"How is it on whole wheat toast?" Johnny Carson once joked on The Tonight Show about Harold Kaufman’s invention. He was speaking of nothing remotely Nutella-like, but rather of a household and industrial rust remover called Naval Jelly.

Kaufman named his creation in honor of all the rusty metal he encountered during his years in the Navy. Before Pearl Harbor, he had been quietly studying his way to a graduate degree at Harvard, according to the Kansas City Star. Yet though it interrupted his education, WWII did lead Kaufman to his future wife. He met Barbara Miles while home on leave, and knew he wanted to marry her after one date.

In 1950, Kaufman began an advertising agency and later started a mail-order business. But it was the invention of Naval Jelly, still widely sold today, that made his name. At home, he loved to play opera loudly and was an active church member. The essence of indulgent, whimsical fatherhood, Kaufman decided that a skunk, an armadillo, and no less than 24 iguanas would be the perfect pets for his 4 children. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and passed away 8 years later, on May 13, 2006.