Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

Whoopee Cushion

This article was originally written and submitted as part of a Canada 150 Project, the Innovation Storybook, to crowdsource stories of Canadian innovation with partners across Canada. The content has since been migrated to Ingenium’s Channel, a digital hub featuring curated content related to science, technology and innovation.

Share
Jun 29, 2017
Categories
Household Technology
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Ingenious - Ingénieux
By: Ingenious - Ingénieux
Whoopee cushion © Andrew Paterson/Alamy
Whoopee cushion © Andrew Paterson/Alamy

The new sound of novelty.

A new sound: that’s all a novelty item needed to become a raging sensation in the late 1920s. Companies offered a wide variety of devices that emitted strange sounds when squeezed–some a child’s scream, others a cat’s screech. Experimenting with sheets of rubber, employees of the JEM Rubber Company in Toronto hit upon a different sound. The noise that emanated from their little rubber pillow was a tad more, now shall we put it, indelicate. American novelty purveyor Johnson Smith & Company heard the call and added JEM’s doohickey to its giant catalogue. The economy model went for 25 cents, a deluxe edition for $1.25. A perfect gift for the discerning prankster who has everything. Sales erupted with a loud toot and haven’t ceased. The sound of the Whoopee Cushion can still be heard loud and clear wherever unsuspecting bottoms and chairs get together.

Tags
Innovation Storybook
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Ingenious - Ingénieux
Ingenious - Ingénieux

Related Stories

Three images side by side: a toilet bowl expelling a cloud of droplets, a gloved hand holding a test tube containing a small plant, and an infrared view of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io showing spots of volcanic activity covering the moon.

3 things you should know about flushing the toilet, artificial photosynthesis, and volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon

A very appropriate piece of equipment given the season, well, the season which affects the northern part of the northern hemisphere of planet Earth, the domestic / home snowblower of Autocanner Registered of Montréal, Québec. Anon., “–.” Montréal-Matin, 9 January 1948, 6.

“Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!” The Blo-All domestic / home snowblower of Autocanner Registered of Montréal, Québec

Sophie working with a series of toaster artifacts placed on a worktable.

A Toast to the Collection: The History of Toasters in Canada

A black-and-white image depicts a wooden house in a working-class neighbourhood, early 1900s.

The cut nail: A revolutionary technological innovation

Asbestos in mineral form. The mineral is greenish and white in colour and there are visible strands of asbestos fibres.

Artifacts and asbestos: Managing hazards at Ingenium

A disassembled phone and a variety of parts and tools sit on a work bench.

My phone is blowing up! Dissecting technological artifacts for conservation treatment

Text on dark background: Augmented Alley

Augmented Alley

A split screen shot from a Facebook Messenger video chat showing a 60-year-old man with a digital hat and a toddler with a digital cat nose and whiskers.

Share your experiences: Parenting and technology during COVID-19

A gloved hand holds up a sample sheet of colourful, rubber bicycle tires from Italy, circa the 1930s.

The science of artifact preservation: Cool storage solutions

 Insert from Jell-O recipe book showing images of syllabub, maple walnut Jell-O, cherry Jell-O, stuffed tomato salad, pineapple mouse, and marbled Jell-O. (“JELLO- 10 c A PACKAGE”)

Retro recipes: Cookbooks from the Ingenium collection

 Electric Vehicle

Electric vehicles: The rise of the green machine from the 80s to today

An advertisement of a redesigned iron in the 1870s

Science & Technology: By Women for Women

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners