- There's one thing that road dozers, pre runners
and muscle trucks all have in common.
They're all boys, and you wouldn't know it
if it weren't for the veiny (laughs)
Oh God (beep) and you wouldn't know it if it weren't
for the big veiny testicles hanging off the back of them.
(upbeat music)
But did you know that this ridiculous accessory spurred
an insane decade long battle involving phony aliases,
constitutional debates, and even death?
In today's episode, we're gonna dive
into the products rich scandal late in history
and see how truck nuts have remained
a niche industry to this day.
And stick around to the end to see
the next gen of Deez Nuts.
Deez Nuts, HA!
Speaking of nuts, we'd like to thank manscaped.com
for sponsoring today's episode.
It's the perfect sponsor for the
perfect episode if I'm being honest.
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and I can make more ads and make everyone uncomfortable.
Now let's get back to the nutty grutty.
Ever since truck nuts existed,
there's been an argument over who invented them.
On one side you have the no nonsense John D Saller,
who before truck nuts started the first website
where you could order personalized military style dog-tags.
And on the other side you have David Ham,
a renegade with some serious Tiger King vibes.
Now it's important to note that handmade
truck nuts existed before Ham or Saller
each started marketing them commercially.
Saller even told of a woman in the Nevada desert
who crafted Custom Truck nuts as early as the 1980s,
but insists that they were smaller and in a different style.
I'll take his word for it.
But what exactly does a different style of nut mean?
This is already getting really weird.
So the notion of who invented truck nuts
has more to do with who was the first one to
mass produce them and sell them commercially.
Neither Ham nor Saller had a patent for truck nuts.
The product is unpatentable hence
why so much of their drama over the product played out
in the real world and online rather than a courtroom.
Let's start with Saller's version of
how truck nuts came to be.
He's out one day four by fouring with his buddies
doing hill climbs when someone yells
"yo Ernie show 'em got some balls (laughs).
That's installer has lightbulb moment,
balls for your truck.
He teamed up with a manufacturing company called
Tombyll plastics and starts
producing commercially available truck nuts.
The product was developed in 1999 and his website,
BullsBalls.com goes live in 2000
with the tagline the original truck nuts.
but Ham says that's not how it went down at all.
Ham claims the idea came to him in the 80s
after he saw a custom pair hanging from the back
of a truck at a desert rally.
And something I wanna point out real quick,
seeing something isn't the same as
getting the idea for something.
His website goes up with a tagline
The Original Nutz on the Net.
Hams online presence is harder to track than Sallers,
because he had a bunch of websites
with similar names selling the same inventory.
There were bumpernuts.com,
trucknuts.com, amongst many others.
For clarity sake, I'm just gonna refer to Ham's
online store as yournutz with a z.com,
which is the name of his current site,
even if it had a different domain at the time in question.
There's a banner on Ham's site that reads quote
Purveyor of Premium Novelty Testicles since 1997.
So that should settle it right, David Ham came up with
truck nuts first since he's been selling them since 97.
Right? Well, wrong.
There's no actual proof Ham had his site up this early.
In fact, domain registrations show that
his site wasn't actually live until 2002.
When asked about this discrepancy,
Ham claimed that he had used a long gone AOL site
until he switched over in 2002,
but refused to offer any proof, so it's a little sass.
You guys have to see these websites.
- Imagine the look she'll get when these bad boys
dangled in front of Mama's face on the freeway
Sallers BullsBalls.com is about as chic
as a truck nuts Emporium can be.
They've got an in your face hot pink logo,
a charming quote testes-monials section and a capture
that requires you to solve a basic math problem
to prove that you're human,
which feels pretty next level.
I do have some notes on their T-shirt though.
Off center Comic Sans, have you no shame?
I'm almost more offended by the font
than the veins on these nuts.
That wasn't fun to say.
Incidentally, off center Comic Sans is how
I would describe the essence of
David Ham's website Yournutz.com.
You can tell this guy likes to have a good time.
He spells nuts with a Z.
His color scheme is all of them.
And he's leaned real hard into
embedded videos like this one.
- Hey, hi, how you doing? I'm David.
I want to welcome you to yournutz.com
where we feature premium novelty testicles.
- Pretty boss move to have the garage door
lift up to reveal a second garage door.
That's my dream actually.
Now truck nuts aren't the only examples of drivers
treating their vehicle as an extension of their body.
Other anatomical vehicle accessories
have cropped up over the years.
You got monster trucks with arms,
VW bugs with eyelashes.
This driver even made his car talk,
- How may I be of assistance?
- But none of these cars stir quite like truck nuts
which bounced onto the political scene in the 2000s
at the heart of a debate over obscenity versus free speech.
We're truck nuts to pornographic for the public eye
or were they just a veiny form
of expression protected by the Constitution.
In 2007, Maryland legislator Leroy E. Myers Jr.
proposed outline truck nuts,
which he called quote, "vulgar and immoral".
In 2008, Virginia Legislator
Lionel Sprull senior tried to ban them too.
Both of these attempts were were unsuccessful.
That same year, the Florida Senate actually passed
a $60 fine for displaying truck nuts,
but it didn't pass in the house.
The strangest incident has to be in 2011
when a 65 year old South Carolina woman
was cited by the police chief for having truck nuts
on her pickup and what became a $445 ticket
and the coolest grandma ever.
Where do I fall in this debate?
You know, I'm not really sure.
Do I think truck nuts are kind of tasteless and gross?
Look, smooth truck nuts I can accept,
really veiny like wrinkly balls on a truck
that's just over the line.
Why would you want that? Who does that?
(laughs)
Yeah, I want a really saggy set of nuts on my truck.
I just can't, I can't abide by that dude.
I can't understand that (laughs).
No, man, I want me smooth nuts.
Give me those real wrinkly things over there (laughs).
Maybe there's a threshold of how nasty
or nuts can be in your truck.
Maybe we can legislate that, maybe it's like
your car has to pass emissions, right.
Maybe your truck nuts should pass
a nastiness threshold I guess.
You know what, I think that's a reasonable,
that's a reasonable compromise, I think.
I think I put too much thought into this.
Politicians had been trying to shield
their constituents from the depravity
of bumper nuts, but their actions backfired.
Instead, all of this political hubbub
had the streisand effect and sales increased,
which only heated up the rivalry between Ham and Saller.
Up to this point, their beef had been pretty much
limited to an exchange of angry phone calls and emails
about who was the first online retailer
but things reached a boiling over point,
when David Ham launched allthenutz with the z.com.
Ham had sold his products under
various nut themed sites before
but all the nuts is different.
Rather than just sell his own line,
Ham wants his site to be the one
stop shop for all damn nuts.
Including Saller's trademark original BullsBalls.
Ham sets out to acquire some of those resale.
First he tries to be an authorized seller for the product,
but Saller's company rejects him.
Despite not being approved, he placed a bulk order
through Saller's sites and sent payment.
Ham claims that they took his money
but never delivered his bullsballs.
Saller's camp meanwhile, says they knew exactly
what Ham was up to and returned
the money as soon as it arrived.
Black balled by Saller, Ham had to find another way
to get his hands on the balls of his enemies.
What better way to do that than go undercover.
David Ham adopts the alias Bozzy Willis
and drives across state lines to
Tombyll Plastics in California.
Ham tries to buy a pair of bullsballs from Chad Tombyll,
owner of the company and friend of Saller.
Tombyll calls Hams bluff and sends him away empty handed.
Undeterred, Ham goes behind Saller's back
buys some bullsballs through a separate authorized seller
and put those on allthenutz.com, Savage.
He went savage both them nuts.
Some online posts also indicate that Ham would list
solid original bullsballs on his site
to ride the coattails of their web traffic.
Then lure in customers, then claimed the product
was out of stock well urging them
to buy some of his own products instead.
The old bait and switch there.
Saller finds out about all this and
makes impassioned posts online.
Like one titled quote "truck nuts, a quest for the truth".
He bashes Ham in his dirty tactics,
causes products cheap and inferior
and posts a comparative chart showing
how none of the other imitation
truck nuts out there measure up to his.
Not long after that mysterious one star reviews
start slamming BullsBalls.com
and I quote "do not buy from BullsBalls.com,
instead there are few sites that give
excellent service and prices such as AllTheNutz.com"
I wonder who wrote that one?
Similar posters refer to Saller as
a quote "puny little girly-man
and a keyboard coward and an incorrectly spelled looser".
Which is an insult you really wanna
slam dunk for full effect.
Despite these posts being anonymous,
David Ham later admitted to vice,
quote, "I'm sure I wrote several of them".
Saller retaliates with his own posts
accusing Ham and his crew of defamation
while referring to them as quote,
"rude, crude liars and sociopaths".
Even going so far as to include
an entire checklist for sociopathic qualities, damn.
For years, these two went back and forth
dragging each other online.
Their magnum opus of internet dragging can be
found on RipoffReport, which is a site
for consumers to complain about
fraudulent business practices.
And let me tell you, it is wild.
What you can only assume is Ham and Saller
going back and forth, sometimes anonymously,
sometimes not, over the course of a year.
Ham accuses Saller of price fixing,
Saller accuses Ham of defamation.
Saller sends Ham a cease and desist letter.
Ham sends Saller a cease and desist letter.
At one point Ham requests $10,000 for some reason,
while Saller starts referring to Ham and his people
as quote, "The Unscrupulous Ham Gang".
Ham does some digging and exposes Saller
as a convicted felon, which Saller owns up
to in the comments admitting to a shameful domestic
violence charge from his past.
Might I remind you this is all happening,
on a Consumer Reports website.
It even looks like Ham impersonate Saller at one point
when he writes this is the latest posting to myself
John D Saller, owner of Bullsballs.com
stay tuned for further updates
regarding the pending legal action
against me for my criminal behavior.
But of course, no update came.
This is classic boomer behavior.
Despite the two truck nut factions
remaining pitted against one another.
The online tirades seemed to fizzle out.
Saller step down due to failing health
and pass the truck nuts torch his longtime
business partner Chad Tombyll.
His faithful webmaster John Beeman
unfortunately passed away, followed by Saller in 2014.
Ham not so gently commented on their demise saying,
quote, "I read that both his web guy and Saller
had passed away and I thought,
wow, they're both dead. That's amazing."
Can you imagine saying that on record, what a jerk!
But even in death, the truck nuts legacy
that Saller helped create lives on.
Today there are many varieties of truck nuts available.
Everything from baby blooms to big 16 inch bunkers.
We've all heard that the bigger your truck to smaller junk,
which is the same reason I assume
all clowns have huge (beep) (laughs).
But size isn't the only factor when
selecting your truck nuts.
You can opt for brightly colored bullsballs
or a sack that's more reflective of the human condition.
Isn't it strange that all the flesh
colored truck nuts are white flesh?
Let's have some diversity in our truck nuts.
I want some inclusive truck nuts for God's sake.
For truck nuts with even more pizzazz
you can get them rhinestoned, glow in the dark,
chrome, kammo there's even music devoted
to truck nuts like this absolute slapper
from a band called Fingerpistol.
(music playing)
It's actually pretty good.
Truck nuts are just for your truck anymore.
On Ham's site he touts them as the perfect accessory
for wheelchairs and tricycles.
There are bike nuts, mini truck nuts,
key chains, and you can already order
a futuristic sack for your Tesla cyber truck.
These cyber truck nuts, like the truck nuts
before them quickly became
embroiled in copyright controversy.
Retailer cybertrucknuts.net listed these puppies
for pre order on their website,
but were soon hit with a complaint by online user
regisx7, who claimed the design appearing
on their website was actually his.
He had uploaded the full 3D CAD file for his design
on thingiverse.com last November
with the ability for other users
to freely download it and print it.
They're not for commercial use
and not without proper attribution.
In a very Ham, Saller tone a rep from
cybertrucknuts.net responded to regisx7 copyright claim
by saying, quote, "I'm under the impression he's jealous
of the success and is trying to get a cut of this pie" .
Yeah, man, what a dick move,
wanting a slice of a pie that you baked.
You're right you don't sound like a moron at all.
Luckily, this truck nuts drama didn't play out
as brutally as Ham and Saller's.
After some initial back and forth the two parties
reached a very cool agreement.
Cybertrucknuts.net can use and sell regisx7 design
as long as they donate 10% of all profits from it,
to Movember, an organization dedicated to men's health.
Movember focuses on male issues like prostate cancer,
testicular cancer, mental health and suicide.
Their big charity event happens every November,
where the mo bros grow out their mustaches
to raise money and awareness for the cause.
So I guess we should probably donate some money then.
Well played Regisx7.
Oh I just got a text,
my truck nuts are about ready.
I had a specialist, 3d print them for me.
Let's go see how they turned out.
(upbeat music)
Thanks for watching this episode, I've hoped you liked it.
It was pretty goofy, had some goofs and gaffes.
Follow Donut media on all social media,
at Donut media follow me at Nolan J Sykes
and check you're nuts, you're like nuts,
make sure they're there torqued.
be cocked, see ya.
- these nuts! (loud laugh)