In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at the 3M Corporation, developed a low-tech, reusable, pressure-sensitive glue. At least that's how it was perceived at the time. But Dr. Silver's enthusiasm for his sticky innovation could not be contained. He was convinced that its potential was off-the-hook legit. He yammered on about it for years, even offering free seminars to his colleagues at work (suddenly that six-hour budget meeting sounds kind of appealing… at least they have donuts). But wait- why was this guy allowed to bore his co-workers with endless chatter about a pointless adhesive? Well, actually, 3M had a corporate policy called “permitted bootlegging” that fostered innovation by encouraging employees to spend 15% of their work hours on pet projects- and in this case- it totally paid off, thanks to Arthur Fry, one of Silver's bored-to-tears peers. Fry was in church one Sunday morning (probably thankful to escape Silver's incessant glue talk). He was frustrated during the morning worship service because the slips of paper he was using to mark his pages in the hymnal kept slipping out. And that's when inspiration struck! Call it Divine Providence or not, the idea of repositionable sticky paper was a Godsend. So Fry and Silver teamed up, experimented with some old paper from the office trash can, and- drumroll please- 3M introduced a miraculous new product to the world called “Post-It Notes.” Suddenly remembering things took a giant leap for all mankind. And that canary-yellow paper the guys pulled from the trash became the official trademarked color of Post-It productivity.

Illuminating Moments in American History
From the accidental invention of the microwave to the love story of rubber gloves, these 68 animated video shorts (shadow puppet style!) chronicle the history of unexpected American innovation.

Produced, written, and directed by Nathan Marsh. Art and Animation by Joel West and Isaac Windham. Sound by Scott Sprague. Narration by Carol Munse.