January 28, 2026 • 12 mins
The Magic 8 Ball, the mystical fortune telling pool ball started out as a piece of customer swag for the Brunswick Billiard Company. Since then, it has changed the course of history and shaped nations.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for day. This
is short Stuff and we're talking about the magic Gateball.
Probably know what that is.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
We have one in our house, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
It's kind of one of those toys that I think
most gen xers, and actually, knowing how old it is,
probably boomers bought for gen xers, and now gen xers
are buying for their Alphas and Z zoomers, and I.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Don't know where millennials got left out, but this.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is the classic toy.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I assume most people have seen this, but in other
countries you may not know what we're talking about. But
it is essentially a looks like a billiard's ball. It's
about the size of a maybe a grapefruit, and it's
got a little flat side on let's say the bottom,
and in that side it's got a little clear window
with some dark liquid, and floating in that liquid is
(00:59):
a twenty sided die with a bunch of answers to
yes or no questions, with the idea being that you
ask it a question, you shake this thing up, and
then you see what the answer tells you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Very simple that's it, and it is very simple. But
this I think that's the case with a lot of
stuff that just becomes a part of pop culture. Yes, totally,
there's not much to it, but just something about it
comes together and makes everybody love it. And the Magic
eight Ball's no difference. Definitely one of the more successful
toys to come out of the twentieth century, and it
(01:32):
dates back as far back as the forties as a
matter of fact, or actually the early fifties, but the
story begins further back than that because there was a
prototype that was created by a man named Albert Carter,
and he was brothers in law with a guy named
ab Bookman, and both of them together helped found the
company that would eventually go on to create Magic eight
(01:54):
Ball's basically based on Carter's idea that he got from
his mom.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, it's a pretty cool story.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
His mom was a self proclaimed clairvoyant and very popular
at the time in Cincinnata during the age of spiritualism
and use spiritual writing or psychic writing device to communicate
with the beyond, supposedly, and Carter was like, Mom, you're
the best.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You're so cool.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
During World War Two, he built a prototype of a
toy sort of in honor of what she was doing.
That he called at first the Psycho Sere Syco dash
sw R, which was essentially what's inside of the magic
eight ball.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It was a tube divided in half and each side
has that dark liquid and each side had to die
and you would turn it one side up or the
other side up to see what it said.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, so there's the basis of the magic apall right there,
because that's essentially what a magic a ball is today.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Carter went around and he's like showing it to
local stores in Cincinnati, and he hits upon one that's like,
I love these. I want a bunch of them. Not
only do I want to sell them in my store,
to start distributing these, let's do it. Carter had big
time struggles with alcoholism from what I've read, So he's like,
(03:10):
I have no idea how to make anything mass produced.
I just have good ideas. So he turned to his brother,
a bookman, who was the kind of person who could
get things done, and they formed a partnership. A Bookman
apparently had They were close as brothers in law could be.
I think Bookman kind of had almost like a care
(03:31):
taker part for Carter. He said, when he was sober,
he was a genius. He was always broke, but I
bought every idea he ever had, and that gave him
enough money to keep going. So when Carter turns the
bookman and says, I've got this really good idea, but
I have no idea how to fulfill any orders. Can
you help me? Like I said, they formed a partnership.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Carter got the patent and they named it Psychoseer Colon
the Miracle Home Fortune Teller. A few years later they
modified it a bit to basically made it smaller it
sounds like, and then called it the Psycho Slate Colon,
the Pocket fortune Teller colon.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
We can't get it any smaller. Everybody don't ask.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And then in nineteen forty six they formed a novelty
company named a Labe Crafts from Albert and Abe their names.
And very sadly, I imagine, probably somewhat due to the life
he was living living, Carter died and Abe was the
sole owner of the company. And maybe that's a good
(04:35):
cliffhanger to see.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
What happens next. I think it's perfect, all.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Right, We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So where we left off, Albert Carter died sadly, and
a bookman was running the company, and he continued making novelties,
and somewhere along the line, the Psychoseer caught the attention
of the Brunswick Billiard Company out of Chicago. They make
pool tables, they make bumper bowling balls, and in nineteen
(05:21):
fifty they went to bookman and said, hey, this Psychoseer
thinks awesome, but can you like make it into an
eight ball? And bookman was like, you're talking about the
billiard version of the apol, right, And they were like, yes, yes,
we don't even know what you're talking about it at
this point. And so he said, I think I can
(05:41):
do that, and he got busy making taking essentially the
psycho Sere and building a plastic eight ball around it.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
That's right, pretty good idea that this time it just
has the one die. You know, you didn't need to
have two sides because you just had the one window.
I never knew it was twenty sided. When I read that,
I was like, that's got to be a misprint. There's
no more than ten that thing. But I'm wrong. There
are ten affirmative answers, and of course if you've played
it you'll recognize these. If not, it says things like
(06:09):
it is certain or outlook good. There are five negative answers,
ranging from outlook not so good to my sources say
no and don't count on it yeah, and five non
committal answers like hazy, try again, ask again later. And
the idea everybody is that you're having a slumber party
and you're asking if this boy or this girl thinks
(06:33):
you're cute or something. I mean, that's generally what it's
used for, Like I don't people don't really consult it
for like big life decisions. But if you're a kid,
that's kind of what we were, like, you know, we
were doing with it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
If you're on TV in a sitcom or a movie,
then you might consult it for a big life decision.
But yes, yeah, sure, I would guess the average person
wouldn't do that, right.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
No, you just want to find out if somebody's crushing
on you.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So and then after that it's light is feather stiff
as a board?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's right, because your sources said no, So what else
is there to do?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So Brunswick customers love this stuff. I'm guessing these are
like wholesalers, retailers of billiard tables, that kind of thing,
and they're like, I love this, Thank you so much, Brunswick.
I'll be a customer forever. And so a bookman was like,
I'm just going to start making these for the general
public and sell them. And initially he said, you know
what this is, it's a great paper weight. Yeah, and
(07:28):
he sold them as a novelty paperweight for adults, which
is a really niche item and it was not necessarily
the best the best business move.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it's funny. I feel like there are a lot
of stories like that where the thing that ended up
being a huge hit they initially were just so way
off in what they thought people were gonna like about it.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, you know, Yeah, then that's a great example of it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah that New Coke, right, yeah, New Coke for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And they quickly became part of pop culture. Once he
realized that teens love these things, they started to buy
him and he said, oh I missed I missed on
what everyone like, this is clearly a toy and teens
have slumber parties. I want to know if if people
are crushing on them, So I'm going to make a
million bucks selling these things, and he did. He made
(08:18):
many millions of bucks, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, apparently they sell a million a year reliably. If
you own the Magic gate Ball rights, you can expect
to sell a million of them a year every year.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That's awesome. Let's get those rights.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, so you said they're part of pop culture, and
I mentioned that sometimes on movies and TV people will
consult them for big life decisions. Let's call them mcguffin. Yeah,
it means that Magic Gateball is a mcguffin. Chuck, I
think you should explain it, because you're the movie guy.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't even know how to best describe a mcguffin.
I mean, I think it's something that of low import
in reality, but is has high import as far as
what it means in the in the film.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Is that about right?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah? It moves, it moves the plot along.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, it's not a fake thing, but it's not like
it's not like you actually found the plans or the
treasure map. You know, a treasure map wouldn't be a
mcguffin unless the treasure didn't end up being a treasure.
And it's just what brought you to the place to
meet the girl.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Does that make sense? No? You just you just channeled me.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
No, no, no, I think I got it. If there's
a treasure map and it leads to the treasure, okay,
then that thing is in a mcguffin. That's it's a
real deal, like a plot piece or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
But if that treasure map leads you to Brazil and
there is no treasure at all, but what really happens
in Brazil is X Y and zka, then the treasure
map would have been a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But then does the stuff that happens in Brazil, the
X Y and Z you referred to, is that what
the movie's actually about? Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's not
like a boondoggle or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I see now, I don't even know what's a boondoggle.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A boondoggle would be if the treasure map led to
Brazil and X Y and Z happening, but that was
a detour where really the movie is about getting to
the treasure.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Oh okay, are we talking about romancing the Stone?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think inevitably we just kind of fell into.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That that was carta though it was.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It wasn't Brazil Cartagena, Columbia.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, that movie really holds up.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
By the way, I know, I saw it not too
long ago. You told me you showed it to Ruby
and she's like.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I talked about this so fun.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So yeah, that's a mcguffin. And back to the magic
I guess it is. There's a really great use of it.
I guess it would be a mcguffin. In The Simpsons
from nineteen ninety two. I think it's Bart's friend Falls
in Love where barton Millhouse are on the bus at
the beginning and they're asking the magic eight ball how
long they'll be friends, and after a series of questions,
they find out that the magic a ball tells them
(11:01):
their friendship will be over by the end of that day.
And it turns out some new girl comes to school
captures Millhouse's heart, and Bart starts to get like jealous
that Millhouse is distracted from them and their friendship because
of some girl, and they end up getting in a
fight and Bart strikes Millhouse with the magic apeall later
on in the Treehouse.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think I remember that one a great one.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Also, by the way, I know, we.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Could have looked up the definition of mcguffin. But uh,
I think that was a little more fun. We even
getting some flak lately on not looking at pronunciations.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, a little bit here and there.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I think some some snarky gun Instagram was bagging on
you because of Navidia. Oh really, it's apparently it's Nvidia.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah. Oh and also we got taken to test for tagalog.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah you know. Sorry.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And also like when you when you spell something nv
dot dot dot, it's a little confusing. Sure we could
have looked it up, but I don't know, that's just
not our style.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah. Plus I was confused. I thought we were talking
about Nivia, the skincare brand. Oh see, that sponsors the
ball drop in Times Square. They're also a chip maker.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I imagine that's actually via.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
The short stuff out.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oh yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So. All stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for day. This
is short Stuff and we're talking about the magic Gateball.
Probably know what that is.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
We have one in our house, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
It's kind of one of those toys that I think
most gen xers, and actually, knowing how old it is,
probably boomers bought for gen xers, and now gen xers
are buying for their Alphas and Z zoomers, and I.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Don't know where millennials got left out, but this.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is the classic toy.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I assume most people have seen this, but in other
countries you may not know what we're talking about. But
it is essentially a looks like a billiard's ball. It's
about the size of a maybe a grapefruit, and it's
got a little flat side on let's say the bottom,
and in that side it's got a little clear window
with some dark liquid, and floating in that liquid is
(00:59):
a twenty sided die with a bunch of answers to
yes or no questions, with the idea being that you
ask it a question, you shake this thing up, and
then you see what the answer tells you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Very simple that's it, and it is very simple. But
this I think that's the case with a lot of
stuff that just becomes a part of pop culture. Yes, totally,
there's not much to it, but just something about it
comes together and makes everybody love it. And the Magic
eight Ball's no difference. Definitely one of the more successful
toys to come out of the twentieth century, and it
(01:32):
dates back as far back as the forties as a
matter of fact, or actually the early fifties, but the
story begins further back than that because there was a
prototype that was created by a man named Albert Carter,
and he was brothers in law with a guy named
ab Bookman, and both of them together helped found the
company that would eventually go on to create Magic eight
(01:54):
Ball's basically based on Carter's idea that he got from
his mom.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, it's a pretty cool story.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
His mom was a self proclaimed clairvoyant and very popular
at the time in Cincinnata during the age of spiritualism
and use spiritual writing or psychic writing device to communicate
with the beyond, supposedly, and Carter was like, Mom, you're
the best.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You're so cool.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
During World War Two, he built a prototype of a
toy sort of in honor of what she was doing.
That he called at first the Psycho Sere Syco dash
sw R, which was essentially what's inside of the magic
eight ball.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It was a tube divided in half and each side
has that dark liquid and each side had to die
and you would turn it one side up or the
other side up to see what it said.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, so there's the basis of the magic apall right there,
because that's essentially what a magic a ball is today.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Carter went around and he's like showing it to
local stores in Cincinnati, and he hits upon one that's like,
I love these. I want a bunch of them. Not
only do I want to sell them in my store,
to start distributing these, let's do it. Carter had big
time struggles with alcoholism from what I've read, So he's like,
(03:10):
I have no idea how to make anything mass produced.
I just have good ideas. So he turned to his brother,
a bookman, who was the kind of person who could
get things done, and they formed a partnership. A Bookman
apparently had They were close as brothers in law could be.
I think Bookman kind of had almost like a care
(03:31):
taker part for Carter. He said, when he was sober,
he was a genius. He was always broke, but I
bought every idea he ever had, and that gave him
enough money to keep going. So when Carter turns the
bookman and says, I've got this really good idea, but
I have no idea how to fulfill any orders. Can
you help me? Like I said, they formed a partnership.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Carter got the patent and they named it Psychoseer Colon
the Miracle Home Fortune Teller. A few years later they
modified it a bit to basically made it smaller it
sounds like, and then called it the Psycho Slate Colon,
the Pocket fortune Teller colon.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
We can't get it any smaller. Everybody don't ask.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And then in nineteen forty six they formed a novelty
company named a Labe Crafts from Albert and Abe their names.
And very sadly, I imagine, probably somewhat due to the life
he was living living, Carter died and Abe was the
sole owner of the company. And maybe that's a good
(04:35):
cliffhanger to see.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
What happens next. I think it's perfect, all.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Right, We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So where we left off, Albert Carter died sadly, and
a bookman was running the company, and he continued making novelties,
and somewhere along the line, the Psychoseer caught the attention
of the Brunswick Billiard Company out of Chicago. They make
pool tables, they make bumper bowling balls, and in nineteen
(05:21):
fifty they went to bookman and said, hey, this Psychoseer
thinks awesome, but can you like make it into an
eight ball? And bookman was like, you're talking about the
billiard version of the apol, right, And they were like, yes, yes,
we don't even know what you're talking about it at
this point. And so he said, I think I can
(05:41):
do that, and he got busy making taking essentially the
psycho Sere and building a plastic eight ball around it.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
That's right, pretty good idea that this time it just
has the one die. You know, you didn't need to
have two sides because you just had the one window.
I never knew it was twenty sided. When I read that,
I was like, that's got to be a misprint. There's
no more than ten that thing. But I'm wrong. There
are ten affirmative answers, and of course if you've played
it you'll recognize these. If not, it says things like
(06:09):
it is certain or outlook good. There are five negative answers,
ranging from outlook not so good to my sources say
no and don't count on it yeah, and five non
committal answers like hazy, try again, ask again later. And
the idea everybody is that you're having a slumber party
and you're asking if this boy or this girl thinks
(06:33):
you're cute or something. I mean, that's generally what it's
used for, Like I don't people don't really consult it
for like big life decisions. But if you're a kid,
that's kind of what we were, like, you know, we
were doing with it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
If you're on TV in a sitcom or a movie,
then you might consult it for a big life decision.
But yes, yeah, sure, I would guess the average person
wouldn't do that, right.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
No, you just want to find out if somebody's crushing
on you.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So and then after that it's light is feather stiff
as a board?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's right, because your sources said no, So what else
is there to do?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So Brunswick customers love this stuff. I'm guessing these are
like wholesalers, retailers of billiard tables, that kind of thing,
and they're like, I love this, Thank you so much, Brunswick.
I'll be a customer forever. And so a bookman was like,
I'm just going to start making these for the general
public and sell them. And initially he said, you know
what this is, it's a great paper weight. Yeah, and
(07:28):
he sold them as a novelty paperweight for adults, which
is a really niche item and it was not necessarily
the best the best business move.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it's funny. I feel like there are a lot
of stories like that where the thing that ended up
being a huge hit they initially were just so way
off in what they thought people were gonna like about it.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, you know, Yeah, then that's a great example of it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah that New Coke, right, yeah, New Coke for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And they quickly became part of pop culture. Once he
realized that teens love these things, they started to buy
him and he said, oh I missed I missed on
what everyone like, this is clearly a toy and teens
have slumber parties. I want to know if if people
are crushing on them, So I'm going to make a
million bucks selling these things, and he did. He made
(08:18):
many millions of bucks, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, apparently they sell a million a year reliably. If
you own the Magic gate Ball rights, you can expect
to sell a million of them a year every year.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That's awesome. Let's get those rights.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, so you said they're part of pop culture, and
I mentioned that sometimes on movies and TV people will
consult them for big life decisions. Let's call them mcguffin. Yeah,
it means that Magic Gateball is a mcguffin. Chuck, I
think you should explain it, because you're the movie guy.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't even know how to best describe a mcguffin.
I mean, I think it's something that of low import
in reality, but is has high import as far as
what it means in the in the film.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Is that about right?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah? It moves, it moves the plot along.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, it's not a fake thing, but it's not like
it's not like you actually found the plans or the
treasure map. You know, a treasure map wouldn't be a
mcguffin unless the treasure didn't end up being a treasure.
And it's just what brought you to the place to
meet the girl.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Does that make sense? No? You just you just channeled me.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
No, no, no, I think I got it. If there's
a treasure map and it leads to the treasure, okay,
then that thing is in a mcguffin. That's it's a
real deal, like a plot piece or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
But if that treasure map leads you to Brazil and
there is no treasure at all, but what really happens
in Brazil is X Y and zka, then the treasure
map would have been a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But then does the stuff that happens in Brazil, the
X Y and Z you referred to, is that what
the movie's actually about? Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's not
like a boondoggle or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I see now, I don't even know what's a boondoggle.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A boondoggle would be if the treasure map led to
Brazil and X Y and Z happening, but that was
a detour where really the movie is about getting to
the treasure.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Oh okay, are we talking about romancing the Stone?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think inevitably we just kind of fell into.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That that was carta though it was.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It wasn't Brazil Cartagena, Columbia.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, that movie really holds up.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
By the way, I know, I saw it not too
long ago. You told me you showed it to Ruby
and she's like.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I talked about this so fun.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So yeah, that's a mcguffin. And back to the magic
I guess it is. There's a really great use of it.
I guess it would be a mcguffin. In The Simpsons
from nineteen ninety two. I think it's Bart's friend Falls
in Love where barton Millhouse are on the bus at
the beginning and they're asking the magic eight ball how
long they'll be friends, and after a series of questions,
they find out that the magic a ball tells them
(11:01):
their friendship will be over by the end of that day.
And it turns out some new girl comes to school
captures Millhouse's heart, and Bart starts to get like jealous
that Millhouse is distracted from them and their friendship because
of some girl, and they end up getting in a
fight and Bart strikes Millhouse with the magic apeall later
on in the Treehouse.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think I remember that one a great one.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Also, by the way, I know, we.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Could have looked up the definition of mcguffin. But uh,
I think that was a little more fun. We even
getting some flak lately on not looking at pronunciations.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, a little bit here and there.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I think some some snarky gun Instagram was bagging on
you because of Navidia. Oh really, it's apparently it's Nvidia.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah. Oh and also we got taken to test for tagalog.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah you know. Sorry.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And also like when you when you spell something nv
dot dot dot, it's a little confusing. Sure we could
have looked it up, but I don't know, that's just
not our style.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah. Plus I was confused. I thought we were talking
about Nivia, the skincare brand. Oh see, that sponsors the
ball drop in Times Square. They're also a chip maker.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I imagine that's actually via.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
The short stuff out.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oh yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So. All stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Josh Clark
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