daft appliances of the past

davelerave

we used to have a shop sellin appliances and i just started thinkin about some of the crazy stuff they used to make,twenty years ago there was a 'time saving' appliance for every job except only trouble was they used to break shortly after you got them,what were the daftest ones ,my vote goes to the electric knife deadly dangerous but effective ,i remember it being confiscated from a family member who was worse the wear for drink at the time they were using it,wasn't there a electric tool squeezing oranges ,
you won't see one of them on 'ready steady cook'

seamus

Dustbusters. WTF? You pay 30 quid for something that does the job of a dustpan that costs £1. And for hoovering small spaces, what's wrong with the hoover attachments? :rolleyes:

sceptre

There's a mini-vacuum cleaner at home for the car. Plugs into the lighter socket. Used it once - 'twas useless. The electric knife they have is older than I am.

I own my own melon-baller though (and an electric orange squeezer).

mike65

Was it ronco who had a whole range of useless
items to make your life more efficent? It was and dont forget K-tel!

http://tv.cream.org/thecore/adtat.htm

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/pop/ktel.htm

Mike.

pugwall

soda stream - remember those, they were all the rage once upon a time! mmmmmm cola flavoured syrup that we used to add to the carbonated water - yum yum!

As far as i can remember the gas cannisters didnt actually last that long so we would only get to use the soda stream when my parents actually bothered to get the new cannisters ( which was hardly ever)

davelerave

ya i remember the soda stream you had to be careful cos the preesure they could explode,

Gaffo

My granny had one of them. She was always a sucker for those gadgets.
Remember that kinda cone-shaped device to make it easier to open a bottle of coke or jars. It had a kinda rubber on the inside and it fit all size jars and bottles. You put the wide end of the cone over the lid, the rubber grips the lid and you twist the cone. Ingenius!!
She also had(still has all these) like a tupperware container with a spinning sieve in the middle to dry lettuce. You put the sieve into the container, put the lid on, turn the handle on the lid and hey presto, dry lettuce.

Can't remember any more, but I'll have a look next time I'm there. I do remember some magical microwave popcorn maker.

ozpass

Those kitchen gadgets are invariably made by Bettaware or Kleen-eze and are sold door-to-door in a quazi pyramid marketing scheme run in the UK. I particularly like the little pump they make that 'inflates' a bottle of coke to stop it going flat. Unfortunately the very next time you open the bottle it fizzes onto the floor leaving an entire bottle of flat coke. Genius.

My aunty Trish is a big time sucker for crap gimmicks. She owns a talking vacuum cleaner and a talking (mid 80's) VCR.

Man that hoover is a pain in the ass. The fact that it speaks (in an admittedly robotic fashion) actually causes you to reason with it:

Hoover: Bag is full!

Me: Bag can't be full I just changed it.

Hoover: Bag is full!

Me: Not possible! Bag is empty!

Hoover: Bag is full!

Me: *mumbles* Sweet Jesus I'm talking to the hoover....

Robbo

We have a bread maker at home. It looks very interesting but all the bread it makes is heavy as lead and chewy as fark.

davelerave

Originally posted by Gaffo
My granny had one of them. She was always a sucker for those gadgets.
Remember that kinda cone-shaped device to make it easier to open a bottle of coke or jars. It had a kinda rubber on the inside and it fit all size jars and bottles. You put the wide end of the cone over the lid, the rubber grips the lid and you twist the cone. Ingenius!!
She also had(still has all these) like a tupperware container with a spinning sieve in the middle to dry lettuce. You put the sieve into the container, put the lid on, turn the handle on the lid and hey presto, dry lettuce.

Can't remember any more, but I'll have a look next time I'm there. I do remember some magical microwave popcorn maker.

there was a bowl thing with sandpaper stuff on the inside .you filled it with spuds and connected it to the tap and it spiined around cleaning them .we had one but i dunno how popular they were we lived in england at the time