# The Smiley Inventor Died

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-smiley-inventor-died/61956>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 14, 2001, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-smiley-inventor-died/61956 "2001-04-14T14:39:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2001, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-smiley-inventor-died/61956/1 "2001-04-14T14:39:50Z")

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This is a true story – I know because Randy Cassingham reported it this morning in [This is True.](http://www.thisistrue.com)

A guy by the name of Harvey Ball died on April 12 at age 79. He designed the little yellow antenna balls, of which some 50 million were sold. I, for one, tend to think of smilies more now as emoticons.

But Ball did the design for State Farm Insurance and paid him $45. (His relatives say he was never money-driven and THAT deal sure proves it.)

I’ll leave it to other dopers to comment on the social value of his design.

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**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2001, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-smiley-inventor-died/61956/2 "2001-04-14T14:47:23Z")

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This has been done a few times already

[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=67322](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=67322)

for one.

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**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2001, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-smiley-inventor-died/61956/3 "2001-04-14T15:04:10Z")

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That just proves that you guys are better read than I am.

Cecil’s original column with the history is [here.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_031.html) The question originally asked was “who invented the smiley face and did he do time for it?”