Mr. Poynter was working for an advertising agency in Cincinnati in the early 1950s. Eager to start his own business, he pitched the idea of toothpaste to the brother of a former fraternity who had become a bank loan officer. The resulting $10,000 loan allowed Mr. Poynter to create a product that he sold for the next 17 years.
The toothpaste—it came in bourbon, rye and Scotch flavors—launched Mr. Poynter’s career as an inventor and marketer of innovative products, including a talking toilet seat, a self-propelled golf ball, and one in the shape of actress Jayne. Hot water bottle is included. Mansfield.
Mr. Poynter, who died of cancer on August 13 at the age of 96, spent four decades dreaming up gimmicks and gizmos for sale at toy stores and gift shops across America “every day for my dad.” It was April Fools’ Day,” said one of his sons, Tim Poynter.
One of his biggest hits was Little Black Box, introduced in the late 1950s. Retailing for $5, it was a box about 3 inches high with an on-off switch. When people turned it on, a small green hand emerged to turn the switch back off. “It doesn’t really do anything,” Poynter assured the Cincinnati Enquirer. “We found it to be a limited-appeal item in the novelty sector, never as a mass-market thing.” It sold for millions.
The Mad Dog lighter looked like an ordinary cigarette lighter. However, when flicked, it erupted with a geyser of frothy foam. At parties, “all of a sudden you hear someone screaming,” said Tim Poynter. “You’ll know they’ve got the lighter.”
The Electric Chair, a realistic miniature, gave a jolt to unsuspecting guests when they lifted it up to take a closer look. The Incredible Creeping golf ball had two hidden claws that, when activated with caution, caused it to creep around the green.
Mr. Poynter’s Poynter Products Inc. also came up with devices that intelligently create cracks when people sit on the toilet or open the refrigerator door.
Poynter products typically had multimillion-dollar annual sales, giving Mr. Poynter the means to raise four children, said Tim Poynter. Although most gadgets were made in Asia, there was some assembly in the US, and the firm employed about 30 people.
After dreaming up a product, Mr. Poynter had to figure out how to make it. They made their molds by hand. While he was making his own toothpaste, he found the recipes in a public library and substituted whiskey for water.
Newspapers wrote about toothpaste and gave them free publicity. Recalling decades later, he said, “Sales were so staggering that we were running out of tubes. In 1955, the retail price was $1.50 per tube, or the equivalent of about $15 currently.” “So I thought they overlooked the most obvious thing,” Mr. Poynter told the Akron Beacon Journal.
The second of three children, Donald Byron Poynter was born on May 14, 1925, and grew up in Cincinnati. His father, William Bruce Poynter, was a painter and photographer who invented color-printing techniques. His mother, Gertrude Johnson Poynter, also portrayed.
Young Don was a drum major in his high-school band and eventually learned to swing and juggle sticks and knives while walking on stilts or riding a unicycle. He also provided voice for radio plays.
He enrolled at the University of Cincinnati but enlisted in the army during World War II. Most of his military service was spent at Fort Riley in Kansas, where he was an entertainer whose acts included card tricks and ventriloquism. “I couldn’t move past the battlefield. I was so lucky,” he said in a 2018 oral history.
Back at the University of Cincinnati, he served as a drum major and studied business. He once cut off a bone in one of his legs while juggling it with a knife during a football halftime show, but ended up bleeding into the turf. The Harlem Globetrotters learned of his skills and hired him as a halftime performer on overseas tours.
After seeing the world with the Globetrotters, he returned to Cincinnati. While at the University of Cincinnati, he saw Mona Castellini at a bridge table. She was working on a degree in dietetics. They married in 1952.
By the late 1980s, the disappearance of mom-and-pop stores made it harder for Mr. Poynter to find a market for his novelty. He sold the business to his son Tim, who in turn sold it to another party in the 1990s. Donald Poynter made a successful investment in developing the golf course. He also invented a device that automatically punches balls at the driving range.
His wife, Mona Poynter, passed away in 2007. Mr. Poynter has four children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Turning the tables on a great prankster, Tim Poynter said that he once spread clear plastic wrap over a toilet bowl before going to his father’s bathroom. “I thought it was funny,” said Tim Poynter. “He didn’t see the humor as much as I did.”
In 1988, Don Poynter told the Scripps Howard News Service that he had envisioned a device to be attached to his own tomb. “When you got to it,” he said. “You’d activate an electronic voice. And it would say, ‘Come on down.’ “
In the end, he resisted that temptation, said one of his daughters, Molly Mandrell. He knew he would be buried next to his wife, and “I think he thought it might be a little disrespectful to him”, his daughter said.
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