invention.
"Oh tiny cat dancer in my hand." Photo: marcus_in_ny/Flickr If you've owned a cat in the past twenty years, chances are you've owned a Cat Dancer. Even with its uber-simple design -- a three-foot length of wire with a few twisted-up rolls of kraft paper on each end -- cats go bananas for them, and cat lovers keep grabbing them off pet store shelves. So who invented this marvelous, yet simple toy? That would be Jim Boelke. The proverbial light bulb that inspired the Cat Dancer went aglow over Boelke's noggin in 1978. Thirty years later, Boelke still runs Cat Dancer Products, Inc. out of Neenah, Wisconsin. Paw Nation spoke with Mr. Boelke to get the story behind his creative success. What ...