From Matt's Encyclopedia of Failed Ideas:

Dial-a-Gorilla. Not-for-profit corporation founded in 1939 by Roy C. Schmeedman of Upper Tavistock, Ohio. Schmeedman (also the founder and sole member of the Cleveland, Ohio, Anarcho-Syndicalist Party) was the only survivor of the Clement Valladingham Brigade, an organization of aging amateur socialists who attempted to come to the aid of the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War. However, they took a wrong turn in the New York Port Authority Terminal and were devoured by albino alligators, save for Schmeedman. Inspired by his brief stint as a soldier of misfortune, he decided to start a telephone-order mercenary service; however, because of his remarkably poor spelling skills, the company ended up receiving only requests for King Kong-themed birthday parties. Schmeedman's myopic son-in-law finally closed up the business in 1956 after misreading an order form and mistakenly shipping fifteen thousand thousand cone-shaped party hats decorated with bananas to the pro-Western rebellion in Budapest with tragic results.

Dombrowsky, Billy Bob (1964- ). The so-called "Light Fixture King" of Blattsburg, Nebraska (pop. 808 and a small, annoying pekinese), he became notorious throughout the Great Plains after installing clap-operated lights in the Montgomery Auditorium in Chadron. Now, the Bulwer-Lytton Light Opera Company (motto: "We may not be good, but we can still be loud") which used the theater, was not known for actually generating applause. However, after a performance of Carousel in 1996 when large amounts of alcohol were distributed to sweeten the audience, the spectators burst into riotous cheering and clapping, causing the theater's electrical system (and with it, most of Nebraska and some of Kansas as well) to short out. A later experiment with installing voice-activated lights in a Hasidic synagogue (in order to more fully obey the Sabbath) caused him to retire in disgrace.

Montagu, Rupert (1764-1805). Younger brother of the Earl of Sandwich, and inventor of frozen fish sticks. The idea proved to be before its time, but the concept of breading he espoused may have suggested the Montecristo to French writer and part-time snack inventor Alexandre Dumas. Rupert's premature death in a mayonnaise-related lab accident cut off the premature discovery of tartar sauce which had to wait until 1884, when it was finally developed in its modern form by Rudolf Virchow.

Whoopie Potato. Primitive comedic device invented in 1806 by English aesthete William Beckford during his so-called "Prank" period. Historians generally think he came up with the initial concept in an opium trance, wrote it down on a cocktail napkin, and proved unable to read his handwriting properly once sobered-up. Even William Blake couldn't read the darn thing. It consisted of a potato hollowed out and filled with a small rubberized cloth balloon filled with hydrogen. In theory, it should have made loud rude noises when someone sat on it, but it mostly turned into mush instead, and anyway, tasted much better with chives. Beckford also wrote the epic orientalist novel Vathek and while his subsequent comedic devices proved to be duds (such as the exploding trout, 1809; and a musical glass eye that played Mozart, 1816), he is thought to have laid the groundwork for the greatest creative feat of the Romantic Humor movement, Swinburn's 1833 invention of the steam-powered joy buzzer.