7 October 2023
DULUTH This city has produced its fair share of inventors.
There’s Alexander Miles, a Black inventor who in 1887 patented an elevator that could open and close its own doors. Or Alexander McDougall, a shipbuilder with dozens of patents to his name. And, of course, Beatrice Ojakangas, who developed pizza rolls while working in research and development for Jeno Paulucci’s locally based Chun King.
But some Northland inventions are more unusual and less notable.
Animated artificial animal on ice
In 1939, Duluthian Frank E. Sullivan received a patent for an invention that he said would fix an age-old problem: Animal costumes that require two people presumably, one as the hind legs, the other as the front legs “results in it being almost impossible for harmonious action in producing the life-like motion of an animal.”
His solution? An “animated artificial animal” where the costume wearer leans forward and is supported by an internal frame that also forms the shape of the “beast” a cow in the patent’s schematics. The wearer’s legs serve as the animal’s hind legs and their arms hold extensions for use as the animal’s front legs.
Sounds easy enough.
But it’s also on ice skates.
“Another object of the invention is to produce such a creature particularly adapted for exhibition on skates,” the patent said.
So who was Frank E. Sullivan? He doesn’t appear to have any other patents. A skating instructor named Frank E. Sullivan appears in this 1933 photo of the Superior Curling and Skating Club.
Looks like our guy.
And according to News Tribune archives, a Frank Sullivan “won first award as wearer of the most elaborate costume” at the Junior League Ice Carnival held at the Duluth Curling Club in 1922.
It did not say what costume he wore.
Nipple enhancers
In 1999, Lori Barghini, a 1977 graduate of Duluth East High School and a University of Minnesota Duluth alumna, was in Las Vegas with friends when, as a joke, one of the women took the caps from a couple of sample-sized bottles of hotel shampoo and put them in her bra before leaving the room. The public response from men, principally was so strong that the women spent the rest of the weekend experimenting with makeshift enhancers such as bottlecaps and pearls, the News Tribune reported in 2001.
Barghini and her friend Julia Cobbs set out to design a product, ultimately setting on rubber as a material.
Bodyperks was born.
The patent, filed Sept. 12, 2001, describes Bodyperks as “A method of enhancing the tantalizing appearance of a covered female breast by placing a nipple enhancer between the breast and an article of clothing covering the breast in the absence of any adhesive so as to produce the appearance of an erect nipple through the article of clothing covering the breast.”
More than 1,000 pairs were handed out at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and Barghini sent pairs to news organizations, garnering attention from everything from the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek to Playboy and Playgirl, the News Tribune reported at the time.
Bodyperks even made it into an episode of “Sex and the City.”
Today, the Bodyperks website is no longer active, and bodyperks, Inc. dissolved in 2016, according to the business filings with the state.
“If nothing else, at least we invented something; at least we made it work,” Barghini said in 2001. “We made the whole world talk about nipples for a while.”
Today, Barghini and Cobbs are hosts of a talk show on myTalk 107.1 in the Twin Cities.
In fact, they credit Bodyperks with landing them the show.
Jeno’s golf aid
Jeno Paulucci obtained a few dozen patents, mostly for food production techniques and technologies.
But one sticks out: the golf aid, a glove with a patch of reminders like “Feet firm, Head down, left arm firm, slow back swing, eye on ball, follow thru.”
“It is still another object to provide a golf glove construction which provides a vehicle for the teaching method embodying features of the present invention,” the 1976 patent said.
When the Chinese-food and frozen-pizza businessman wasn’t in Duluth, he was often in the Orlando area, where he developed a golf course and gated community.
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