The inventor of the “Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed,” which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of “tingling relaxation and ease” for a quarter in hotel rooms across America during its heyday as a pop culture icon in the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 92.
John Joseph Houghtaling died Wednesday at his home in Fort Pierce, Fla., his son Paul Houghtaling said Friday.
Tinkering in the basement of his New Jersey home, Houghtaling invented the “Magic Fingers” machine in 1958.
The device was mounted onto beds, and a quarter bought 15 minutes of “tingling relaxation and ease,” according to its label.
“Put in a quarter, turn out the light, Magic Fingers makes ya feel all right,” Jimmy Buffett sang in “This Hotel Room.”
Kitschy and titillating, Magic Fingers remained a staple of American pop culture even after the device began disappearing from motels. The vibrations triggered a beer explosion in the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” and FBI agents Mulder and Scully relaxed to the pulsations in an episode of “The X Files.”
Fox’s News Channel’s Brit Hume sang the Buffett lyric to former President George W. Bush and his father in a January interview when they mentioned a vibrating chair in the Oval Office.
In a 1963 New York Times profile, Houghtaling said he was selling beds with a built-in vibrating mechanism when he realized during a repair job it would be much cheaper to create something that would attach to the outside of an existing bed.
“After ripping away the frills, I found that it was the vibrator that counted, not the bed,” he recalled. “Magic Fingers was born then and there.”
In its heyday, there were about 175 Magic Fingers franchise dealers across the country.
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