irememberjfk_l6fq3c – Page 38 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

Kodachrome

“Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away” sang Paul Simon in what is clearly the greatest song ever written that paid homage to slide film. Unfortunately, mama, i.e. Kodak, didn’t listen.

Earlier in this year of 2009, Kodak announced that Kodachrome was going away. They had actually been making it disappear gradually for some time. For instance, Kodachrome 25 passed form the scene in 2002. Super 8 Kodachrome went away in 2005. Kodachrome 200 sailed off into the sunset in 2006. And the last holdout, 35mm Kodachrome 64, was discontinued this last June.

I spent ten years as an avid photographer. My specialty was 120 and 35mm B&W, developed in my own darkroom, and 35 mm Kodachrome slides. I preferred 64, although I picked up a couple of dozen rolls of 25 that were about to expire for half price and kept them in the freezer until I finally shot them all up.

One reason that serious photographers preferred it was its unparalleled sharpness. Plus, it tends to magnify colors in the red range, making things like red lipstick, roses, or sunsets look particularly amazing.

What Kodachrome was NOT was forgiving. It required perfect exposure for good results. Thus, many of us learned to “bracket” our shots. Instead of shooting a subject once, we would shoot it three or more times, making subtle exposure adjustments each time.

Kodachrome has a long history. It was invented in the early 1930’s by a pair of musicians. Yes, you read that right. Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes were fascinated by color photography. Unfortunately, at the time, color photography was expensive and not too good in quality. Slides were thick with pigments, and required very strong illumination to effectively display them. That meant lots of heat and short-lived expensive bulbs.

The two Leopolds devised a formula in their own laboratory to produce a subtractive film that made much less use of pigmentation. Kodak was impressed with their independent work, and poured cash into their efforts. In 1935, Kodachrome 16mm movie film was released, the next year the venerable Kodachrome 35mm slide was introduced to the world. Photographers didn’t take long to make it a huge success.

What photographers quickly figured out was what they COULDN’T do with Kodachrome: develop it themselves. The amazing film required an equally amazing combination of massive equipment and trained chemists to turn into slides that could be viewed on the more modest projectors that could now be used. Up until 1954, Kodachrome came with an envelope that allowed you to mail it in and get it processed as part of the price. That year, the practice was deemed anticompetitive in court, and Kodak was forced to allow others to obtain their proprietary chemicals.

(aside)Too bad no judge has yet decided that selling computers with Microsoft products pre-installed is just as bad, or worse.(/aside)

However, Kodak still processed the lion’s share of Kodachrome, due to its complexity.

I gave up photography about the time I got my first computer back in 1993. The smart box began taking up most of my spare time as I pursued a side career in freelance writing and cartooning. I was also busy enough teaching myself the ins and outs of computers, which would eventually allow me to make a wonderful career change to full-time IT.

My 90’s vacation shots were taken with a borrowed digital camera, or else on my wife’s point-and-click. I was impressed with the digital pics, but assumed that serious photogs would continue to use Kodachrome for professional usage.

I assumed wrongly. Even the pinnacle of great photography, National Geographic magazine, eventually began using digital technology in lieu of slides.

Thus, demand for Kodachrome dropped, and the inevitable happened. The world’s favorite slide film became unprofitable to produce.

Fortunately, its legacy will live on for centuries. Kodachrome colors are among the most durable and long-lasting in the business.

Kit-Cat Clocks

The Great Depression was a very difficult time for our parents and grandparents to go through. Times were bleak, and there just wasn’t very much to laugh about.

A designer at the California Clock Company thought that what the world needed was a clock that would bring a smile every time you looked at it. Thus was born the Kit-Cat clock.

The cat, in case you didn’t know, is Felix, who was a popular comic strip character during that era. The original Kit-Cat clock is black and white, just like Felix himself.

Anyhow, many of us remember the Kit-Cats hanging up in the homes our grandparents. Many of these clocks no doubt dated back to the 1930’s decade. The clocks indeed brought good cheer to their owners, as advertised.

The clock has a bit of an art deco look to it, appropriate to a design of the era. Eventually, Kit-cats were produced in different colors and designs. The gaudiest were covered in jewels and produced in limited editions.

The Kit-Cat was one of those things we didn’t have in our house, but we knew lots of others who had the perennially eye-rolling and tail-wagging timekeepers. I always got a kick out of seeing them.

Despite the fact that Kit-Cats continue to be marketed, and in fact claim great sales, it seems that you don’t see them around like you used to.

So many of the companies who manufactured the products we bought have gone out of business or been absorbed, it’s a refreshing change to talk about the California Clock Company. They have been cranking out hundreds of thousands of Kit-Cat clocks since the Depression. And they still make them here in the USA. In fact, you can order yourself a Kit-Cat online at their website.

Kiddie Rides for a Dime

Champion ride, very much like sat outside Farrier’s Grocery in Miami, Oklahoma, 1965

Mom dreaded summer vacation from school. That meant that I would likely be accompanying her to Farrier’s IGA in Miami, Oklahoma. That additionally meant that I would be relentlessly “warting” (her word for begging) for all sorts of food items that she could normally bypass when I was absent. It also meant that I would hammer her for a dime to drop into the horse kiddie ride.

The kiddie ride was strategically placed at the entrance of the store. Mr. Farrier knew that it would prove irresistible to kids accompanying their mothers, and that the kids would then do the selling.

Mothers probably wanted to wring Mr. Farrier’s neck.

But he wasn’t alone. Probably every 1960’s supermarket in the US had a kiddie ride or two located near the store entrance. Back in those days, a thin dime would buy a minute or so of sheer heaven for a Boomer kid, an investment that our mothers would frequently cough up to stop that relentless begging sound…

I couldn’t find much of a history for kiddie rides. No doubt, they have existed since at least the 19th century. Once upon a time, an enterprising businessman would let a child ride a tame donkey or pony for a reasonable fee (to be begged from the parents by the child), perhaps even throwing in a photograph of the child on said equine as part of the deal.

However, as urban life became more sophisticated, it became difficult to keep live animals at places of business. Thus, it would have been a natural transition from real ponies to mechanical models parked in potentially lucrative locations.

The result was that we Boomer children were surrounded by magical rides that would provide us with about a minute of musical, mechanized motion for a thin dime.

They could be found everywhere. Cafes, bus stations, hotel lobbies, just about any place where parents with children were likely to congregate with some time to kill.

And they weren’t all horses, of course. Horses were my favorite, but a kid could also encounter large plastic creations including elephants, Donald Duck (and a host of other cartoon characters), ferris wheels, the Batmobile (and many other types of vehicles), kangaroos, chipmunks, pigs, and fanciful creatures like Puff the Magic Dragon.

The car rides frequently had the advantage of being able to entertain two kids at once, although this would also frequently precipitate a power struggle between the kids as to who got to “drive.”

Most of the rides provided the same product for a dime: 60-90 seconds of back and forth motion, accompanied by music from sophisticated 1960’s era electronics. Sometimes, other sounds would also be generated, like motor noises, whooping Indians, or gunfire.

Some games would combine two joys for the price of one. For instance, there was an Indian Scout ride that provided a kid with a galloping horse PLUS a six-shooter to hit targets with at the same time! I don’t recall ever being lucky enough to spot one of those back in the day.

The amazing thing about the kiddie rides is their timelessness. Thus, many businesses are making good money restoring vintage models and selling them to collectors, arcades, and even many of the same types of establishments that hosted the games when we were kids.

Even the price has stayed kind. Most rides take a single quarter. The businesses are no longer making much or any money from the ride itself, but they are effective at attracting eager kids and nostalgic parents and grandparents, who presumably will purchase things that DO return a profit.

Kenner’s Easy Bake Oven

Well, I saw it coming. Many of I Remember JFK’s fans are of the female persuasion, and there has been enough clamor for memories that THEY had that boys didn’t, that, well, in the spirit of Sky King, baking powder submarines, and coonskin caps (i.e. I didn’t personally experience them), I hereby present my first “girlie” nostalgic memory: Kenner’s Easy Bake Oven.

My first discovery, which surprised me greatly, was that many BOYS had Easy Bake Ovens. In fact, many great chefs say they developed a love for cooking by playing with them in their childhoods.

Even though an old commercial at YouTube shows a girl AND a boy cooking with one, there’s no doubt that my crowd considered them for girls ONLY. So it’s natural that any of my friends who had one would probably have kept it hidden away.

But this column is not about the sad tale of peer pressure keeping us from revealing our true personalities. No, it’s about a toy that debuted the same year JFK was taken away from us, and which continues to be produced today, after having changed hands and designs a few times.

The original Easy Bake looked like a miniature oven. It had a stove top which was just for looks. It came in any color you liked, as long as it was turquoise. There were a whole bunch of us Boomer kids out there, of course, so selling 500,000 units at $15.95 a pop its first year was achieved handily.

Sales remained brisk, driven by loads of Saturday morning commercials. The one I remember best (and which I couldn’t find on YouTube) started off “Easy Bake, Easy Bake, fast as you can!” By 1965, Kenner had released other Easy Bake toys, including a popcorn popper, Bubble Gum set, Birthday Cake, Party set and Kid Dinners. That last one let you create your own TV dinners. Yum.

In 1968, Betty Crocker joined in on the fun. They sold cake mixes and such in just the right size for the Easy Bake’s light bulb to bake miniature versions of the same cakes mom made.

The oven got a redesign late in the 60’s, when a hood was added. It also became available in beautiful avocado green and harvest gold, just in time for the 70’s.

The new Easy Bake’s kept coming. Another one that helped sum up the 70’s was the potato chip maker. In 1978, a “microwave” version was released. It didn’t really bombard your cake mix with radiation, but its look fit the times.

Kenner was bought out by Hasbro, and the ovens continued to change with the times. Litigation had a lot to do with that, of course, as kids burning themselves accidentally, instead of teaching the tots that they needed to be careful, now meant that it was time for mommy and daddy to call a TV-advertised lawyer. Sigh.

The version for sale today looks nothing like the turquoise original. But it’s much safer. However, even though the box clearly states it’s for kids eight years of age and older, the fact that FIVE children considerably younger than that age were burned by them forced a recall this year of 985,000 units to be refitted to make them more idiot-parent-proof.

But, thankfully, they continue to be manufactured, unlike many of the toys we enjoyed in the 60’s and 70’s that have been declared to be too dangerous for poor, stupid, helpless kids to play with today.

Vanished Sound Alert: the Ka-Ching of the Cash Register

The sounds that we grew up with were things we took for granted. I always assumed that I would hear the five-days-weekly noon whistle at the B.F. Goodrich plant in Miami, Oklahoma. The sound that accompanied making a phone call would always be a spring-wound noise that accompanied the rotary dial. And purchasing something at most stores would involve hearing keys pushed and a ringing bell.

My first real job was sacking groceries at Phillip’s Food Center in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. I watched in amazement as the ladies would punch those keys at lightning speed, calling out each price so that the customer would hear them. And when it was all over, the drawer would open with that classic “ka-ching!”

My grocery sacking job has, for the most part, disappeared, along with those manual registers. Nowadays, most checkers scan items over a laser, and also bag the customer’s groceries (unless the customer must do so himself). But today, the past comes alive once again for just a bit, as we experience the comforting mechanical sounds that accompany a 1960’s supermarket buy.

The cash register came into existence when saloon keeper James Ritty, of Dayton, Ohio, devised a contraption that would supplant the money drawer. It was very tempting for low-paid employees to pull a few bucks out for themselves, and Ritty’s cash register tallied actual sales totals. The money in the drawer had to match the machine’s calculations, or questions would be asked.

Former grocery store owner John Patterson saw tremendous potential with Ritty’s patented invention, and bought it outright. He worked feverishly to improve the design, and eventually employed a team of inventors. His business became the National Cash Register company, and soon dominated sales of the highly popular devices. By WWI, a million and a half cash registers had been sold in the US.

The working parts of a 70’s era NCR cash register

Patterson was a ruthless businessman who used legal shenanigans to stomp his competition. For instance, he patented the bell that would ring when the drawer was opened. He sued Heintz Cash Register Company because they sold a machine that made a cuckoo sound, and won! Heintz’s registers had to run silently. In 1912, NCR earned the wrath of the feds and was convicted of running a monopoly. I guess Bill Gates could have taught Patterson a thing or two about beating that particular rap.

Cash registers remained pretty much the same until the late 1970’s. One advance was the addition of a printed receipt for the customer. But by and large, cashiers punched up sales pretty much the way their parents and grandparents might have done it.

The advance in computers changed the way stores tallied sales. By the mid 80’s, cash registers had become networked devices, able to send their totals electronically to a central location, perhaps located thousands of miles away. The universal adoption of barcodes eventually caused the mechanical cash register to vanish altogether. Nowadays, even the smallest retail businesses use scanning and Point-of-Sale software to keep track of purchases.

Also vanished is the toy cash register that many of us grew up with. Durable models made by Structo and the like would often be handed down form elder to younger siblings, perhaps eventually making it all the way into a new generation.

All the modern-day toy registers I found for sale had two things in common: they were made of plastic, and they all had toy scanners attached. There were no friendly prices to pop up at the push of a key, no manual crank on the side to record the sale, and saddest of all, no cha-ching.

Fortunately for Boomers, Pink Floyd has immortalized the sound for all eternity.

Jarts

It was a sweet summertime tradition. Hop in the Plymouth, fall asleep in the back seat while dad did all the driving, end up in Story City, Iowa six or seven hours later.

Every summer we would make the trip up to the nation’s heartland so that dad could visit his family. Brothers, sisters, mother, aunts, and a classic Garrison-Keillor-character Norwegian bachelor farmer uncle named Selmer.

What I remember best about Selmer was his passion for fishing (they gave me all his tackle when he passed, hoo-rah!) and his enjoyment of a pleasant summer evening pastime known as Jarts.

I was probably twelve, and presumed old enough by the adults that I wouldn’t do anything stupid like toss the weighted darts with pretty darned sharp ends up in the air. Doing so could be fatal.

But hey, the act of stepping out into a busy street without looking could end up in a similar fashion. In the early 70’s, life was still meant to be enjoyed by people smart enough to use their brains. The rest (and sadly, children who were given access to taboo things by the rest) were subject to death and dismemberment by forces not yet banned by our motherly government.

Lawn darts were first put on the market in the 50’s, The game itself goes back a lot farther. I can picture Roman soldiers tossing daggers at a vanquished Visigoth’s skull in the yard outside the encampment.

The Jarts I remember had some pretty sharp points. That’s because they needed to stick in a lawn that might not be nice and soft from a recent watering! The object of the game was simple enough. A plastic ring was placed on the grass, and you stood back a distance acceptable to both parties, and you launched your missiles.

The throw was recommended to be an underhand pitch. The Jart would sail upwards, then descend towards its target. If your aim was good, it would land within the circumference of the plastic ring.

Enter human stupidity. Printed plainly on the box was the advisory “For adults.” However, adults simply refused to give the sharpened, weighted lawn darts the same respect that they did for firearms, whiskey, and naughty magazines: locking them away from the youngsters.

Thus, there were tragic incidents of children getting severely injured or killed by Jarts that were casually tossed straight skyward, only to hit a child on the way down.

At first, the Jarts company responded by taking the sharp point off. Thus, the later 70’s and 80’s vintage Jarts had blunt tips. These either required a soft lawn or perhaps doctoring with a bench grinder to get them to consistently stick.

However, Mother finally won out. In 1988 all pointed lawn darts were banned from sale in the US and Canada. Here is an official May 17, 1997 release from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission:

After a recent serious injury caused by a lawn dart, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reissued its warning that lawn darts are banned and should be destroyed. Effective on December 19, 1988, CPSC banned the sale of all lawn darts in the United States. Pointed lawn darts, intended for use in an outdoor game, have been responsible for the deaths of three children. The most recent injury occurred last week in Elkhart, Ind., when a 7-year-old boy suffered a brain injury after a lawn dart pierced his skull. “CPSC banned lawn darts in 1988, but some of these dangerous products may still be in garages, basements, or second-hand stores,” said CPSC Chairman Ann Brown. “Parents should destroy these banned lawn darts immediately.”

Thus ended yet another another memory that we had growing up.

So Boomers, I hope that you have taught your children (and grandchildren) well. Dangerous things should be kept out of the hands of young children. If this directive is ignored, Big Mama will step in and start making things illegal.

It’s Slinky! It’s Slinky!

It’s a pleasure to offer today’s I Remember JFK memory as a currently available toy, and NOT as something that disappeared while you weren’t looking! Indeed, Slinky, and its manufacturer, Poof-Slinky, Inc.(a company owned by the family of Slinky’s inventor) stand tall as triumphant survivors which have weathered harsh economic times, changing public tastes, and the relocation of American manufacturing jobs to third world countries.

That Slinky TV commercial was replayed thousands of times in the 60’s, and the tune is instantly recognizable to anyone who was there, particularly if you happened to be a child. Our parents were used to being hounded for money to purchase Slinkys at the dime store. And many times they would give in, recognizing that the durable toy had been around since WWII was still raging, and seeing it as a good investment.

The year, in fact, was 1943. According to the official Slinky website,

(Richard) James, a naval engineer, was conducting an experiment with tension springs. During the experiment, one of the springs fell to the floor and began to “walk.” James took the spring home to his wife, Betty, and asked her if she thought it was something they could pursue. Betty had a vision for a toy and scoured the dictionary, looking for an appropriate name. She came across the word “slinky,” a Swedish word meaning stealthy, sleek and sinuous. Toy history was made.

James borrowed $500 and designed a machine that would coil flat wire. He created 400 Slinkys and offered therm for sale at Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia. Fearing embarrassment from no sales, he gave a friend a dollar to make the first purchase. He needn’t have bothered. Demonstrating the Slinky’s ability to “walk” down an inclined board with no battery power required, the 400 units sold out in less than two hours.

James expanded operations, and soon ended up at Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where Slinkys continue to be manufactured today.

The Slinky quickly became an ubiquitous part of American culture. The durable toy could theoretically last forever. However, throwing it into a toy box sometimes resulted in the coil becoming bent and deformed. Like Humpty-Dumpty, all the king’s horses and men couldn’t fix it at that point.

Some time in the early 50’s, the Slinky Dog appeared. As the YouTube commercial shows, by the 60’s, there was a menagerie of Slinky critters.

Many of them still survive, as do miniature models and plastic versions painted bright colors. My coworkers are used to hearing the “slink-slink” sound of my own classic metal Slinky as I take a break from programming to reset my brain cells.

And Slinkys have proven beneficial for more than just play. During the Vietnam war, grunts discovered that attaching a Slinky to a radio’s antenna and stretching it out greatly enhanced their communications range. Slinkys have also been put to work in various industries where an inexpensive, flexible spring is needed. And Slinkys have long been used by teachers and scientists to demonstrate wave forms and centripetal force.

But that’s not what impresses us Boomers who grew up with Slinkys. No, it was the absolutely bonzer ability they had to walk down the stairs.

So a big hats off to Slinky, and the James family who continue to make them in Pennsylvania. We Boomers love survivors.

Introducing…the Nerf Ball!

“Stop throwing that ball around in the house! You’re going to break something!”

How many of us heard that sound repeatedly by our impatient mothers? it was enough to make mom go for another cigarette, the stress of worrying about her good lamps!

On July 3, 1929, Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories created the first foam rubber. Why it took another 41 years for someone to figure out that it would make for a great indoor ball is beyond me.

The Nerf ball’s history is short and sweet enough. According to the Parker Brothers website:

Original Nerf ball

In 1969, a games inventor came to the company with a volleyball game that was safe for indoor play. After studying the game carefully, PARKER BROTHERS executives decided to eliminate everything but the foam ball. In 1970 the NERF Ball was introduced as the “world’s first official indoor ball.” It didn’t harm furniture, windows or people.

With that, one of the most popular toys ever was created. Indeed, there are few people in the civilized world who aren’t familiar with the Nerf ball.

The space program was in full assault mode in 1970, and the ball was nearly released as the “Moon Ball.” While that might have made for even more brisk sales that year, the name is quite lacking in the timelessness of the Nerf moniker.

What exactly is a “nerf,” anyhow? The longstanding rumor is that it is an acronym for non-expanding recreational foam. However, nobody has ever confirmed that. Another explanation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is that it’s simply a made-up name that means nothing. One further theory attributes the term “nerf” to the act of bumping another car in stock car racing. Hmm, not sure what THAT has to do with an indoor-safe ball of foam.

Whatever, a Nerf ball is a pretty amazing invention. Its uses are myriad. If you’re a kid, it’s perfect for rainy-day indoor play, as long as your flying body doesn’t break the very lamp that the foam projectile failed to harm. In the summer, its description of “harmless” becomes dubious down at the swimming pool, where a well-aimed waterlogged Nerf ball can cause you to see stars. And for adults, what better cubicle stress reliever than a squeezable ball that can be tossed at a hoop, whose invention closely followed that of the Nerf ball itself?

The Nerf ball, and its many other variations, have been one of the most successful toy lines in history, much to the delight of Parker Brothers, which has managed to maintain its independent entity in the business world while so many other toy manufacturers have been absorbed by others.

Soon after the release of the original Nerf ball, a football came out that was denser than the superlight foam, so that it could be hurled (outdoors, presumably) for distance. The addition of tailfins make 75-yard perfect spirals feasible for a teenaged kid.

Nowadays, there are more Nerf products than you can shake a stick at, including lightweight video game controllers. No matter how high-tech Nerf toys get, though, we Boomers can recall when it all started with a small orange foam ball that mom DID allow us to play with indoors.

I Want My Color TV!

The 1950’s was the TV Age. When the decade began, most US households didn’t have televisions. Entertainment consisted of listening to the radio. By the end of the decade, the trend had reversed. Televisions were found in a majority of homes, and radio shows had gone the way of hand-cranked cars.

Televisions revolutionized households. Teenagers of ten years earlier listened to Fibber Magee and Molly on the radio. Now, they watched Wally and the Beav on the idiot box.

That was a pretty profound change. But the next big change was already in the air.

I remember the first time I saw HDTV. It was a golf tournament, and I was astounded to see every blade of grass, and the little dimples on the golf ball itself.

Regular television would never look good again. It was two long years of misery before I could finally afford my own HDTV.

The same feelings befell those who saw color television in the 50’s.

There wasn’t much color television to watch back then. NBC took the lead in providing color programming, but the local affiliates had to upgrade their own equipment before viewers across America could actually see color television shows.

But if the local station was broadcasting in color, a sure-fire way to see it was to drop into the local television store. They would have a color model in its full glory circa 1959.

And, of course, once you had seen the magical NBC Peacock in full color, black and white would never be the same.

But what was a black and white television owner of limited means to do? Easy. You dropped twenty bucks on a color filter that would magically give you a “color” television!

Stick-on color TV filter for black and white TV’s

The filter was blue at the top, green at the bottom, and red in the middle. That meant that, at least in theory, grass would be green, the sky would be blue, and faces would be flesh-colored (if your flesh was as red as strawberry licorice).

After several hours, you would get used to it. Then, one day, you would take the plastic filter off and rediscover black and white television. By then, your painful memories of how gorgeous color television looked had likely faded to the point that good old crisp B&W looked watchable once again.

Now all you had to do was wait until 1967 or so, when color TV finally got affordable enough to purchase in its genuine incarnation.

And thrifty Boomers, if HDTV is still beyond your financial pain threshold, just pop a DVD into your computer. You’ll be getting full HD on your monitor.

Hula Hoops

Hula hoops were a two-time fad. The first was before my birth. The second was when I was seven years old. Needless to say, I only recall the second explosion. But you earlier Boomers will, I hope, feel familiar with today’s column, provided with lots of research.

It began, as did a number of Boomer crazes, with the minds at the Wham-O company.

In 1957, an Australian visiting California told founders Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class.

At least one light bulb appeared over a head, possibly two.

Wham-O began manufacturing hoops out of Marlex, a cheap, durable plastic that had been recently invented.

Within two years 100 million hula hoops had been sold.

Poster advertising the Shoop Shoop hula hoop

The fad was the hottest thing around during that time, and beach movies showed California teens enjoying hula hooping on the big screen. But, like all fads, hula hoops became passe.

Then, in 1967, a bright mind at the aforementioned Wham-O placed a half dozen ¼-in.-diameter ball bearings inside a hollow hoop to give it a whirry sound. The noisy hoop’s colors were brightened, and the Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop was born.

The brilliance of the move was that the kids who played with the 1958 vintage hoops were now entering young adulthood. But Boomers being Boomers, they had plenty of younger siblings too young to recall the original fad who were suddenly exposed to many hours of commercials on Saturday morning TV advertising “The Shoop Shoop, Hula Hoop, Hoop!”

Once again, sales exploded, although nothing like those of the previous decade.

But the Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop has proven to be a steady seller over the years that passed by all too quickly afterwards. Even today, it can be spotted at discount stores all over the world.

And Wham-O, which seemed to somehow know the pulse of the millions and millions of Boomer kids, and knew just what they would beg their parents to buy them, scored yet another pair of coups in marketing. They also gave us lots of other wonderful memories from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.