Talk:American Inventor

season to season changes
I have added a changes section to the main page. ABC sent out a release detailing the last episodes. I will provide links to articles as they become available in the next few days.

Apparently, they're cutting most of what made season one miserable (but still an overall enjoyable show). No pity party stories before the $50,000 checks (obviously), no producing commercials to garner votes from the viewing public, just vote after July 25's show that declares the three finalists! Yes, three. The judges will narrow down the six finalists to three on the July 25 episode, which will be two hours. It will feature not only the judge's important decision, but also, how the inventors spend their $50,000. Here's hoping none of them buy a $20,000 suit, develop a box and tie a rope to their invention, calling it "improved."

If you notice any other changes, add them in! I think it's pretty obvious that season one was a test show and season two is taking the best ideas from the first season and running them further... hence, more bad inventions, fewer finalists eligible for $50,000. 209.184.242.241 19:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Peter Jones link
The link to Peter Jones is wrong, in that the article about Peter Jones is a different Peter Jones. I could remove the link but is there some way to indicate that there is no current article about the Peter Jones in question?

I fixed that by changing Peter Jones to Peter Jones (businessman), which does not exist.

"NPOV dispute [-American Inventor]
Please report what is wrong with this article on this page. If you report what is wrong then someone will have to fix this. It is good to report what, is wrong so that the article gets more understandable.


 * I reverted back to a previous version from a few days ago. User inserted a lot of illegal copyrighted content onto the page. ErikNY 19:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you restore the page that was there today?
 * Only if you want more legal action on Wikipedia. ErikNY 19:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I fixed some of the bias so the article looks a little less like an advertisment --Devnill 04:44, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks the article looks much better. FellowWikipedian talk 10:13 am 16 April 2006
 * I'm prepared to remove the neutrality tag unless there is objection. It appears any previous POV issues have since been resolved. Jeff Silvers 01:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with this... I see no non-NPOV content on this page. --Jackson 04:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Did some cleanup, added category, removed stub tag, removed POV tag. It's now something of a bare-bones article, but it's NPOV. --John Nagle 05:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

In the "Overview" section, under "The Object", it says that "one of the inventors will receive $1,000,000 worth of business support, entrepreneurial counsel, physical resources, and prize money". Yet the show's promotion says the winner will receive one million dollars advance against royalties. Does anyone know which is correct?


 * Good point. How about checking it out and fixing the article?  Also, please sign your edits on talk pages.  Thanks. --John Nagle 20:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

No need for italics
It's very annoying that every practically every noun, pronoun, and name are in ialics. Is "Simon Cowell" the name of something besides a human? No. So why is it in italics? You only need to put the title of something in italics. In case you don't know, this is italics! 71.57.4.30 02:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Pictures
It would be good if somone added more pictures of the show. When the article get bigger that would be good. Thanks. FellowWikipedian talk 3:18 pm 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I added a photo request to this page, as well as making it part of WikipediaTelevision Edu-Ward 21:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Erik Thompson's Receiver Training Pole is NICE
I HOPE IT BECOMES A #1 INVENTION SO I CAN BUY IT. THAT LOOKS REAL GOOD. AND WE HAVE TO HELP HIM GETTING HIS HOUSE AND GYM BACK..PLEASE


 * Erik Thompson's Invention was great. Someone will get him a patent. I guess we have to wait and see...because that was better than anyone's invention on that episode! FellowWikipedian 17:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

biased judges?
What do other people think about the choice of finalists in the show? I agreed that the final four products are great inventions, but are they really the best? I felt that the judges put a lot of focus on the emotion of the contestents. Especially the woman judge who always fell for those who shed tears in front of the camera, even when the product sucks. Also the minority background of the contestents play a big part too. Out of thousands of participants, the four finalists are two African Americans, one Latino immigrant and one Polish immigrant. Are the white Americans really that much behind in creativity and inventiveness? Kowloonese 00:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I noticed that too. FellowWikip e dian 21:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, a lot of reality shows these days depends on emotion to win. It's whoever has the most tear-jerking sob story that'll win, not which invention is best. Reality shows suck!!! 205.174.22.28 04:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This page is for discussing changes needing to be made to the article, not for discussing the show itself. Edu-Ward 21:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Rights to the product/royalties
Someone wrote into Wired Magazine and said that if you win on American Inventor, the producers get the rights to the product (and therefore are able to keep the royalties that are made from it when it is sold), and that the prize is just considered an advance against royalties lost. I'm not sure if someone writing into a magazine counts as a source, but if someone is able to find another source, I think it deserves to be added into the article. Carpenoctem (talk)

Second Season
In the event anyone else is wondering whether the show was canned due to the lack of official updates, I dug this up. Apparently by "fall/winter of this year" they meant "early spring of next year". ~ Eidako 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Patino has a ñ?
Because it didn't sound like a ñ 201.23.32.2 20:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Five Finalists?
Why does this page have Jerry Wesley and his EZ-X Portable Gym listed as a finalist, and, even, as a runner-up? As far as I can recall, and what the ABC.com shows (http://abc.go.com/primetime/americaninventor/tracker.html), there were only four finalists, and Wesley was not one of them. Thus, why was my edit reported as vandalism?

Yeah, the anonymous person above has a point. They eliminated Jerry Wesley before the finals. And there were only four finalists in the first place. Did the person who wrote that even watch the finale? How can you miss the fact that there are four, not five, finalists? Slartibartfast1992 21:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It was probably just some vandalism or his personal pov. FellowWikip e dian 20:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok then, since POVs aren't exactly Wikipedia material, we should probably remove Jerry Wesley from the finalists. If it's vandalism, it's been there for quite a while, so somebody better remove jerry Wesley ASAP. Slartibartfast1992 21:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. It was about time...Slartibartfast1992 21:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Bulletball
This article doesn't really assert any notability. I was thinking one or two sentences could be merged here and the article redirect.-Wafulz 22:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it really does not fit in with the current structure of the article. Currently the article only lists the finalists from each season.  And for most of those, no more than the inventor's name and the invention name.  Bulletball did not make the finals from season one.  There's really nowhere to fit it in, and even one sentence would give it a more prominent position than the finalists that beat it out.  And then there's the issue of, once we start including one non-finalist, how can we not include others?  In general, IMHO, bulletball is not notable enough for an article, and is not notable enough for inclusion in this one either. - TexasAndroid 23:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's interesting, because I heard about bulletball and came to Wikipedia to see what it is. And I didn't know it was on American inventor until I came here.  So I disagree.  I think it's worth this short article and it's worth being its own article. --Keithn 21:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you can find independant sources that show it has notability, especially notability beyond American Inventor, then please, feel free to add it into the Bulletball article. Such would go a long way towards showing that it deserves to exist as a separate article.  And as long as it keeps a separate article, the recently added See Also link is perfectly appropriate as far as the AI article, IMHO. - TexasAndroid 21:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Bulletball is meaningless. It has no notability nor should it have because it sucks. It's not a sport and did not even make it past the first interview. I wonder how anybody even heard of bulletball while not even knowing it was on american inventor, since if we included bulletball in the article, we would have to include dozens of other unsuccesful inventions like the "Shapoopie" or the "tizzy tube" (and the latter just seemed extremely demented so there you go). Bulletball is meaningless and deserves no notability. Wikipedia does not provide publicity for things, it lists them when they are notable. Bulletball is not. End of story, consensus on the side of dumping bulletball. Slartibartfast1992 03:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Concensus is not on your side, see Talk:BulletBall where six of eight oppose the move. --Keithn 21:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Whoops. Not that I'm suggesting of going against concensus or anything, but if we add bulletball, which is just another meningless and unofficial sport, we need to add the dozens of other inventions that were also rejected. Bulletball has no notability, and adding it would be going against rules. Not that I'm a fan of rules, but it's just like that. To add bulletball, thus adding many other meaningless inventions, would mean chaos. Rules are rules. No notability, no intention of adding it into the article. Consensus is nothing against the horrible bureaucracy of rules. If there were some sort of Official League of Bulletball, I guess it could be considered notable, but there is not. It is meaningless. Slartibartfast1992 23:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

We have three separate options here. Keep BB separate, merge it in, or delete it altogether. Sounds like there is opposition to a move. If you feel as strongly against it's notability as you appear to feel, Slartibartfast1992, then I suggest you take the BB page to WP:AFD. That would be the proper avenue to next pursue if it is indeed without notability. And if it is actually notable beyond AI, then it really, really, needs reliable, independent, references that are also independent of AI. IMHO, as long as it does have a separate page, and is not officially merged, then the current single line in the See Also section is the full extent of the reference that it should have on the AI page. - TexasAndroid 23:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There. It has been nominated for deletion. Slartibartfast1992 17:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Check YouTube for an advertisement (think 30-minute infomercial, but shorter) and parody of said advertisement. I think just for the fun of it, you could leave up the article. 209.184.242.241 19:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think for the fun of it and more importantly for the sake of following Wikipedia guidlines, I'd rather NOT leave the article up. How does that sound? Check the AfD discussion. That's the way this gets resolved. Slartibartfast1992 22:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

There has been some REAL progress with Bulletball and it warrants a section of its own. It has been supported by RIC (rehab institute of Chicago) and the Illinois Veterans with Disabilities. Bulletball has emerged as a great sport game for the disabled and is currently under review by other organizations that support the disabled as well.


 * Good for BulletBall. Show us a reliable reference once it actually achieves some notability and we'll make an article for it. -- Slarti ( 19  92 ) 23:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of 3 yes votes?
If an inventor gets 3 yes votes but isn't selected as the finalist of their city, do they get anything (other than a few extra moments of hope)? Dvandelay 03:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Elaines bra's name
its called the Anette Convertible Bra. the announcer just said it before the winner is announced.

Article assessment
I've assessed this article for WP:TV as requested here. I have rated this article as start class because the relatively short length and lack of important sections like critical response, production etc. and as low importance because there is little to distinguish it from other articles about television series. There a couple of instances of external links in the body of the text - these should be converted into citations or moved to an external links section.

These categories are arbritrary and are subject to review by any editor who feels confident to do so. Please note that a more formal assessment by other editors is required to achieve good article or featured article status. I used criteria from the television wikiproject guidelines here, article about TV series guidelines here and the assessment guidelines here.--Opark 77 14:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Marc Griffin
I didn't know where to put this question but here. I recently stumbled upon this article and thought about proposing it for deletion. But I doubted. I mean, maybe this guy actually has some notability because he's sort of become famous for being such a loser (no offense to Marc). On the side of deleting it, however, there's the "BulletBall was deleted and he got most of his notability from it" and the horrible state the article's in (obvious to anybody who reads it). You get 57,200 results for his name on Google, however, so I'm really in between delete and leave it alone. So I'd like another person's opinion. Anybody? Thanks, -- Slarti bartfast  1992 17:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yikes, the article is a mess, but that's a reason for a cleanup tag. Google hits really have no meaning, though. I'm not notable and I don't have a common name, but I do get 160,000 hits when I google my real name. Pedro Bernstein gets 700,000 hits for a name I just made up using a first and last name that are an obvious mismatch. You got it right when you compared his notability to that of Bulletball. Indeed, if the game is not notable, then neither is the inventor. I put a proposed deletion tag on the page. --User101010 22:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, guess we have to AfD it. I'll do it in a couple days. Besides, the Google search was all misspelt (wrote Mark instead of Marc) so it actually got much less results... -- Slarti bartfast  1992 00:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone has edited the article, probably in response to the proposed deletion tag. In my humble opinion, the editor(s) made the article worse. --User101010 01:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Uh... I edited it but only undoing an edit that removed the prod tag, but I think you're referring to the previous ones. I'm still gonna AfD it in a couple days. -- Slarti bartfast  1992 01:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about your edits. I was talking about the edits that added silly stuff about the inventor scoring points when he played against one of the judges, some criticism of the judge, etc. The article has been deleted anyway, so all is fine. --User101010 02:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... the article apparently got recreated about some completely different guy... I'll just leave it alone since I know nothing about this new Marc. -- Slarti bartfast  1992 14:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Invent.jpg
Image:Invent.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 19:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Dragon's Den Comparison
This is not really that related to Dragons' Den, surely. It's American Idol with a different subject matter - OK a few slight change probably in order of the fact this is Simon Cowell without Simon Fuller. Absolute difference is that there is no prize as such in Dragons' Den, whereas American Inventor definitely does. In Dragons' Den you are bidding for business partners, for money and potentially for the related involvement. Part of the interest is the negotiation process.

John F. 9th Mar 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.243.2 (talk) 22:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Guardian Angel
When I saw this supposed invention, it struck me as dangerous. How can you spray water on electric lights? Am I the only person that thinks this is very dangerous? &#39;&#39;&#39;Jason404&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 15:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's for putting out fires. It only sprays the water once the tree is on fire...a fire which is usually CAUSED by the lights. 12.199.45.138 (talk) 23:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The first season was aired on MediaCorp Channel 5, but the second season was not aired on any channel.
The first season of American Inventor debuted in Singapore on MediaCorp Channel 5 on August 12, 2007 on Sundays at 11:00am and ran until December 2, 2007 with the season finale. The first season was rerun on Channel 5 from November 27, 2007 on Mondays to Fridays at 1:00pm.

The second season was not aired on any channel, as MediaCorp Channel 5 did not air it. 42.60.24.230 (talk) 11:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Who invented the show?
The intro paragraph says "It was conceived by Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol...", but the sidebar says "Created by Peter Jones", a claim repeated on Peter Jones' page.

Anyone know for sure?

Ministry (talk) 07:37, 20 August 2019 (UTC)