Inventors Offer Fads Of Future -- Oozing Ball, Mug That Melts, Bouncing Boinks, Monster Helmets . . .

PHILADELPHIA - The Rooter-Tooter - handy for heckling referees - and a mug that melts as you drink from it are two of the weird and wacky gadgets inventors hope will become the latest fads.

More than 30 inventors from around the country converged Friday on the "Fad Fair" at the Franklin Institute Science Museum. There they showed off such goofy gizmos as decorative noses, balls made of "ooze" and bicycle helmets with three-dimensional funny faces.

The fair, which runs through today, was organized by Ken Hakuta, better known as "Dr. Fad" to viewers of a local children's television show, but is also the inventor of the Wacky Wallwalker. Throw the sticky, octopus-like toy against a wall and it crawls down by itself. It has helped Hakuta walk off with more than $20 million over the past eight years, he says.

Most of the inventions on display need backers. Hakuta predicted 10 of those would be marketed and two would make money. Inventors are the eternal optimists, he says.

Martha Crossley is hoping her "Narly Noggins Helmet Stuff" will be a hit with kids who don't like to wear bicycle helmets.

She was on a camping trip in New Hampshire when the talk turned to trying to get youngsters to wear bicycle helmets. The helmets were too plain, she and her friends reasoned, but liven them up with three-dimensional monster features and they might be a hit. The helmet add-ons, including goofy eyeballs and demon wings, have just arrived at toy stores, selling for $2.99 to $4.99 a set, says Crossley, of Woonsocket, R.I.

Boinks - small tubes of springy plastic in "rad" colors like neon pink and lime green - already have captured kids' imaginations, says the woman who markets them, Joyce Murphy.

More than 10 million Boinks have sold since Murphy's daughter, Colleen, invented them four years ago, she says. Colleen, now 12, began playing with the small used tubes that her father, who ran an automotive supply business, would throw out. She found that they bounced and were malleable enough to make into things.

Craig Boyko of Fairfield, Iowa, came to the Fad Fair with the Ooz Ball, made of a substance that stretches, bounces and makes popping sounds, and the Bite Lite, a tiny, furry creature with teeth that can grasp a child's clothing and light the way with a flashlight it carries in its tail. Great for kids who are afraid of the dark.

Inventor Saul Freedman arrived at the fair with hopes of marketing his ice mug - a molded container that melts away after the liquid inside is consumed.

Freedman, of Vineland, N.J., designed the mug after discovering many coastal communities don't allow beverages on the beach because of the cups and bottles left behind. With Freedman's ice mug, all that remains is a small wooden handle.

Also up for grabs is the All American Rooter-Tooter, which issues an obnoxious sound like a Bronx cheer.

Inventor Robert Gastel of Mission, Texas, designed the horn after disagreeing with the calls referees made at a Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins game.