American Inventor (7/18/2007): Final Finalists

This week's American Inventor promised to deliver the Houston and Tampa finalists. The final finalists you might say. The winners from this week will face the already named finalists from the other cities for the million dollar prize. Last week's contestants left a lot to be desired for and I was hoping that they were just saving the best for last.

The first contestant guaranteed that the show started with a bang. The bang of my remote smashing into my television set after I threw it in complete disgust. This woman doesn't even belong on this show but I am going to talk about her because I have learned that when I bottle up my anger it is the people that I truly care about that get hurt. So, excuse me for giving this bitch way too much time, but I will never get my chance to be a Boy Scout leader if I get one more domestic violence conviction on my record. Rose is an old hag from Utah who walks onto stage with nothing but a boom box and an outfit which can only be titled "sequined mormon nightmare". She said her "invention" is a love test and then proceeds to sing the most hokey and generic song about a love test. I though this was merely an introduction to some sort of accurate penis measurer or googles that allow the wearer to see a man's bank account balance by staring at his debit card but nope, the song was the invention. The worst part is that the judges are as confused as I am and so they let this red-headed wrinkle sing the whole damn song. This woman got on stage for American inventor and sang a song and acted like she had every right to do so. The judges all made fun of her and told her that she was on the wrong show but it wasn't enough. Only blood could have cleansed the damage done and, alas, her trespass against humanity went unpunished. Die slowly, Rose, die lonely you liar.

Luckily for me (and you probably) my spirits were lifted by yet another toilet invention. We are now in the last two markets for invention submissions and this is about the hundredth toilet invention I have seen and none have impressed me. Shirley Blount's "potty trainer" didn't break the streak. Although I did find it someone entertaining to watch a grown woman say things like, "when the child makes a deposit into the toilet these two lights will flash".

Houston brought us our first sob story of the week but, to be honest, the judges had to really work for the sob angle on this one. Marcus Wall is a retired SWAT team cop who invented a new way to smash down your door and trample your rights. Rather than standing in front of the door and swinging a battering ram the cops can stand to the side and the L shaped cannon will burst and force the door open. Sara asked him, "have you lost a lot of friends in the line of duty from having to stand in front of the door?". Way to go fishing, Sara. I give Marcus credit for not opening with this line but the judges are only happy if somehow one of the lunatics that make it past security and end up on their stage acts like their prime motivation is to help mankind and not just get rich and be on television. I suppose the judges need to justify their existence as much as anyone else. The footage of the door breaker is impressive and Marcus plans on making it more compact and adding a special lever that will produce planted evidence in case they happen to obliterate the door of someone who is innocent.

In Houston we get to see the most disturbing "inventor team" ever. George and Denise Tucker are the creepiest, middle-aged, new aged, rocks and crystals, aging hippies I have ever seen. They look like swingers and nothing convinces me of this fact more than the way that they gush all over each other. They invented a supplement to your everyday coffee maker that will make it possible to brew fresh tea in your own home. Because boiling water is just to much effort for the average American. They get all yes votes and they hold hands and skip offstage and I wish just once George Foreman would hallucinate and beat on one of these contestants.

The final contestant is a deaf kid who hadn't invented anything yet but had a great idea. That's the problem. He came up with a small device that would use voice recognition technology to allow deaf people to have conversations with hearing people without the need of an interpreter. Basically the hearing person speaks and it sends a text message into the device and the deaf person types and the device responds to the hearing person in what I can only imagine is a creepy robot voice. He gets three yes votes but the judges are leery about giving $50 Grand to someone for an invention that may cost $100 Grand to develop. Damn, talk about unlucky. First he is born deaf and now he doesn't have the scratch to put together his "life changing" invention.

The judges gather around the cheap coffee table and do their best 12 Angry Men impressions. We are supposed to believe that the four judges are engaged in lively and heated intellectual debate about the merits of each person's invention but I know that they are probably really sitting around trying to teach George the ABC's. This could potentially be the most interesting part of the show but we only see it for about four seconds and we don't really get any idea as to what they are talking about.

The winners are... the freaky Tea Makers and the two old brothers from last week who invented the cabinet for holding kitchen wrap. Ugh. Next Week: The best of the worst.