God shoes

[deadrats]

@admins: this isn't a religious post.

i don't know how many of you remember the "married with children" episode when al bundy falls out a window, hits his head and imagines he went to heaven and met God and saw the shoes He was wearing. in the episode he decides to market the shoes, with jefferson bankrolling him with money he stole from marcy, and of course everyone else in the episode laughs and ridicules al, the shoes are a big failure and at the end we see al hitting his head again, going back to heaven and discovering that it wasn't God after all but rather a guy that had been a shoe salesman when he was alive who had the idea first before his wife hired a hit man to kill him.

the "God shoes", as al calls them, are formed in the shape of a human foot, complete with toes, the socks built in and of course the props that were used were designed to be as comically stupid as possible.

here's where the story get funny as hell, about 15 years after that episode aired a company has actually manufactured and is selling a remarkably similar piece of outdoor footwear:

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_footwear.cfm

the first time i saw these i was in a store called campmor, which specializes in all sorts of outdoor products and i immediately thought of al bundy, a few days later i actually saw a client wearing them and i asked her how she liked them and she said they were the best "shoes" she ever had. i asked her if she knew who invented them, she said "no" and i told her about the above episode and she had a good laugh.

the irony is just too much, 15 years after america laughed at the antics of a fictional shoe salesman, a company actually "stole" his invention and is making a mint selling them.

only in America!

[freebird73717]

Holy crap. Those are some of the ugliest things I've ever seen. I used to own a shoe store and I carried some crazy shoes in stock but nothing remotely like that. I would have laughed the vibram sales rep right out of my store if he would have showed me that.

No way I could have worn them myself either. I have long ass toes!

[rallynavvie]

A friend of mine does free running and wears those. They're really aimed at a niche sports market like that or climbing. Part of the reason we have shoes that cover the toes as a whole is to offer protection to our toes. As that friend of mine said you can still stub, sprain, or crush a toe with those shoes. If I still did much climbing I'd probably get a pair to see what they'd be like. Climbing shoes are practically slippers anyway.

I do remember that episode of Married with Children though. I also thought there was a Simpsons episode with a shoe like that?

[lordsmurf]

Having something between my toes like that would drive me nuts.