July 1958 Popular Electronics Table of Contents Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

John Frye routinely used his Carl and Jerry column in Popular Electronics magazine to mix various assortments and portions of science, humor, adventure, ham radio, and human nature in what I have dubbed a technodrama. Sometimes the topics are a little off-beat, as with this "Parfum Elektronique" story - that's French for "Electronic Perfume," although you probably already guessed that. The pair of high-school-aged electronics experimenters enlisted the assistance of classmate Norma, a babe who often agreed to help them with boy-girl relationship pranks, to try out their odor-producing contraption. Integral in Mr. Frye's lesson is that there are seven categories of odors (I won't list them here) which can be mixed in various proportions to produce most other familiar odors. The base substance used for "foul" odors was mercaptan - best known for its extremely potent and offensive odor, often described as smelling like rotten eggs, skunk spray, or decaying cabbage. The "laboratory" chosen for the test was Norma's date - a new guy she had never been out with before. Read on for the details.

Carl & Jerry: Parfum Elektronique

By John T. Frye

 Norma was taking a Sunday afternoon siesta in a hammock stretched beneath the trees of her backyard. In her crisp blouse, tailored shorts, and dark glasses, she made a very pretty, relaxed picture lying there in the hammock. Suddenly, though, she wrinkled her nose in distaste, sat up, and looked all around.

Chortling with glee, Carl and Jerry rose from where they had been hiding behind the hedge and came over to the hammock. Jerry was carrying a rather strange object - strange, at least, for a boy to be carrying. It was a large woman's purse made of basket-woven metallic ribbon so that it looked more like a miniature silver clothes-hamper than anything else.

"I might have known!" Norma said, as she smiled down at the two boys who had sprawled on the grass. "How did you jokers produce that horrible smell?"

"You, lucky girl, are the very first person to experience our new invention, Parfum Elektronique," Jerry announced grandly.

"Only the belle of Buzzard's Roost would be caught dead wearing that perfume," Norma said with conviction.

"That putrid smell was just one of our six basic odors," Jerry explained. "What does this smell like?" he asked, as he fumbled with something on the bottom of the purse. Instantly a sweet, flowery odor seemed to come from everywhere.

"Magnolia," Norma replied.

"And this?"

"Gingerbread . . . pine trees . . . fruit stand . . . burning rags," Norma ticked off the odors that wafted up from the purse.

"Right on the nose!" Carl exclaimed, as he and Jerry swapped pleased glances. "You identified correctly every one of our six basic odors: spicy, fruity, flowery, scorched, resinous, and foul."

"How does the the -the -the little stinker work?" Norma wanted to know.

"This purse has a false bottom. In the compartment beneath are six coils of resistance wire wound on an asbestos form. Each coil can be connected through a separate rheostat to a battery, and each is coated with a substance that gives off a different distinctive odor when it is heated by current flowing through the resistance wire. The more current, the stronger the odor. By proper selection and mixing of these basic odors, we expect to be able to reproduce all recognizable smells - some fifty or more in number."

"Where did you get the stuff to put on the coils?"

"Pastes made of ground-up incense cakes took care of the spicy, resinous, and flowery smells. Stuff scraped off a selenium rectifier gives a dandy putrid odor. Scrapings from a wool sweater mixed into a paste gives that scorched smell, and the druggist fixed us up with some oils to produce the fruity odor."

"Excruciatingly interesting," Norma said languidly as she smothered a yawn and lay back in the hammock.

"It's a lot more than interesting," Carl urged. "Think of being able to have exactly the right scent with you for every occasion and of being able to change the nature and intensity of the fragrance at will."

"I'll think of it," Norma promised drowsily.

"We want you to do something about it," Jerry broke in. "We want you to try our invention out on your date tonight."

"Now just a little minute!" Norma said, whipping off her sun glasses and opening her dark eyes wide. "This date of mine tonight is a brand-new one, and I'm taking no chances of flubbing things up. In the past, you know, some of our electronic experiments with my love life have not turned out too well; so this time I appreciate the honor, but I'm not having any."

"I think the girl needs a little gentle persuasion," Jerry said quietly to Carl as they both rose to their feet.

"Right!" Carl exclaimed as he grabbed both sides of the hammock and brought them together over the top of Norma. He held them in place in spite of Norma's shrieks, struggles, and threats, until Jerry fastened them together with two huge horse-blanket pins that had been clipped around the hammock ropes. Then the boys stood at each end of the hammock and tugged alternately at the ropes to bounce and toss the pinned-in girl wildly about.

"Stop! Stop!" she finally gasped. "I'll do it! And if you've messed up my permanent, I'm going to kill you both."

"Ah, Norma," Carl said, unfastening the pins and grinning down at the tousled but very pretty girl; "from now on you will always be our favorite pin-up!"

"What chance has a poor girl got against such a bullying, flattering pair?" Norma asked, smiling in spite of herself, as she smoothed her hair. "Clue me in on how to work Parfurm Elektronique."

"Just remember that when the lid-snap of the purse is toward you the little knobs on the bottom, reading from left to right, control spicy, fruity, flowery, scorched, resinous, and foul odors in that order. The farther you turn a knob clockwise, the stronger will be the smell," Jerry explained. "Turning a knob entirely counterclockwise cuts off that odor. Until we've had time to do more experimenting, I'd stick to one basic odor at a time. You can't be sure what kind of results you might get if you try to mix them."

"Gotcha!" Norma said, picking up the purse and starting for the house. "If you two are still up when I get home, I'll give you a report."

Carl and Jerry certainly intended to be up. Eleven-thirty found them sitting on the moonlit front steps of Jerry's house.

"Say, Jer," Carl drawled, "I've been thinking."

"So."

"If those resistance coils of the Parfum Elektronique were resonated with capacitors to different supersonic frequencies, or were fed from external circuits resonated at these frequencies, the coils could be heated with the high-frequency circulating currents instead of a battery. If these supersonic frequencies were used to modulate a radio or TV carrier, and our gadget was attached to the receiver so that these recovered supersonic signals activated it, the broadcaster could produce any fragrance wanted in any amount desired by regulating . the frequency and strength of the supersonic modulation."

"So now you're inventing Smell-O-Vision," Jerry said with a chuckle. "Others have thought of that, too. There's one big catch in trying to work out a complete sys tem for reproducing odors faithfully at a distance. No one has been able to come up with an 'electronic nose' that will translate odors into electrical currents having distinctive characteristics determined by each particular odor. Incidentally, a plain old nose is a pretty doggoned sensitive detector. It can easily detect 1/460,000,000 of a milligram of mercaptan diffused in the air -"

He broke off as a car pulled up in front of Norma's house. A tall young man helped her out of the car and escorted her to the door, but he did not dally. In fact, he seemed in unseemly haste to get back to his car.

As the car went around the corner, Norma came out and sat down in the porch swing. Carl and Jerry plopped down on both sides of her. "How did it work?" Carl asked anxiously.

"Well," Norma said, "at first, everything worked fine. We went to a show at the 'State,' and about halfway through the feature picture there was a romantic scene with the hero talking to the heroine beneath a big pine tree. I cautiously reached down and gave that 'resinous' knob about half a turn, and the most wonderful odor of pine needles came out of the purse: Everyone around us began to sniff and whisper to one another, 'Do I imagine I can smell that pine tree?'

"A little later there was another scene in which a car upset a fruit vendor's cart; and when I turned on the 'fruity' odor, the people around us almost created a disturbance with their unabashed sniffing. They thought it was something the theater management was pulling."

"After the show," Norma continued, I was hungry as a bear, but George, my date, said nothing about eating. When we were waiting at a stoplight, I gave the 'spicy' knob a little nudge, and all at once the car took on the appetizing smell of a bakery. 'Say,' George says to me, 'how about getting something to eat ? All at once I'm starved.'

"My faith in your gadget was mounting by the minute, and soon I was to have further proof of its power. We went for a drive after we ate, and George suggested we park and 'enjoy the beauty of the night.' However, when he pulled off on that little blind road just across Davis Street Bridge, I decided that was too secluded; so I held my breath and turned that far-right knob, the 'putrid' one,' full on. The result was instantaneous. George gasped, 'Something must be dead around here'; and he started the car and took off in a shower of gravel.

"A little later he pulled off the road on that high bluff at Cedar Rapids, and we sat there looking down at the moonlight glimmering on the Wabash below and shining' on the white trunks of the sycamores. I soon found out I had been alarmed unnecessarily before about George. There he was in a beautiful setting on an ideal June night with a not-too-revolting girl beside him and all he wanted to talk about was his precious car: how fast it would go, how easy it was to start on cold mornings, how many miles-to-the-gallon he got, and so on. 

"After about a half hour of this I decided something had to be done; so I quietly turned up the 'flowery' knob. The most beautiful fragrance of dew-washed magnolia arose about us. As if by magic George quit talking about his car, and when he spoke again it was to describe the kind of home he wanted some day: a little cottage with honeysuckle climbing over it and magnolia growing by the window and a pretty wife to greet him at the end of the day. You know - corny but sweet!

"This was such a change in the right direction that I decided to help it along by turning the. 'flowery' knob a little higher, but that's where I made a mistake. Suddenly George stopped in mid-sentence, leaped from the car, ran around to my side, opened the door and pulled me out. I thought he had flipped for sure; but just as I was getting ready to belt him with your Parfum Elektronique, he yanked the front seat out of the car and began sniffing around under the dash like a bloodhound. Then I realized what was wrong. In reaching for the 'flowery' knob I had accidentally got hold of the 'scorched' one next to it. When George got a whiff of burning rags, he thought his precious car was on fire.

"Of course I turned the knob off, but the damage was done. He put the seat back in the car and we started home, but he was too busy sniffing for smoke to hear anything I said. I'll bet the poor fellow doesn't sleep a wink tonight."

"Would you say our invention was a success?" Jerry asked.

"Yes, I'd say it was," Norma replied thoughtfully; "but like any powerful perfume, it must be used sparingly and cautiously with a full realization of its power. It's definitely not for amateurs!"

Carl & Jerry, by John T. Frye Carl and Jerry Frye were fictional characters in a series of short stories that were published in Popular Electronics magazine from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The stories were written by John T. Frye, who used the pseudonym "John T. Carroll," and they followed the adventures of two teenage boys, Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, who were interested in electronics and amateur radio. In each story, Carl and Jerry would encounter a problem or challenge related to electronics, and they would use their knowledge and ingenuity to solve it. The stories were notable for their accurate descriptions of electronic circuits and devices, and they were popular with both amateur radio enthusiasts and young people interested in science and technology. The Carl and Jerry stories were also notable for their emphasis on safety and responsible behavior when working with electronics. Each story included a cautionary note reminding readers to follow proper procedures and safety guidelines when handling electronic equipment. Although the Carl and Jerry stories were fictional, they were based on the experiences of the author and his own sons, who were also interested in electronics and amateur radio. The stories continue to be popular among amateur radio enthusiasts and electronics hobbyists, and they are considered an important part of the history of electronics and technology education. I have posted 89 of them as of March 2026. p.s. You might also want to check out my "Calvin & Phineas" story(ies), a modern day teenager adventure written in the spirit of "Carl & Jerry."
The Tele-Tattletale - June 1958 Hello-o-o-o There - November 1962 The Hot Hot Meter - March 1964 The Girl Detector -  January 1964 First Case - June 1961 The Bee's Knees - July 1964 A Rough Night - January 1961 Wrecked by a Wagon Train - February 1962 Gold Is Where You Find It - April 1956 Little "Bug" with Big Ears - January 1959 Lie Detector Tells All - November 1955 The Educated Nursing Bottle - April 1964 Going Up - March 1955 Electrical Shock - September 1955 A Low Blow - March 1961 The Black Beast - May 1960 Vox Electronik, September 1958 Pi in the Sky and Big Twist, February 1964 The Bell Bull Session, December 1961 Cow-Cow Boogie, August 1958 TV Picture, June 1955 Electronic Trap, March 1956 Geniuses at Work, June 1956 Eeeeelectricity!, November 1956 Anchors Aweigh, July 1956 Bosco Has His Day, August 1956 The Hand of Selene, November 1960 Feedback, May 1956 Abetting or Not?, October 1956 Electronic Beach Buggy, September 1956 Extra Sensory Perception, December 1956 Trapped in a Chimney, January 1956 Command Performance, November 1958 Treachery of Judas, July 1961 The Sucker, May 1963 Stereotaped New Year, January 1963 The Snow Machine, December 1960 Extracurricular Education, July 1963 Slow Motion for Quick Action, April 1963 Sonar Sleuthing, August 1963 TV Antennas, August 1955 Succoring a Soroban, March 1963 "All's Fair --", September 1963 Operation Worm Warming, May 1961 Improvising - February 1960	Parfum Elektronique - July 1958 Carl & Jerry: Whirling Wheel Magic - January 1960 Out of the Depths - June 1957 ROTC Riot - April 1962 Togetherness - June 1964 Blackmailing a Blonde - October 1961 Strange Voices - April 1957 "Holes" to the Rescue - May 1957 The "Meller Smeller" - January 1957 Secret of Round Island - March 1957 The Electronic Bloodhound - November 1964 Great Bank Robbery or "Heroes All" - October 1955 Operation Startled Starling - January 1955 A Light Subject - November 1954 Dog Teaches Boy - February 1959 Too Lucky - August 1961 Joking and Jeopardy - December 1963 Santa's Little Helpers - December 1955 Two Tough Customers - June 1960 Transistor Pocket Radio, TV Receivers and Yagi Antennas, May 1955 Tunnel Stomping, March 1962 The Blubber Banisher, July 1959 The Sparkling Light, May 1962 Pure Research Rewarded, June 1962 A Hot Idea, March 1960 The Hot Dog Case, December 1954 A New Company is Launched, October 1954 Under the Mistletoe, December 1958 Electronic Eraser, August 1962 "BBI", May 1959 Ultrasonic Sound Waves, July 1955 The River Sniffer, July 1962 Ham Radio, April 1955 El Torero Electronico, April 1960 Wired Wireless, January 1962 Electronic Shadow, September 1957 Elementary Induction, June 1963 He Went That-a-Way, March1959 Electronic Detective, February 1958 Aiding an Instinct, December 1962 Two Detectors, February 1955 Tussle with a Tachometer, July 1960 Therry and the Pirates, April 1961 The Crazy Clock Caper, October 1960
Carl & Jerry: Their Complete Adventures is now available. "From 1954 through 1964, Popular Electronics published 119 adventures of Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, two teen boys with a passion for electronics and a knack for getting into and out of trouble with haywire lash-ups built in Jerry's basement. Better still, the boys explained how it all worked, and in doing so, launched countless young people into careers in science and technology. Now, for the first time ever, the full run of Carl and Jerry yarns by John T. Frye are available again, in five authorized anthologies that include the full text and all illustrations."

Posted September 27, 2019