Covid haircuts

As I was getting my hair trimmed yesterday by someone who is not a trained barber or beautician, i.e., my wife, I was reminded of a gentleman I used to work with who invented the product shown in the Wayne's World clip shown above. His product was called the RoboCut and he filed a patent on it in 1984. The product was quickly copied by a company that sold it under the name Flowbee which successfully sold millions of them using infomercials. I was surprised to find out that both companies are still in business and products are available on their websites. You can read about the inventor's fascinating history at haircut.com. In reading through the timeline of events, I would imagine that there must have been some legal issues over the patent but I don't know the outcome.

You can read about Flowbee's history at Wikipedia.

I can't speak about the efficacy of either product as I've never used one, but I think that the pandemic was good for both companies. As my mom used to say, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good."

The image above is from one of my favorite Leave It To Beaver episodes where he loses his haircut money and decides to do the job himself, and later gets some help from Wally who really messes things up! (The Haircut Season 1 episode 4). I've always been reluctant to trim my own hair after watching that as a young boy.