Karl Toomey

0:11 I broke the microphone already sorry okay hello my name is Karl to me and like Rob said I work for it's nice that's a creative agency int works.com I'm gonna talk about a few projects I've done maybe outside work so kind of side projects to do with humor in a sense so that's me the first thing I'd like to this is kind of bit of a background about the kind of stuff I like doing and the kind of stuff that influences me it's thing called chin Dogen I don't know if people are aware of jindo voice essentially it's the art it's a Japanese art of the useless inventions and so essentially it's something that logically it makes sense somebody designed this to solve a problem but it is so over the top it's completely ridiculous forgive you see examples of Jochen Doku this is if you've got a bad cold you've got a you can wear a toilet roll dispenser on your head to em you know to stop going you don't it makes sense because you do need to carry around toilet roller did you maybe figure out about cold but this just cuts that stop you ridiculous.

1:29 This is a this is like a baby grow mop so you know it makes sense baby's gonna be on the floor mopping around - I'll use this probably not a great parent you've been using this to be honest when we get arrested and two more quick ones this is a magnifying glass a cigarette lighter can't really smoke at nighttime though and this one actually really really like this.

1:57 This is a roll-on butter which I think I would totally use that.

1:59 So yeah I'm kind of y know you're probably getting I feel for the kind of level of humor I operate on yeah pretty low they've been here. And so I've kind of been making my own inventions philosophy while sketches so I'm gonna run you through few of those quickly and then maybe show you one that I actually got to bring into production I bring to market that's a my saying sounds professional for the first invention I made is called the hourglass urn so the idea here is that you could put the cremated ashes of a loved one into a functional urn and I want to really like about.

2:39 This is I like to taught that maybe I could be like boiling an egg and my dad could be in the air and timing hearing from me so nice way to spend time with someone after they've perhaps gone another invention I have made is patio kebabs so taking the functionality of the outdoor garden heater with the doner kebab cooker you could enjoy and it's just kebabs on your edge aeramax smoothie so I think you could fill the bubble in your air max with fruit go for a run and then you know the important class after might be a little bit athletes for Tebow I think me okay and actually think this is a good idea well.

3:19 This is a musical hairdryer that after I make so much horrible noise that what kind of play music instead so think of like a beats by dre air dryer could be when a pretty soon or this last one for children a kind of kiddies drain a blocker so a few years ago. I was kind of looking off to take one of my ideas into reality and kind of make it and try and sell it for a while and I kind of ridiculous episode but it was all based around this idea of weighing scales so a couple of powers and whites Scott and Johnny and ran out in Dublin I was working with those guys and we basically bought loads and loads of Wang scales you can see them there tons of them hundreds of them. And we opened them all up and took out the number dial to replace it maybe something that was a bit or silly so you know instead of getting her weight in stone or kilogram that maybe was something I taught me bit more fun and that was celebrities so you get your way you can see it starts with any baby Jesus goes up to his little prince rose and mr. Ed and then King Kong it's pretty useful I think you'll agree and so yeah this was great we did nice packaging for it offered it in a few different colorways and we we ended up selling quite a few of them through couple website like fire box and people like that.

4:38 And I've never heard of them good check them out and but the highlight maybe of the scales came when I actually don't know how this happened but one day they ended up being on BBC TV and I'm gonna show you look quick before we produce it down come on why do I want to see what celebrities you a lad come over here don't worry I'm not gonna yeah I've already weighed my request oh okay yeah let's say you are no it's 9 stones you are halfway between Danny DeVito Stephen Hawking like it says okay thank you mr. McGuire come on it's fine now whoo you ain't half of John Candy yeah you got the idea. And so pretty soon after that was aired and we got a letter from Judge Judy who is one of the celebrities mentioned on the scales cease and desist letter saying if we totally didn't stop this she would judge us and legally shut us down that was the end of the scales and the next the next I'm gonna call it an invention because I invented a person a human and by the name Akari goals this was not the kind of did maybe this time last year. And it's kinda still going on.

5:47 But I'm not really sure what's going on with it book give me a bit of background I kind of move to London in about 2009 and I wanted a for the team a football team to play for I didn't know how to go about it.

6:00 So I asked my friend Mark who was also not from London he had found his team and he told me this story about him putting this little note on a notice board near the pitches where he lives saying him player available call mark and his phone number which I just thought was the most ridiculous mental thing I've ever heard also this is just a mock-up I made in Photoshop but that is his actual number if you want to give him a call.

6:23 But yeah.

6:27 I just thought this was hilarious and but it worked from he managed to find a team so I thought I'm gonna do the same thing except but I'm gonna maybe put a bit more detail into it mark didn't mention you know how good he was what's what position he plays even how old he is he could be ninety so I thought I'd fill in all those blanks on my own poster so I designed this poster and put it up which had striker available I'll just read some highlights when the poster that says striker available my name is Gary gulls and I am the top class striker and I will play for your team I gave a few stats about myself twice at Doncaster United's paid against Wayne Rooney's cousin I do all types of the goals including free kicks and bicycle kicks I have scored in every match I have ever played in and I do not mind I'm late if I take Doncaster United isn't actually a team I know you probably can't read the small print been there.

7:22 But it says him says please no I will not go with the back going goals or do rolling soap and essentially what that means if you're not into football he's just a selfish bastard and also you'll see on the I put it you can't see it there at all.

7:36 But it says Gary gold machine at gmail.com some people could actually start emailing me if they wanted and this phone number here I bought a SIM card and it's a people could start ringing stop ringing me and through this I actually got my friend Michael who's here somewhere too I thought guy go she'll have a voice of people around there should be a voice mail greeting there to talk to him so after friend Michael here to be the voice I carry mail dairy mail carry coals and I'm gonna play I hope that comes out clearly might not but I've also written up so you can read him greetings and salutations you've reached the voicemail of Gary Gold's and let able to take a call right now because I mean a playing a match over a lady or hitting the gym hard I am a top-class striker I'm agent Lee available for four side CX aside or twelve or so a games on. Basically and hackneyed but I'm willing to travel or to including two miles from Hackney if you would like me to play in your game leave your name where said match will be taking place to color the football clothes that they wear and general quality of all your people playing in the football game I am a top-class troika with a proven track record of scoring goals or winning games for teams all over Ireland all over your especially Ireland couple of things that won't do Don the back going goals or do especially Ireland's say everything was ready we put up these posters or in football pictures over there the parent even shortage and over on a couple of lampposts as well.

9:09 And I didn't really know what was going to happen I was kind of open I be happy with five texts maybe five emails a couple of voicemails I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen and I remember we put them up on the first date was a Monday lunchtime. And we put if you want I remember putting the same in with phone that night when I got home to see if anyone had mailed or texted or whatever it was this was the message I was made of it you have 153 m so holy it told me you told me you kicked off gary was a hit. And so essentially this is the same night I was getting 10 texts a minute the phone did not stop calling and I have to turn it off.

9:58 So I went on I went online I went to Twitter to see what was going on and basically it had totally kicked off on Twitter people were tweeting the poster people were talking about the voicemail and people were totally behind him though they wanted him to be real it was all quite positive stuff and and I counted and I didn't count it some software came to the airport it was nearly five thousand tweets in the first two days which was quite a mental then it kind of hit the mainstream media hit the Daily Mail in the mirror and what I particularly like this is was they talked about the poster but was also more about they've actually riding the voicemail and were quoting things on the voicemail which I really loved it felt real then. I went to America Fox News and NBC started talking about it.

10:51 So that not only they tweeted about it they did articles about it. And I just kept going it just kept getting crazier and crazier who's in Spain was in Italy and Germany is in Australia I did interviews as Gary goals with the German magazine it was mentioned in podcasts and fake Twitter profiles were set up I'm even someone built and Gary goals in FIFA in a football game brilliant so I guess yeah what I like to write up is this one poster this one poster hand I got it literally all the voicemails is a big I think there's 3,000 offers of people offer me to play in their game.

11:30 This is amazing and I love how positive and friendly and really felt and and I've actually put you can listen to my blog / - errors of voicemails you can listen to it's pretty funny and I guess I'm trying to be smart about this there but linking it back to maybe Chin'toka and the inventions that what I love about.

11:52 This is it was such a logical thing to do it made sense to put these posters up if you were Gary but he did it in such a ridiculous over-the-top way that many people just were not for it. And it's still going on if you go on to it if you put in the hashtag marigolds just seal people talking about them it's great for me okay yeah that's it hope that was fun thank you