A Brief History of Dumb Inventions
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Inventor Hugo Gernsback wears his television glasses, a product that didn't really take off back in 1963. (Time & Life Pictures/Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images)
Hollywood inventor Joe Gilpin rides his motorized surfboard in 1948. (Time & Life Pictures/Peter Stackpole/Getty Images)
A nanny supervises a baby suspended in a wire cage attached to the outside of a high tenement block window in 1937. The cages were distributed to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London who have no gardens, or qualms about putting a child in a box dangling over a busy street. (Time & Life Pictures/Reg Speller/Getty Images)
President of Zeus Corp., Robert L. Stern, smoking a cigarette from his self-designed rainy day cigarette holder in 1954. (Time & Life Pictures/Yale Joel)
American science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard uses his Hubbard Electrometer to determine whether tomatoes experience pain, in 1968. His work led him to the conclusion that tomatoes "scream when sliced." (Time & Life Pictures/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
A robot equipped with a fast-draw invention shoots it out with a live gunner in 1960. It's always easy to question the wisdom of giving a robot a gun -- but also making him quick on the draw is just irresponsible. <i>See more: <a href="http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/25371/30-dumb-inventions#index/">Full slideshow at LIFE</a></i> (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)