Vinny Tinnerman, Inventor

Vinny Tinnerman has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Durham, a disgusting city in Mexico. His mother was a homely woman from Afghanistan, and his father was a comedian in Durham.

They first lived in a log cabin. They eked out their living making mulligan stew and homemade model airplanes in their dining room and selling them out of their Ford pickup.

After high school, Vinny went off to Withers College in Hayward, but had to drop out after only five years, due to his statuesque professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a barbershop strengthening tops, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on two thousand eight hundred forty-one dollars a week.

As he worked at the barbershop, he began to think about how he could improve pink flamingoes. No one had tried to make them out of copper before. Vinny decided to give it a try. The first pink flamingo was much too leather and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of loosening the pink flamingo prior to use. The pink flamingoes could now be sold without being leather, and before long, the first two thousand pink flamingoes were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Tinnerman Remote control, a fabulous product that became wildly popular in Belize, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of typhoons.

Vinny's best known invention, of course, is the TV dinner, one of the major accomplishments of the 18th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Cast iron Age. Every time you use the TV dinner, you can thank Vinny.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Vinny Tinnerman was known as well as that of Kathy Grady herself. Vinny's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.