WEBVTT - Could the Waterbed Make a Comeback?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren focal bomb here. The water bed was born around

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<v Speaker 1>half a century ago as the counterculture solution to something

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<v Speaker 1>pretty basic. We're talking a lack of sleep, of course.

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<v Speaker 1>Although the promise of sloshy love making was definitely a

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<v Speaker 1>selling point back in the day too, it was an

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<v Speaker 1>almost immediate, groovy, delicious success. By the late nineteen eighties,

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<v Speaker 1>waterbeds accounted for somewhere around fifteen percent of the bedding market,

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<v Speaker 1>or a tidy two billion dollars a year, according to

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<v Speaker 1>a contemporary New York Times article, if you were cool

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<v Speaker 1>back then, or thought you were or wanted to be,

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<v Speaker 1>or if you valued a good night's sleep on gently

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<v Speaker 1>rolling waves, or dreamed of nights filled with wild surfing passion,

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<v Speaker 1>you owned a water bed or you wanted one. Almost

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<v Speaker 1>as quickly as the waterbed revolution began, though it crashed,

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<v Speaker 1>the novelty wore off, the revolution died, the era faded away.

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<v Speaker 1>These days, statistics for waterbed sales are hard to come by,

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<v Speaker 1>but it's clear that things aren't like they were back

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<v Speaker 1>in the swinging seventies and eighties, and even into the nineties.

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<v Speaker 1>The competition mainly things like air mattresses and memory foam

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<v Speaker 1>has grown. The number of waterbed manufacturers and sellers has shrunk.

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<v Speaker 1>Do you even know anyone who still owns a water bed?

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<v Speaker 1>Lynn Hardman does. He still sleeps on one every night.

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<v Speaker 1>He's also sold thousands of them over the past few decades.

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<v Speaker 1>Hardman owns Southern water Beds and Phutons in Athens, Georgia,

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<v Speaker 1>and admits that business isn't like it was in the

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventies, a time when mattress stores didn't dot every

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<v Speaker 1>strip mall in every suburb and mom and pop shops

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<v Speaker 1>didn't have to compete with the Internet. But there's still

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<v Speaker 1>business out there. Hardman has operated his store for forty

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<v Speaker 1>three years, almost as long as water beds have been around,

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<v Speaker 1>and the water bed is still hanging on. He said,

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<v Speaker 1>it's like night and day. The waterbed has really followed

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<v Speaker 1>that Baby Boom generation from the counterculture of the late

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<v Speaker 1>seen fifties to where we are today. The early customers

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<v Speaker 1>back then were younger, and today it's almost entirely the opposite.

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<v Speaker 1>The baby boomers are older, much wiser, and in some

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<v Speaker 1>cases buying that final bed. Waterbed manufacturers and showrooms like

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<v Speaker 1>Hardman's are easy enough to find if you're looking. Most

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<v Speaker 1>brands offer hard sided beds that, like the first ones,

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<v Speaker 1>rely on a major piece of wood furniture to hold

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<v Speaker 1>the mattress in place. Newer soft sided water mattresses can

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<v Speaker 1>stand on their own, though they all need some kind

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<v Speaker 1>of a solid base because of the weight of the mattress.

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<v Speaker 1>Depending on size, a water mattress can hold up to

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<v Speaker 1>two hundred gallons that's about seven hundred and sixty liters

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<v Speaker 1>of water, which is more than one thousand, six hundred

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<v Speaker 1>pounds or about seven hundred and twenty fives and the

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<v Speaker 1>lure of water beds has of course always been that

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<v Speaker 1>water aficionados swear by its all around supportive properties. Hardman

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<v Speaker 1>talks about being enveloped in a water mattress rather than

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<v Speaker 1>lying on top of a standard one. Most water matt

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<v Speaker 1>says now come with baffles too that control how waveless

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<v Speaker 1>they are for those turned off by that too slashy feeling.

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<v Speaker 1>Most have heaters that can regulate the temperature of the

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<v Speaker 1>water anywhere from seventy to a hundred degrees fahrenheit about

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<v Speaker 1>thirty eight degrees celsius. The newest mattresses are split into

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<v Speaker 1>dual zones too, so one person can enjoy a different firmness, temperature,

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<v Speaker 1>and wave control than his or her sleeping partner. The

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<v Speaker 1>waterbed of the twenty one century clearly is not the

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<v Speaker 1>fur covered playground that Hugh Hefner put on his private

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<v Speaker 1>jet and flew around on in the nineteen seventies. It

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<v Speaker 1>was round and had a Tasmanian possum bedspread. The man

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<v Speaker 1>credited with inventing and patenting the water bed is septagenarian

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<v Speaker 1>Charlie Hall. He's come up with a new one that

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<v Speaker 1>he's marketing through a string of furniture stores in Florida.

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<v Speaker 1>Here's a quote from the kitsap Son in Bainbridge, Washington.

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<v Speaker 1>Gone is the wooden frame that made the older beds

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<v Speaker 1>so hard to get out of, exchanged for a foam

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<v Speaker 1>caller that surrounds the water bladder expandex covers the top

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<v Speaker 1>of the mattress to give a floating said sation. Fiber

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<v Speaker 1>insert quells waves and keeps the water bladder still. An

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<v Speaker 1>updated temperature system keeps the water feeling just right. The

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<v Speaker 1>innovations Hall is hoping will spur nostalgia in some and

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<v Speaker 1>interest a new generation of buyers in a piece of

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<v Speaker 1>bedroom furniture that they may know little about. Hooking that

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<v Speaker 1>new generation of kids maybe the biggest challenge in the

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<v Speaker 1>waterbeds potential comeback. Hardman occasionally sees some young people in

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<v Speaker 1>his store now, but they're accompanied by parents or grandparents

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<v Speaker 1>who dragged the kids along to show them a relic

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<v Speaker 1>from the past, a novelty item. This would all seem

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<v Speaker 1>rather quaint if sleep wasn't such a deadly serious topic.

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<v Speaker 1>Research over the past few years has shown just how

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<v Speaker 1>critical a good night's sleep is. A continued lack of

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<v Speaker 1>sufficient sleep has been strongly associated with, among other health problems, obesity, diabetes,

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<v Speaker 1>heart disease, hypertension, and a decreased life expectancy, and the

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<v Speaker 1>National Sleep Foundation's annual poll shows that only ten percent

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<v Speaker 1>of Americans prior ties sleep over other things in their lives,

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<v Speaker 1>like work, working out, hobbies, or their social life. Most people,

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<v Speaker 1>six the poll found say they don't even consider ahead

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<v Speaker 1>of time how much sleep they may need in planning

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<v Speaker 1>out their days. Hardman has a potential answer to that problem.

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<v Speaker 1>Sitting in his store, just as it has been for

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<v Speaker 1>the past forty three years. He said, There's just something

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<v Speaker 1>about that semi waitless state that you can only get

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<v Speaker 1>laying on a waterbed. There's something about it that's so

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<v Speaker 1>soothing and relaxing. We'd pause it that some rigorous scientific

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<v Speaker 1>research is in order, though it sounds like plenty of

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<v Speaker 1>people are still running their own small time experiments. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang.

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<v Speaker 1>For more on this and lots of other soothing topics,

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<v Speaker 1>visit our home planet, how Stuff works dot com.