous successful flights—which seems hard to imagine—before its fateful journey.

  The actual disaster—made famous because of the incredible news footage shot and the “Oh, the humanity” line uttered by a reporter—took place took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehust, New Jersey.

  The ship was only carrying half its full capacity of passengers (thirty-six of seventy seats were filled), but it had an extra complement of trainee crew members and so there were sixtyone crew aboard. Of the ninety-seven people aboard, thirty-five died as did one person on the ground. The actual cause of the fire remains unknown, although a variety of theories have been suggested over the years.

  Of course, exactly how the Hindenburg caught fire was irrelevant as a giant balloon filled with flammable gas was bound the eventually go up in flames. After the Hindenburg disaster, travel via airship fell out of favor, and now, blimps are only used for sporting events and advertising, and, of course, they are filled with nonflammable helium.

  10

  The Yugo: Finally, a Disposable Car

  In Europe and Asia, poorly made tiny cars are not entirely uncommon as many countries lack the basic safety standards we have in the United States. In parts of the world, seatbelts are not mandatory, and making sure a car does not crumple into pieces upon impact might be less important than saving a few dollars.

  The Yugo, however, took these low standards and brought them to the United States where, while we had seen lousy cars before (the Gremlin), we had never seen anything quite this inferior. Yugos were light, cheap, and they fell apart if you leaned on them. The first Yugos were one model available in red, white, and blue—perhaps to create the idea that this vehicle named after a war-torn country that most Americans had never heard of and would soon dissolve were, in fact, as American as apple pie, mom, and country music. On the positive side, the car was cheap (about $4,500 in 1984) and it came with a ten-year/hundred-thousand-mile warranty—figures rendered irrelevant by the fact that no Yugo ever made it anywhere near either of those numbers without crumpling into dust.

  At first, five models of Yugo were sold in the United States: the basic entry-level $3,990 GV (for “Great Value”), the GVC with a glass sunroof, the nearly identical GVL and GVS with minor trim and upholstery upgrades, and the race-inspired GVX with the 1,300 cc engine, five-speed manual transmission and standard equipment including a plush interior, ground-effects package, alloy wheels, rally lights and more. A “Cabrio” convertible was introduced in 1988, and somehow, likely due to price, the brand gained a small foothold in the United States, all the while building up a reputation for not being reliable and falling apart quickly. Reviewers often explained that it was a much better deal to buy a used car costing the same as a new Yugo, but some were simply suckered in by the allure of owning a brand-new car even if that car was legendarily a piece of junk.

  The bottom fell out for Yugo when, in 1990, the company attempted to introduce an electronic fuel injection (EFI) model. Sadly, that happened a little too late as the company was already being investigated for failing to meet U.S. emission standards. This led to the recall of over 126,000 Yugos sold in the United States—that’s every Yugo sold to that point in the country. Ultimately, that caused Yugo to end its U.S. operations in 1992.

  As the company was failing in the United States, it was also failing around the world. By the early 1990s, the United Nations had specifically sanctioned the company, forcing it to withdraw its products from every export market. Eventually, the company was destroyed for good when NATO forces bombed its parent companies’ auto division instead of its arms production facility. Still, as late as the mid 2000s, there was talk of reviving the brand and bringing it back to the United States, perhaps with a name change as Yugoslavia no longer exists.

  Le Car

  Briefly marketed in the United States, the Le Car was actually a popular model in Europe for French automaker Renault. In Europe, it was known as the Renault 5, and some of the things that made it an oddball in the U.S. market (such as the tiny engine that allowed the spare tire to be kept under the front seat) made it popular in Europe. In the United States, however, the car was given the Le Car name, and while it may have been ahead of its time
as a compact, fuel-efficient car, its effeminate look and the silly name made it essentially a novelty product bought only by hipsters and Francophiles.

  11

  The Apple Newton: What if a Rolodex Mixed with a Calendar Cost $699?

  Some would say that the eventual rampant success of other personal digital assistants (PDA) ultimately validates the Apple Newton as a good idea. That, however, would be like calling a caveman who glues feathers to his body and attempts to fly a visionary because, ultimately, someone invented the airplane.

  Similarly, it could be forgiven if the Newton had failed in only one area. If it had been a perfect product except for its oftenmocked handwriting recognition, then it would go down as an idea ahead of its time instead of as the unmitigated disaster that almost sunk Apple.

  Instead, the Newton failed on numerous levels. First, it was the size of a hardcover book, weighed nearly a pound, and was at best impractical as a “portable” device. It also cost $699 upon its 1993 launch, making it unaffordable to Apple’s then target audience of students, journalists, and tech hipsters. It also included a nonbacklit LCD screen with poor contrast that made reading difficult in good conditions and nearly impossible with any sort of sunlight.

  When the Newton was put into development in 1987, cell phones did not exist in any practical form. When it was released in August of 1993, technology had advanced, but laptops were still the size of small suitcases, and cell phones were reserved for top executives and rich kids looking to impress girls.

  Apple executives did not want the Newton to compete with their Macintosh computers, so the device was specifically given limited functionality. Instead of being a handheld computer that would justify its price tag, the Newton was essentially a heavy address book where entering names was quite the challenge.

  Theoretically, the Newton had handwriting recognition software that allowed it to learn a user’s writing and adapt to get the letters correct. As you wrote on the touch screen with the included stylus, it was supposed to get better and better at interpreting your writing, eventually making entering data as simple as writing on the screen.

  In reality, the handwriting recognition never worked and simply guessed at letters. Try to enter “Call Tony at 4PM” and you could easily get “Kill Pony at farm”—good for comedy, but not that useful as a personal assistant. The poor handwriting recognition provided fodder for late-night comedians to mock the product and even got parodied on a Simpsons’ episode when “Ha Ha” bully Nelson Muntz wrote “Beat up Martin” on his Newton only to have it recognize the words as “Eat up Martha.”

  A pretty much immediate failure, Apple, unused to failing, clung to the device for a number of years. Before it was ultimately killed in February of 1998, Apple spun off the Newton into its own company, Newton Inc., but that company was reabsorbed several months later when Steve Jobs ousted Apple CEO Gil Amelio and resumed control of Apple.

  12

  Atari Jaguar/ Sega Dreamcast/ Coleco Adam: The Game Systems Nobody Wanted

  At various times, Atari, Sega, and Coleco all ruled the video game console world, having essentially all of the business. Similarly, all three companies would follow up their market-leading consoles with horrible systems that not only knocked themselves out of the top spot, but literally put their companies (well two of the three) entirely out of business.

  When Atari released the 2600 in 1977, it actually did not in any way revolutionize the video game universe. That wouldn’t happen until 1982 when games like Space Invaders and later Pac-Man became available for the console. Sold with two simple one-button joysticks and a second set of paddle controls, Atari was essentially the first home video game console. While there had been others, they were basically just machines that came with a few built-in games—all of which were variants of Pong.

  Atari ruled this new category for years, selling over eight million units in 1982 alone as well as millions of cartridges. Atari, to most people, was the entire home video game industry, and the only way the company could lose its market dominance would be to completely botch the release of its next generation.

  Though the Atari 2600 had a remarkable life span, its lack of processing power and games that were vastly inferior to what could be found in arcades eventually made it necessary for Atari to release an updated version. Enter the Jaguar, Atari’s 1993 attempt at replacing the 2600. The first problem with the Jaguar was that in its attempt to milk every last dime of revenue out of the 2600 market, Atari had simply waited too long. Though Atari had released a variety of updates to the 2600, it had largely been surpassed by the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and its Super Mario Brothers game. Though the NES’s graphics seem laughable now, they were light-years ahead of the 2600.

  The Jaguar was supposed to be the answer to that, but by the time it was released, the battle had already been lost. Not only had Nintendo become the number one name in videogames, essentially by default, but that company was actually already releasing its next-generation system (the not-that-successful Super Nintendo Entertainment System) and the Sega Genesis had emerged and was beginning a rise in popularity that would ultimately place Sega at the top of the console heap for a while.

  During its heyday, the Atari 2600 faced a number of competitors, including Intellivison (which branded itself as “Intelligent Television” as its keypad had a lot of numbers), which led to un-fun games where you pressed numeric combinations to do things and the highly regarded ColecoVision. Superior to the 2600 and in-line with the 2600, ColecoVision made its parent company, Coleco, a player in the market for a brief moment before they too botched their chance at a follow-up by launching the Coleco Adam, a sort of cross between a videogame player and early home computers like the Commodore 64. The Adam, though, was neither a good video game console nor a very useful home computer.

  It failed miserably partly because it was a poorly conceived product and partly because of glitches like the fact that it generated a surge of electromagnetic energy on startup, which often erased the contents of any removable media left in or near the drive. This problem was compounded by the fact that some of the Coleco manuals instructed the user to put the tape in the drive before turning the computer on, basically telling the gamers to do the thing that would cause their games to be erased.

  Atari and Coleco left the videogame console business after the failures of the Jaguar and the Adam respectively, and both only exist as names now, not really stand-alone companies. Products are still sold bearing the brands, but only to capitalize on the nostalgic brands.

  For a while, Sega ruled the video game roost with popular titles like the Sonic the Hedgehog games and Electronic Arts’ popular John Madden football games. The Genesis dominated the market for the early ’90s, but as the console market grew, it attracted attention from bigger players. As Sega replaced the Genesis with the ill-fated Dreamcast, Sony was beginning to take over the market with its PlayStation and Microsoft was readying the Xbox. With this heavy assault from Microsoft and Sony, coupled with the chilly reception the public gave the Dreamcast, Sega ultimately pulled out of the console market, choosing instead to focus on developing game titles.

  Sony and Microsoft actually seemed to break the pattern of the video game console wars as they managed to release successful successor products. Sony has done so twice with the PlayStation 2 and again with the PlayStation 3. Microsoft actually improved its market position from the mild success of the original Xbox to the strong sustained success of the Xbox 360.

  Of the early-generation video game companies, only Nintendo managed to recover from a misstep, while neither the Super Nintendo system or its follow-up, the GameCube, were market leaders, the company has long dominated the handheld market with its GameBoy product, which would have its own successful sequel, the DS. Though it no longer competes at the top of the console market, Nintendo also managed to become a major player in consoles with the Wii, which instead of offering the best graphics or the fanciest games, focused on a new kind of inte
ractive controller.

  13

  The In-Car Phonograph: Take That, Eight-Tracks

  Though vinyl records have largely disappeared as a format, at one point they were essentially the only method to listen to music. While the music snobs will talk about how “warm” the sound was on a record, the reality is that records were a clumsy format that, in addition to being awkward and large, were also prone to skips and jumps. Record players produced music by running a needle across the grooves on the record—which looked like a large plastic plate. Dance too hard or even take a strong step and that needle could “skip,” causing a break in the music or sometimes a squeaking noise that sounded like someone raking their nails down a chalkboard. Skips and jumps were facts of life with records, and it was not unheard of for a jump of the needle to literally change what song was playing.

  That made record players ideally suited to well-fortified nonmoving places. The absolute worst possible place for a record player would, of course, be a moving vehicle. That probably explains why most—but not all—car companies wisely avoided installing record players in the vehicles. Chrysler, however, has never been deterred by pesky things like only installing add-ons that actually work in their vehicles, so in 1956, it offered a record player as an option on the DeSoto, Dodge, and Plymouth models.

  To further add to the ridiculousness of this option, the in-dash record did not play the commonly available full-size records. Instead, it only played 45-speed records, which were essentially one song long on each side and a new format of seveninch records that nobody actually produced any albums in. So not only was the integrity of the player and its ability to work correctly without skipping while moving highly doubtful, at best the players could play one song before the album needed to be flipped over.