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Selling hope to inventors vying for 'As Seen On TV' glory

Carrying his dream to become the “next infomercial millionaire,” 22-year-old inventor Timothy Dahlin of Palatine steps to the microphone and nervously explains why his “Ice Chest Cooler Label” deserves to become one of those “As Seen On TV” products.

“It allows you to know exactly what is in your ice chest cooler every single time,” Dahlin says, telling the invention judges how handy it could be to open a cooler labeled “Beer” instead of having to search through unmarked coolers containing pop, water or fruit.

“It could be,” AJ Khubani, king of the infomercial as founder and CEO of TeleBrands, says kindly before adding, “but it's definitely not for us.”

Neither is the all-purpose, pourable storage bin invented by retired schoolteacher Jim Huskey, 70, of Libertyville to hold charcoal, bird seed, dog food, snow-melting granules and other items.

“My wife (retired schoolteacher Marylin) would like to see me do something with it because I've been talking about it forever,” says Huskey. who invented the handy contraption a couple of decades ago for his own use but hadn't tried to market his creation. Members of an ABC TV crew filming this “Inventors' Day” competition Wednesday in Rosemont say they like Huskey's invention.

“This guy from ‘20/20' says this is awesome,” Huskey says, as he demonstrates how the bin's lid doubles as a scoop.

“I don't think it's exciting enough for our infomercials,” Khubani says.

Huskey, a business teacher and marathon runner who once built a 1929 Mercedes-Benz from a kit, handles the rejection with grace, and says he might try to market his invention to a more traditional retail outlet.

“I find that you are better off being honest with people,” says Khubani, a New Jersey businessman who started his company 28 years ago and actually invented the “PedEgg” foot callous-remover responsible for more than 40 million sales. Khubani isn't wild about offerings from two dozen inventors, including a grandma from a retirement home in Florida, who hawks her “Bag Bundle” storage system; a man from Surprise, Ariz., who seems surprised to be told his spray bottle for kitchen oils already had been invented; or the toy-maker from outside of Los Angeles who invented the revolutionary “Mighty Pins” push pins that can fasten just about anything to his portable bulletin board.

The “Mighty Pins” score some “wow” value when the inventor pins a wine glass to the board, but as Khubani notes, “Who wants to hang a wine glass?”

This recession has brought a “huge influx” to the inventor market, says Mark T. Reyland, executive director of the nonprofit United Inventors Association (www.uiausa.org), which aims to help inventors and educate them about scams that prey on inventors' ambitions.

“At the end of the day, AJ is selling hope,” says Reyland, who adds that Khubani and TeleBrands “care about the inventor” and let people know that most inventions won't hit the “As Seen On TV” jackpot. “When they (inventors) leave this room, we try to find somewhere for them to go.”

Even the ones that make it to TV might end up as “failures,” Khubani says. “There's a warehouse full of them. We fail 90 percent of the time.”

The team of inventor LeNardo Nelson Sr., a banker from Chicago, and Deer Park's Michael Mann, president of TeleMiketing Inc., might go straight to TV. Their “TriTrak” windshield wiper, which features a three-sided blade that can be easily rotated when one side wears away, actually was seen on TV in 2001 and piled up 20,000 sales before the post-Sept. 11 market fizzled. The new product promises to be better and environmentally friendly.

“Just a little tweaking on the engineering, but other than that, it's ready to go,” says Mann.

Khubani and fellow judges Mike Gordon, president of the Chicago Wolves, and Dhana Cohen, founder of The Next Big Zing awards website, tab “TriTrak,” “The Wine Balloon” (an inflatable bottle-corking system to keep air from ruining unfinished wine) and “Flopeeze” (flat, portable flip flops that wrap around the feet) as products that might be featured in infomercials. Lucky fans at Wednesday's Wolves hockey game at the Allstate Arena got popular TeleBrands' giveaways such as the PedEgg foot file, the Magic Chef wire kitchen basket and the Windshield Wonder glass-cleaning brush. Wolves fans voted the windshield wiper pitched by Nelson and Mann as the best new invention.

“This is how we find most of our products,” Khubani says, “from everyday inventors.”

  Inventor LeNardo Nelson Sr. of Chicago, right, and Michael Mann, president of TeleMiketing of Deer Park, pitch their TriTrak windshield wiper to the TeleBrands panel. Bob Chwedyk/bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
  Told his Ice Chest Cooler Label idea isn’t going to be featured in an “As Seen On TV” infomercial, Palatine inventor Timothy Dahlin, 22, vows to keep trying. Bob Chwedyk/ bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
  LeNardo Nelson Sr. of Chicago, left, and Michael Mann of Deer Park talk about their TriTrak Windshield wiper blade after pitching it to the TeleBrands panel. Bob Chwedyk/bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
  Timothy Dahlin, a 2006 Fremd High School graduate and resident of Palatine, pitches his unique ice chest to the TeleBrands panel. Bob Chwedyk/bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
  AJ Khubani, CEO of TeleBrands, listens to the pitch of LeNardo Nelson Sr. of Chicago, left, and Michael Mann of Deer Park. Bob Chwedyk/bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
With no expectations and a little encouragement from his wife, Jim Huskey of Libertyville takes his all-purpose, pourable storage bin to Inventors’ Day in Rosemont. While the TeleBrands judges tell Huskey his invention doesn’t pack enough sizzle to merit its own “As Seen On TV” infomercial, Huskey is encouraged to hawk his creation through more traditional retail outlets. Courtesy of Marylin Huskey