Last year our own Earl Snake-Hips Tucker identified the source of this quote as an episode of the TV series “Burke’s Law” from 1964. Here’s the thread.
Here’s an article I just came across on the Modern Mechanix website. It’s a reprint from a 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics about a California man who has been building a useless machine as a hobby.
Obviously there’s no way to prove that the writers for “Burke’s Law” ever read that particular issue of Popular Mechanics. But it’s interesting that the idea of a building a useless machine as a hobby was already floating around ten years before the episode aired.
Nah, there aren’t any treadmills involved with this one.
While I was on the computer in my bedroom and my 6-year-old was watching the Disney Channel about three days ago, I overheard one of the characters saying “That’s the beauty of it, it doesn’t do anything.” I ran into the front room and asked my daughter what show that was because I knew it would probably come up again on The Straight Dope. So, anyway… a relatively modern cartoon series is still using the phrase. It was “Phineas and Ferb” that she was watching. I don’t know the plot of the episode though. It did kind of freak me out when I heard it though.