It wasn’t-because there was already something called Instant Fish. Owing to their amazing ability to emerge from something that looked like Kool-Aid powder, von Braunhut dubbed his product Instant Life and began approaching retailers in the early ’60s with what he thought was a guaranteed hit. He spent years working in a barn on his property assembling a mail-order package that consisted of one packet to condition tap water, one packet of nutrients including yeast and algae, and one packet of the shrimp eggs. Kids at that time were already fascinated by ant farms-and von Braunhut thought the A. In other words, von Braunhut knew a good act when he saw one. He lived to see his 70th birthday, which he celebrated-like he did many of his birthdays-by jumping into a kiddie pool from the Flatiron Building. The secret, LaMothe said, was arching his back, which gave him the posture of a flying squirrel. After dropping out of Columbia University, he became a talent agent for acts like Joseph Dunninger, a famous mentalist, and Henri LaMothe, who spent decades jumping from a platform 40 feet in the air and landing in a kiddie pool as shallow as 12 inches without killing himself. As a teenager, he performed illusions as the Amazing Telepo. Von Braunhut was born in 1926 in Memphis but grew up in New York City. Why did von Braunhut consider this secret world of shrimp so appealing? Maybe because he had a tendency to see magic in the world. Especially since this was 1957, when children were content to play with toys like Freddie Fireplug and Hobo Mutt, a one-eyed stuffed dog dressed like a homeless person.
#HUGE SEA MONKEYS FULL#
To von Braunhut, they were a way to capture the imagination of children by selling what he termed a “bowl full of happiness.” If he could send the dehydrated eggs in the mail, then have them come to life in water using his secret nutrient formula, he was certain kids would be amazed. To most people, the shrimp were just fish food. Males have tiny little whiskers under their chin, and the females can self-fertilize eggs. They develop two more upon reaching maturity, and can breathe out of their feet. But when you add water, their protective shells hatch, revealing a translucent creature born with one eye. salina can survive for years in its protective casing in the event a lake dries up. It can exist in a state of suspended animation known as cryptobiosis, where living organisms shut down their metabolic processes in the absence of water-nature’s version of Carbonite freezing.Ī. salina, as von Braunhut discovered, has some fascinating biological traits. He didn’t know it at the time, but that pail of fish food was Artemia salina, a species of brine shrimp found in salt lakes.Ī. In 1957, a man named Harold von Braunhut walked into a pet store and noticed a bucket filled with brine shrimp.
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