Funny Business with Jane Wells
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Inventors are hoping their products will hit the infomercial goldmine and become the next OxyClean or Pocket Fisherman.
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You Think You Have Problems, Prts. 1, 2, 3...
Posted By: Jane Wells
According to Schering-Plough, 65 MILLION Americans suffer from constipation. That's nearly one in five of us. Really? Are 65 million Americans, like, constipated all the time? Once a month? Bummer. The company is touting the over-the-counter availability of its prescription strength laxative, MiraLAX. The announcement contained this little factoid which caught my eye...
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The Outdoor Litter Box Is Coming (It's About Time)
Posted By: Jane Wells
A San Diego attorney named David Schwartz is seeing dollar signs. He has patented a cat litter box that ... I'm not kidding ... connects the house to the litter box. This way the cat does its business outside without being exposed to the elements. Schwartz came up with the idea because his three cats took over a room in his home and it really smelled.
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Pulp Fiction Indeed And "Curing" Underarm Sweats
Posted By: Jane Wells
Director Quentin Tarantino tells GQ, "I might have been Shakespeare in another life." He says others have told him there are too many parallels, though he himself wouldn't know: "I have never really been into Shakespeare." In 2004, Forbes says 657,000 Shakespeare titles were sold, 388 years after his death. Do you think in 388 years they'll be selling...
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Business "Scents" And Burger Taste Test
Posted By: Jane Wells
For decades, the Holy Grail of television has been... Smell-o-vision! Be careful what you wish for. A new website, www.scenttv.tv, launches today, making money by providing online content that contains smells. All you need to do is pony up $18-$28 a month, depending on the length of your subscription, and you will receive a Scent Dome! (?)
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Oh We Don't Mean That Brando ...
Posted By: Jane Wells
Marlon Brando’s heirs are suing a furniture company for naming a line of home theater chairs the “Brando,” without a licensing agreement, reports the Los Angeles Times. Palliser Furniture is accused of making millions selling the Brando chairs, along with others named Eastwood, Bronson, and Cagney.
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Welcome to "Funny Business"
Posted By: Jane Wells
Please don’t tell anyone at CNBC about this blog. It is my underground attempt to poke fun at bizarre, money-related news. When you get right down to it, every story, no matter how wild, is usually about the money. This blog will prowl for the most outrageous evidence of that. Plus, I’m looking for quotes from overly-handled-by-PR-people CEOs, badly written press releases, the “good marketing ideas gone bad,” people with too much money but not enough ideas, and just plain stupid stuff with a business angle.
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About Funny Business
If it was up to Jane Wells, she’d spend her entire day combing Mother Earth for stories and observations just for this blog. She has more fun writing Funny Business than anything else she does... professionally, that is. Funny business is whatever Jane considers hilarious, strange, fishy, or ridiculous, which pretty much covers everything on Wall Street. It is her hope this blog makes you smile, even when the news is grim. After all, it's only money.
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Based in Los Angeles, Wells is currently a CNBC business news reporter and also writes CNBC.com's “Funny Business.”
Humor
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Oh, so you like to laugh, do you? A real wiseguy. Well, that's going to cost you, buddy!
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Think beef is expensive now? A cow just sold for a record $170,000 at auction in Syracuse, New York.
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Scope is now touting bacon-flavored mouthwash, but Jane Wells's incredibly accurate instincts tell her something is afoot.