30 dumb inventions

For every brilliant, revolutionary invention, there are about a million that just don’t quite have the same effect. Here is Life’s great compilation of thirty dumb inventions. See a few below:

The yodel meter, 1925. It measures the pitch of the human yodel, and it encourages the most annoying act a human can perform.

The baby cage, 1937. In a high-storey home, women have no gardens, or qualms about putting their child in a box dangling over a busy street.

The cigarette holder built for two, 1955. Because who said lung disease wasn’t romantic?
See all thirty questionable contraptions at Life.