Bubbles, Zubbles, Toys And Troubles
They’re bubbles. And they’re in color. And they wash out, rub away or plain evaporate after splattering.
Describing Tim Kehoe’s invention – Zubbles – is simple. The 15-year journey from concept to this summer’s product launch was anything but.
“If you said to me, ‘You’re going to spend a quarter of your life playing with bubbles,’ I’d have said you were crazy,” the 39-year-old St. Paul, Minn. inventor and father of five said. “You’re so afraid of that day you wake up, and somebody else is on the cover of a toy magazine with colored bubbles.”
It really was neat seeing that first colored bubble take shape, ordinary and unnatural at the same time. The Zubbles wands seem designed to create clusters of smaller bubbles which are more vibrant and dense with color. We later used some standard bubble wands with larger rings and did get some nice bigger bubbles, but along with those came a corresponding color fade. (And though the Zubbles web site includes photos of bubbles in other colors, for now there are just the two.)
And truthfully, there’s a certain joy to be had in watching the bubbles pop and splatter on clothes, plants and patio chairs. The impermanence of the splashes was as advertised: Some of the smaller patches simply faded, others rinsed out of T-shirts with a quick swish under the kitchen faucet.
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Photo by Zubbles.
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