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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,890 posts)
Sun Sep 5, 2021, 05:24 PM Sep 2021

Donald Poynter dies at 96; Inventor Sold Whiskey-Flavored Toothpaste, Talking Toilets

Hat tip, The Wall Street Journal.

WORLD | OBITUARIES

Inventor Sold Whiskey-Flavored Toothpaste, Talking Toilets

Donald B. Poynter, who has died at age 96, toured with the Harlem Globetrotters before founding a maker of novelty gifts

By James R. Hagerty
https://twitter.com/jamesrhagerty
Sept. 1, 2021 10:00 am ET

Donald B. Poynter said one of his best ideas—whiskey-flavored toothpaste—came to him while he was driving his car.

Mr. Poynter was working for an advertising agency in Cincinnati in the early 1950s. Eager to launch his own business, he pitched the toothpaste idea to a former fraternity brother who had become a bank loan officer. The resulting $10,000 loan allowed Mr. Poynter to create a product he sold for the next 17 years.

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Entreprenuer, entertainer and ‘man of his word,’ Don Poynter dies at 96; owned Triple Crown Country Club

Aug 14th, 2021

By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor

Don Poynter who built and owned the Triple Crown Country Club in Union and started the World of Golf, has passed away at age 96. His creative work was far from done.



Don Poynter

He was an entreprenuer (and entertainer) from an early age — at least 11 — and founded Poynter Creations, later Poynter International. He rubbed elbows with notables all over the world. At age 94, he called Walt Disney about doing some bobbleheads and was disappointed not to get better responses from the executive he talked to. “I used to just deal with Walt,” he told them.

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Don Poynter with Jayne Mansfield and the famous hot water bottle. (Cincinnati Public Library archives)

{snip}

Born in Cincinnati in 1925, he began making and selling remote-controlled tanks with working cannons at age 11. He served a two-year stint in the U.S. Army and then attended the University of Cincinnati where he graduated with a business degree.



Mansfield loved the hot water bottles, 1957. 10 million were sold.

Poynter started making novelty items in the 1950s when Cincinnati was a center for toy manufacturing and ‘people want(ed) to laugh and have fun.’ As the Addams Family was a popular TV show in the 1960s, he created The Thing mechanical coin box — and sold 14 million of them.

His other creations (and patents) included Arnold’s Plumber’s Putter, Jane Mansfield’s Hot Water Bottle, the Talking Toilet, Crooked Dice, Might Tiny Records and Golfer’s Dream: Hold in One Golf Ball. (Really a golf ball with a hole in it). And whiskey- and scotch-flavored toothpaste. He also made the “melting wax” that appears to drip from the top of Marker’s Mark bourbon bottles.

He collaborated with Mansfield on the hot water bottle, according to reports, paid her $5000 and went to Hollywood to make the mold.



Don Poynter, the baton twirler. (University of Cincinnati archives)

“I stayed in California sculpting her for the mold for a week,” he told a reporter. ‘I could have done it in two days but thought — why rush it?”

A champion baton-twirler at his alma mater, the University of Cincinnati, got him a gig with the Harlem Globetrotters.

His bio on the University of Cincinnati alumni website summarized a remarkable career path:

Once an 11-year-old maker of remote-control toy tanks and working cannons, Don Poynter incorporated Poynter Creations while a UC student to sell “Play Logs” — similar to Lincoln Logs, but large enough for children to play inside. He later changed the company’s name to Poynter International and spent nearly half his time in Asia manufacturing novelties.

{snip}

Thanks to Poynter, the world got to enjoy the first basketball backboard for a wastebasket, “The Thing” coin box featured on the Addams Family (14 million sold), Uncle Fester’s mystery light bulb (also featured on the show), crossword-puzzle toilet tissue and the Jane Mansfield hot water bottle. Later, when the bottle aired on TV, Jack Parr covered part of its “anatomy” with a handkerchief. Poynter also created the world’s smallest working record player, sold with 39 tiny records that Poynter recorded with real orchestras, and a Steer-N-Go landscape for Matchbox cars, which grossed $75 million in its first year.

Retiring in the late ’90s, Poynter has held patents on 100 or so novelty items, admittedly a nebulous number because “I never really bothered looking it up,” he says.


{snip}



Poynter Productions Little Black Box from 1959
4,699 views Apr 2, 2016

CJ Holmes
6.79K subscribers

Predating The Addams Family Thing Coin Bank by 5 years, this little gem from 1959 was the brain child of Don Poynter, SUPER genius. Flip the switch, the box Mysteriously groans and shakes, an eerie green hand comes out and...and...AND... it shuts itself off.

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Poynter Products Little Black Box Vintage Toy Useless Machine
84 views May 27, 2021

Jason Eshelman
11 subscribers
3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Donald Poynter dies at 96; Inventor Sold Whiskey-Flavored Toothpaste, Talking Toilets (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Sep 2021 OP
I remember so many of those things! Maeve Sep 2021 #1
Archie McPhee? mahatmakanejeeves Sep 2021 #2
Whiskey flavored toilet seats central scrutinizer Sep 2021 #3
Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Donald Poynter dies at 96...