Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Yo Yo Yo Yo.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
Speaker 1: as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
Speaker 1: for the Man, the Myth, the Legend. I'm gonna pull
Speaker 1: a random one here, Noel h Max Plastic Whip Williams.
Speaker 2: Whoa the Man, the Myth, the Mystery, Max Shmo Yo
Speaker 2: Yo Yo Williams.
Speaker 1: Now, that is none other than the legendary Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: They called me Ben Bullen in this neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: We tease this episode. A few weeks back. We were
Speaker 1: talking about pong, which led us to exploring ping pong analog.
Speaker 1: Right right, right, right right, And now Noel, you are
Speaker 1: our research associate for this episode, and thank you so much. Man.
Speaker 1: It turns out we're both pretty into yo yo's. Did
Speaker 1: you have that phase as a child.
Speaker 2: I was never any good at it, always fascinated by it.
Speaker 2: Definitely have owned a yo yo or two in my day,
Speaker 2: but I never really could master any of the tricks.
Speaker 2: And it was kind of similar to my fascination with
Speaker 2: stage magic. You know, it's a I don't know, I.
Speaker 1: Like a trick, Ben, I like a trick that's very
Speaker 1: hip hop of you.
Speaker 2: Well, your intro is very hip hop, and let's just
Speaker 2: think we're talking about hip hop.
Speaker 1: Though yo yo ing has become cool again, it would seem.
Speaker 2: And there's some very zeitgeiste figures that are into yo
Speaker 2: yo's that are in these days and they're bringing it back.
Speaker 2: But that's not really anything new because the history of
Speaker 2: the humble yo yo is littered riddled. Dare I say
Speaker 2: to take a page out of the stuff they don't
Speaker 2: want you to know intro with celebrity endorsements and you know,
Speaker 2: very spectacular displays of yo yo prowess. So whether you
Speaker 2: yourself cut your teeth walking the dog in the yo
Speaker 2: yo parlance or rocking the baby also in the yo
Speaker 2: yo parlance, I might be getting that a little bit
Speaker 2: mixed up.
Speaker 1: That's the one where you hold it up and you
Speaker 1: have the streams swing, yes, trying like a pendulum.
Speaker 2: You could also maybe rock the dog or walk the baby,
Speaker 2: depending or you might even have then correctly learned that
Speaker 2: the yo yo was used as an ancient hunting weapon
Speaker 2: for like clubbing seals or something. The humble yo yo
Speaker 2: has likely crossed your radar in one fashion or another.
Speaker 2: But the history of the ooyo, as we often come
Speaker 2: around to in topics we discuss on ridiculous history and
Speaker 2: stuff they don't want you to know, is the story
Speaker 2: of genius marketing as much as it is one of
Speaker 2: invention and some pretty rad tricks. So today we bring
Speaker 2: you the ridiculous history of the yo yo or don't
Speaker 2: be a shmo yo, Try a yo yo?
Speaker 1: Before we go on. I really like the title of this,
Speaker 1: and I'm a fan of giving people flowers while they're
Speaker 1: still around to get the flowers. This title is awesome.
Speaker 1: Can you see it one more time? Oh, don't be
Speaker 1: a shmo yo, Try a yo yo.
Speaker 2: Got a comma in there, just to make sure shmo
Speaker 2: yo isn't one where I Also, I've been rewatching a
Speaker 2: lot of curb lately, and he loves he calls people
Speaker 2: a shmo yo sometimes, if I'm not mistaken LD.
Speaker 1: So let's just jump right into the origin of the
Speaker 1: yo yo. We're not quite sure.
Speaker 2: Historians differ, and there's a lot of miss info out
Speaker 2: there that may also itself be the product of some
Speaker 2: marketing spin. Not quite sure how far the yo yo
Speaker 2: dates back. What we do know is that there were
Speaker 2: as far back as four hundred and five hundred PC
Speaker 2: Greece images depicted in various you know, frescoes and the like,
Speaker 2: depicting the use of something resembling the yo yo.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're looking at carving's right, not written descriptions.
Speaker 2: Were carving frescoes, you know, not cave paintings, but the
Speaker 2: visual visual depictions.
Speaker 1: Okay, So a circle and a line.
Speaker 2: Something along those lines, that's right, something along both circles
Speaker 2: and lines. Yoyo's do exist in the Metropolitan Museum of
Speaker 2: Arts Fletcher Fund collection from this period. But a lot
Speaker 2: of countries have claimed to have invented this thing, and there,
Speaker 2: as we often see in history, seems to be a
Speaker 2: lot of parallel thinking around a little circular thing with
Speaker 2: an axle in the middle and a string attached to
Speaker 2: it that you can fling around in various ways. Some
Speaker 2: historians argue about multiple sites of origin, like I was
Speaker 2: just saying currently. However, the most accepted theory as that
Speaker 2: it originated in Asia around one thousand BCE. Although there
Speaker 2: aren't any records of the yo yo in Asia during
Speaker 2: this period. The yoyo as we know it today, there
Speaker 2: is something called the diabolo, the Chinese yo yo as
Speaker 2: it is known in English, and you're our Chinese expert here, Ben,
Speaker 2: maybe you can help with these pronunciations. It goes by
Speaker 2: two different names.
Speaker 1: I am definitely not an expert. This is definitely Chinese.
Speaker 1: We can confirm that the two different names would be
Speaker 1: a sell lib and omu go my man.
Speaker 2: Both of these terms refer to the same object and
Speaker 2: can be interchangeable depending on the region. So it literally
Speaker 2: does translate to pulling bell or pulling ring, which is
Speaker 2: very descriptive of the action of pulling the string to
Speaker 2: make this object spin.
Speaker 1: So this is maybe a little more Ben.
Speaker 2: You've probably seen these like a top where you sort
Speaker 2: of wind it up and rip the cord and then
Speaker 2: the thing spins on its end. I'm thinking that's rings
Speaker 2: about theolo.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, for the pulley bell or the shit.
Speaker 1: That's that seems accurate. It reminds me a little bit
Speaker 1: of those toys that may have been before your time,
Speaker 1: the ring fighter things. I can't remember the name, but
Speaker 1: you you pulled the string or you pulled like a
Speaker 1: plastic tab and they rolled around in a little arena. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I think those are.
Speaker 2: Gosh, hold on a second, there's something Matt like Matt's
Speaker 2: Kid like those, or there was a more modern version.
Speaker 2: It was like, I think, out of Japan, and it
Speaker 2: had a lot of trading cards associated with it and
Speaker 2: a lot of culture. Now I'm totally spacing on the name,
Speaker 2: and I know people out there are screaming their podcast device.
Speaker 1: It's okay, you're don't have to scream, folks, We'll figure
Speaker 1: it out. We also know the second meaning that you
Speaker 1: alluded to for dia bolo is hung shot, which is.
Speaker 2: Empty bamboo, empty bamboo, which likely refers to the hollow nature.
Speaker 1: Of the objects.
Speaker 2: And this is coming to us from a really great
Speaker 2: blog post by Lingo Ace all about Chinese yoyo tradition's
Speaker 2: history and tricks. And so when we see folks demonstrating
Speaker 2: what the da bolo would have been, it typically is
Speaker 2: more like two sticks with strings attached to it, looped
Speaker 2: around a large item which has got the rounded shape
Speaker 2: on either side that tapers in the middle, and then
Speaker 2: you kind of use it to make the thing dance
Speaker 2: across the stro.
Speaker 1: This is like a rave, it's a little it is
Speaker 1: a still devil. Sticks coded I'm not gonna hacky sack.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well hackey sack of Jason.
Speaker 2: I think the yo yo, we can all argue, definitely
Speaker 2: falls squarely into that camp. But during the l parallel
Speaker 2: parallel thinking, to be sure, Ben, But during the late
Speaker 2: eighteenth century we start to see examples of this popping
Speaker 2: up in France. Of course, as they do in France,
Speaker 2: they had to fancify it, so these versions were made
Speaker 2: out of glass or ivory and were called the de Normandy.
Speaker 2: We've got some citations from Britannica on that one, and
Speaker 2: Duncan Toys you may know as kind of the king
Speaker 2: of the yo yo, or at least the popularizer of
Speaker 2: the yo yo. And they've definitely come back into their
Speaker 2: own as far as the modern types and spin no
Speaker 2: pun intended on.
Speaker 1: The yo yo.
Speaker 2: But they have a great section on their website talking
Speaker 2: about the history of the yo yo, and they talk about.
Speaker 1: A picture of King Louis the XVIII. What's that one, Ben?
Speaker 1: Is that thirteenth twelfth, fourteenth? You know me and them Roman.
Speaker 2: Nomes things I appreciate. So he wasn't the son king,
Speaker 2: he was a couple kings. Later shows him playing with
Speaker 2: a yo yo as a child. We also have historical
Speaker 2: documents showing the yoyo was popular to pass the time
Speaker 2: during the French Revolution, like they needed something to do
Speaker 2: to pass the time. I guess in between stormings, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, not everybody can own a full working guillotine,
Speaker 1: so you gotta you gotta have something to do with
Speaker 1: your hands, right, God has something to do you with
Speaker 1: your hands while you still got him.
Speaker 2: You did start to see the depictions of this and
Speaker 2: paintings into the eighteen hundreds. And I believe our buddy
Speaker 2: who was scared of rabbits, Napoleon was tossed it around
Speaker 2: a yo yo before the Battle of water I guess
Speaker 2: he wasn't scared of rabbits.
Speaker 1: He was just sort of mobbed by rabbits. He was unprepared.
Speaker 1: He was unprepared historically on many levels. But also he
Speaker 1: wasn't a dumb guy. And what a flex to walk
Speaker 1: around before you go into Waterloo. I know you just
Speaker 1: have a yo yo. No, that's that's an intimidation.
Speaker 2: I think it's a bit of a power move ben
Speaker 2: In England, according to Britannica, it was referred to as
Speaker 2: the bandalore or I love this one because it just
Speaker 2: kind of makes like an automatopoia a quiz.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you would say, oh, let me have my quiz.
Speaker 2: I love that it's so English, and I think Jonathan
Speaker 2: strictly aka the Quizzer would approve an illustration depicted the
Speaker 2: Prince of Wales. Later, George the Fourth got that one
Speaker 2: right playing with his yo yo, and so it became
Speaker 2: a hit with the jet seestying. I guess they didn't
Speaker 2: have jests, but you know what I mean, fashionistas of
Speaker 2: the time. Uh, the popularity of the toy a lot
Speaker 2: like I guess lawn tennis, which preceded table tennis or
Speaker 2: ping pong, started to enter the ranks of the nobility,
Speaker 2: leading to a lot of references during this period, a
Speaker 2: lot of them in political cartoons.
Speaker 1: Showing this as a bit of a pastime of the swells. Now,
Speaker 1: in your research yournal, you've included some drawings of the time,
Speaker 1: some political cartoons, and I think we love to describe them.
Speaker 1: What are the first is? I love it is a
Speaker 1: unfortunate situation with an older school marmed type and she's
Speaker 1: been a sailed two boys, she's been menaced sailed by
Speaker 1: two boys. Children throwing yo yo's, and it's called The
Speaker 1: caption reads.
Speaker 2: The sensation boll wow, the laziest pleasantry in the public streets.
Speaker 2: Yo yo as the rage in the sixties, rude boys perhaps.
Speaker 1: Doing around the world.
Speaker 2: I think that's an eighteen pretty basic that's right, the eighteens,
Speaker 2: pretty basic trick A lot of people might be familiar with,
Speaker 2: where you take the thing, you fling it out and
Speaker 2: then you pull it and you kind of do a
Speaker 2: loopy loop with it, and then you pull it back
Speaker 2: into your hand. We would be remiss if we did
Speaker 2: not point out that the reason all of this works
Speaker 2: is because of centripetal force and gravity.
Speaker 1: Ah yes, gravity, our old nemesis, and energy which can
Speaker 1: neither be created nor destroyed.
Speaker 2: And it's it's basically, if I'm not mistaken, then it's
Speaker 2: kind of preserved in the motion of the of the
Speaker 2: yo yo and when you kind of yank it, that
Speaker 2: energy allows it to travel back up the string.
Speaker 1: Nailed it hold of one, just so, I mean, if
Speaker 1: we walk the dog out here, though, I've got a
Speaker 1: question for you, Noel. It sounds like parallel thinking teaches
Speaker 1: us that the Mediterranean and parts of East Asia discover
Speaker 1: the yo yo discovered that centrepetal force on their own,
Speaker 1: and that it became popularized in Europe. But how did
Speaker 1: it get to the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question, Ben, And we do have
Speaker 2: a couple other fun images kind of showing these very
Speaker 2: bougie French folks playing with their toys.
Speaker 1: And it's funny.
Speaker 2: The article that I referenced earlier are actually let me
Speaker 2: reference this one specifically. I haven't yet doc Lucky's History
Speaker 2: of the yo yo Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, who wrote a
Speaker 2: book called Lucky's Collector's Guide to twentieth century Yoyo's histories
Speaker 2: and Values. He's also the former chairman of the American
Speaker 2: Yoyo Association's History and Collecting Committee, so he knows a
Speaker 2: thing or two about the yo yo. And he points
Speaker 2: out that a lot of these images from the period
Speaker 2: that we're talking about here in Europe depicted adults playing
Speaker 2: with this, and it sort of trickled down to the kids,
Speaker 2: because you mentioned the one with the young whipper snappers
Speaker 2: or the rude boys messing around with this older lady.
Speaker 2: But most of the images did show old folks, older folks,
Speaker 2: adults playing with these as a sign of kind of
Speaker 2: like this was a pastime of the well to do
Speaker 2: who were able to exercise their leisure time in this way.
Speaker 1: Now you're too worried about the war, my friend, you
Speaker 1: should do what I do. Take us slow constitutional in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, go to the Angerrarium and witness your rented
Speaker 1: pineapple and dangle quiz Tangle your quiz perfect.
Speaker 2: We got there, so you asked about how it kind
Speaker 2: of got to what we know today. November of eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty six, we've got James el Haven and Charles Hittrick
Speaker 2: of Cincinnati, Ohio, who get the first patent for a
Speaker 2: yo yo in the United States, and it was described
Speaker 2: It described the patent a yo yo as coupled together
Speaker 2: or as being coupled together at their centers by means
Speaker 2: of a clutch. It was also the first time a
Speaker 2: method called rim waiting was mentioned in the patent, and
Speaker 2: it specifically said, it will be observed that the marginals
Speaker 2: swell sea. The sea is being the exhibit in the patent.
Speaker 2: Magery exercises the function of a flywheel. Flywheel being kind
Speaker 2: of like a Pulley system of ropes and gears that
Speaker 2: you would use to maybe operate scenes in a scenery
Speaker 2: in a play, or you know, part curtains and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Right, And so what we're saying here, folks, is that
Speaker 1: for thousands of years, various civilizations came up with something
Speaker 1: like this, but the rubber hits the road, right, or
Speaker 1: the stream hits the yo When we talk about the
Speaker 1: idea of patenting.
Speaker 2: Design and the Yo Yo Museum as a piece titled
Speaker 2: the Brief History A Brief History of the yo Yo
Speaker 2: and got some really fun info from that one as well.
Speaker 2: They point out that the real importance of the patent
Speaker 2: is that it suggests the very first use of patents
Speaker 2: to protect design improvements from what we know more as
Speaker 2: the historical version of the yoyo in the manufacturing of
Speaker 2: a yo yo. So that's pretty neat. We start to
Speaker 2: see the aforementioned haven and hetrick really entering into the
Speaker 2: business of mass producing yoyos.
Speaker 1: So for thousands of years, different civilizations figured out something
Speaker 1: like a yo yo, and then later it gets patented
Speaker 1: and enters mass manufacture. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: listening tonight are going to be wondering if the yo
Speaker 1: yos of the past were like the fidget spinners or
Speaker 1: the rosaries of today.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We've also often asked the question about how come there's
Speaker 2: not one person credited.
Speaker 1: With like the fidget spinner.
Speaker 2: We do know that patents can't expire as well and
Speaker 2: get entered into the public domain as well as you know, trademarks.
Speaker 2: It's a question for another day, but I think you're
Speaker 2: getting at something. We also tease this idea of was
Speaker 2: this thing used as a hunting implement?
Speaker 1: Right, That's that's something he alluded to at the top.
Speaker 1: I say we dive in because no, I don't know
Speaker 1: much about this. I remember vaguely hearing stuff about Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2: That's right, the Philippines in particular, a famous This is
Speaker 2: a really I'm gonna pull a lot from this, or
Speaker 2: we're gonna pull a lot from Lucky's the history of
Speaker 2: the yo yo. Because this guy really is, I would argue,
Speaker 2: probably the pre eminent yo yo scholar.
Speaker 1: He's on the committee.
Speaker 2: He's on the committee, and he also points out that
Speaker 2: he himself is responsible for spreading some of the misinformation
Speaker 2: that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: He owns up to that.
Speaker 2: I would go ahead and just find this whole article
Speaker 2: and read Lucky Meisenheimer MD's piece where He goes into
Speaker 2: a lot of these various conflicting histories of the yo
Speaker 2: yo and the way he himself may have contributed to
Speaker 2: some of that. But he points out that the claim
Speaker 2: that the yo yo I'm just going to quote directly
Speaker 2: from his writing was used as a weapon in the
Speaker 2: Philippines isn't new. This has been the subject of much
Speaker 2: debate over the last several decades. The Duncan Yo Yo
Speaker 2: Company also used the weapon narrative as a promotional gimmick,
Speaker 2: but behind the scenes they themselves recognized that this was
Speaker 2: likely not true. We're going to get into Duncan in
Speaker 2: a little bit, but I just thought we'd get this
Speaker 2: part out of the way because it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: One early yo yo demonstrator for the Duncan Company claimed
Speaker 2: that he was the one who made up the story
Speaker 2: in the first place. However, there is good evidence to
Speaker 2: support that the yo yo was a weapon in the Philippines,
Speaker 2: however not necessarily used in the way you might think so.
Speaker 2: The story, as it goes the idea of this being
Speaker 2: a century's old Filipino hunting device, describes a hunter, you know,
Speaker 2: finding a refuge or a secret spot in a tree,
Speaker 2: fortifying himself as so he can like kind of hide
Speaker 2: from his target, holding a heavy, oversized yo yo, waiting
Speaker 2: for his prey to pass below, and at the critical moment,
Speaker 2: the yoyo would be flung, hurled, and balk the animal
Speaker 2: right on the head, presumably killing it or knocking it out,
Speaker 2: and then allowing it to return to the hunter, especially
Speaker 2: if he missed and needed a second.
Speaker 1: Shot, a boomerang on a string a bit of that.
Speaker 2: However, Meisenheimer points out that the physics of the yoyo
Speaker 2: make this pretty improbable that that would work. However, there
Speaker 2: is no question that something like a yoyo existed in
Speaker 2: the Philippines for quite a long time. There isn't any
Speaker 2: documented evidence that it was used as a hunting tool
Speaker 2: in this exact way. There is, however, evidence that the
Speaker 2: Duncan Company popularized this themselves as a bit of a
Speaker 2: gimmick in promoting the yo yo, it would seem Meisenheimer
Speaker 2: says that the hunting origin is pure fantasy. It was
Speaker 2: a memorable story and helped to sell yo yo's. The
Speaker 2: hunting origin of the toy was printed so often, as
Speaker 2: is often the case, that it has become an urban legend. However,
Speaker 2: he also points out that it is there is evidence
Speaker 2: that it was used as a weapon in some fashion,
Speaker 2: though not the way we might think or the way
Speaker 2: that was just described, Ben, think of think of it
Speaker 2: as a way to like hide a string like a garrot.
Speaker 2: Remember those where you like you got the creepy assassin
Speaker 2: coming up behind you and strangling you with piano wire
Speaker 2: after like.
Speaker 1: Hey, might be a great guy. You know, true that
Speaker 1: all assassins are creepy. No, it's true, just getting situations
Speaker 1: and not all creeps are assassins. Max, what you got
Speaker 1: to jump in here?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you can get a yo yo.
Speaker 3: But in the hit Man series, the video game where
Speaker 3: you you know, play as an assassin, Oh, I love
Speaker 3: that one, you can get very You can get a
Speaker 3: garat obviously it comes like pretty standard. But you can
Speaker 3: get like you know, like ear bud cables and stuff
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: You can use for that. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: can get a yoyo though. Okay, all right, well we
Speaker 1: have some notes for you creators of hit Man. We
Speaker 1: also know again it goes back to what you're saying
Speaker 1: about parallel thinking, right, and about corporations wanting to sell stuff.
Speaker 1: When I'm hearing this myth perpetrated by Duncan, which, as
Speaker 1: you said, we'll get into in a moment, it reminds
Speaker 1: me of those back pages of old school comic books
Speaker 1: and you know, boy Scout type magazines where they would say,
Speaker 1: we'll sell you a pair of nun Chucks and will
Speaker 1: train you in the agent art. And right next to that,
Speaker 1: I sound elderly now, but right next to that sometimes
Speaker 1: there would be an ad for the Filipino art of
Speaker 1: the yo yo.
Speaker 2: Sure well, speaking of that man or to that point,
Speaker 2: I'd mentioned that our expert here pointed out that there
Speaker 2: is written evidence that it was used as some kind
Speaker 2: of weapon, and that comes from an eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 2: letter by doctor Jose Rizol, a Filipino national hero, who
Speaker 2: wrote of his transatlantic voyage from America to England. Quote,
Speaker 2: I am barked for your aboard the city of Rome,
Speaker 2: said to be the second largest steamer on earth. At
Speaker 2: the end of the voyage, a periodical is printed on board.
Speaker 2: I met many people here, and as I had with
Speaker 2: me a yo Yo, the Europeans and Americans were astonished
Speaker 2: to see how I used it as a weapon of attack.
Speaker 1: I think he's being cute.
Speaker 2: I think he may well be ben but it is
Speaker 2: it is evidence we can point to. Meisenheimer goes on.
Speaker 2: So unless you want to dispute one of the most
Speaker 2: famous Filipino historical figures writing, the question becomes not was
Speaker 2: the yoyo used as a weapon in the Philippines, but
Speaker 2: how was it used? So this is a point of
Speaker 2: much speculation. I think we pointed out one possible use.
Speaker 2: Another would be the thick leather cord of a particular
Speaker 2: design of yo yo, perhaps used like a sarong in
Speaker 2: martial arts, which is sort of that garat kind of situation,
Speaker 2: and the suggestion that this mechanism allowed it.
Speaker 1: To be concealed.
Speaker 2: And there also appears to be a kind of startorial
Speaker 2: version of this, where the thick leather cord of a
Speaker 2: particular design of yoyo might have been used to like
Speaker 2: wrap a or you know, sort of a stand in
Speaker 2: for like underwear of some kind. Doctor Rissol had training
Speaker 2: in martial arts, and it suggested that this is the
Speaker 2: mechanism he used the yoyo as a weapon. It's basically
Speaker 2: a concealed weapon.
Speaker 1: Okay. I also think Risol, who is a national hero
Speaker 1: of the Philippines. I also think he was being a
Speaker 1: bit diplomatic when he was on this transatlantic voyage, and
Speaker 1: maybe he was conversationally disarming people.
Speaker 2: I think you're right, Ben, I do think you're right,
Speaker 2: but I did think it was worth mentioning. So now
Speaker 2: as we've already teased Ben, we've got mister Duncan entering
Speaker 2: the chat.
Speaker 1: Which is I think a name inextricably linked for all
Speaker 1: time to the yo Yo. Yes, yeah, if you had
Speaker 1: a yo yo in the United States, you probably had
Speaker 1: one from Donald F. Duncan, Chicago businessman who read into
Speaker 1: his first yo Yo on a business trip to San
Speaker 1: Francisco in nineteen twenty eight, and the person he saw
Speaker 1: using the yo yo was a guy named Pedro Flores,
Speaker 1: recently arrived from the Philippines.
Speaker 2: For sure, he had already begun selling a toy labeled
Speaker 2: with the name yo Yo, meaning come come in the
Speaker 2: native language of the Philippines, which I guess that that
Speaker 2: that's Trigallas. I think that's right, Ben, I'm not one
Speaker 2: hundred percent sure. I do have another source from the
Speaker 2: Smithsonian and they just refer to the native language of
Speaker 2: the Philippines. So there may well be more than one,
Speaker 2: but tone languages for sure. For sure, yoyo does what
Speaker 2: I know of tagalag that does kind of track.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So it's
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine. We're in the early days of that
Speaker 1: year and Floory's has, as you said, he's created this
Speaker 1: company Yo Yo Come Come. He gets his financing, he
Speaker 1: gets his investors, his backers, and he makes correct me yournal.
Speaker 1: He makes more than one hundred thousand of these toys yep.
Speaker 2: Carved out of wood. He trademarks the name yo Yo,
Speaker 2: and then he realizes a real kicker that this definitely
Speaker 2: becomes part of the Duncan model. I think we all
Speaker 2: know this. It is not something that is intuitively easy
Speaker 2: to do well right, playing with the yo Yo. It's tricky.
Speaker 2: You got to kind of know what you're doing. You
Speaker 2: gotta have practice, and you first of all have to
Speaker 2: be shown how to do it. So he assembles a
Speaker 2: crack team of yo Yo masters to demonstrate some basic
Speaker 2: tricks and get people on board with this toy.
Speaker 1: You too can walk the dog. And this is where
Speaker 1: our buddy Duncan comes into play. All right, So we've
Speaker 1: seen this out on the West Coast. He is a marketer,
Speaker 1: he is an entrepreneur, and get this, he is already
Speaker 1: a manufacturer of wooden novelty items and toys, so he
Speaker 1: has the infrastructure to make this happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just reminds me of the movie The Hudsucker
Speaker 2: Proxy about the sort of like fanciful version of the
Speaker 2: introduction of the hula hoop, and they keep saying, you know,
Speaker 2: for kids, but they have a real hard time in
Speaker 2: the movie figuring out how.
Speaker 1: To sell the thing.
Speaker 2: It's basically just a hoop, and it takes this one
Speaker 2: kid on the street picking it up and starting to
Speaker 2: shimmy it around his hips before all the other kids
Speaker 2: see him do it, and then they got to do
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 1: They got to figure out how to do it. They
Speaker 1: got to get one. That's what kicks off the craze.
Speaker 2: So demonstration is key here and he Duncan raises five
Speaker 2: thousand bucks, which a lot of money at that time. Gosh,
Speaker 2: we should probably do an inflation calculator and a dude
Speaker 2: a boop five thousand In nineteen thirty two money is
Speaker 2: around one hundred and eighteen thousand, seven hundred and five
Speaker 2: dollars and eleven cents roughly today.
Speaker 1: And with this windfall, Duncan, as we have it here
Speaker 1: in the notes, secures Flores's remaining assets. He also acquires
Speaker 1: that trademark Yo Yo. The trademark will not expire until
Speaker 1: decades and decades later in nineteen sixty five, and competing
Speaker 1: plastic yo yos begin to outsell the wooden ones. That's
Speaker 1: what happens in the mid nineteen sixties. But for decades
Speaker 1: Duncan was the monopoly man of yo yo's, and they
Speaker 1: were mostly wooden, and they mostly came from this one
Speaker 1: guy's company, yep.
Speaker 2: And he took Flores's lead and did the very same
Speaker 2: thing in terms of assembling these demonstration crews. Who would
Speaker 2: go to school, who would you know, hang out in
Speaker 2: Times not Times Square, but like you know, public parks
Speaker 2: and maybe Times Square, various places in New York City
Speaker 2: as well street as well as on the West Coast
Speaker 2: exactly been. But the real marketing genius comes when he
Speaker 2: approaches a guy you might have heard of, mister William
Speaker 2: Randolph Hurst, the owner of the country's largest chain of newspapers,
Speaker 2: and he decides that to offer kind of a trade
Speaker 2: sort of put his money where his mouth is in
Speaker 2: a way, or at the very least say I've got
Speaker 2: an idea for you, mister Hurst, how we can do
Speaker 2: some in we can help each other out. He comes
Speaker 2: up with the idea to launch the yo yo and
Speaker 2: feature them in newspaper ads advertising yo yo competitions. He
Speaker 2: proposed to mister Hurst that if Hurst gave him free
Speaker 2: advertising space, he could help increase the papers circulations through
Speaker 2: these advertisements because he had the genius idea of it
Speaker 2: be a caveat of entering. A prerequisite for entering the
Speaker 2: contest that kids had to sell two to three subscriptions
Speaker 2: to the newspaper.
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing, and we also have to shout out. It
Speaker 1: just hit me now reading through research here, it just
Speaker 1: hit me. That's why yo yo's became such a trope
Speaker 1: in later political cartoons. Absolutely because you would have a
Speaker 1: yo yo competition entirely tied in with the empire of
Speaker 1: William Randolph Hurst. Oh that's brilliant. Oh I feel so cold,
Speaker 1: It's pretty Yeah, it's chilly for sure.
Speaker 2: Hurst is a little bit on the fence about this,
Speaker 2: so he decides to test it in a little bit
Speaker 2: of a pilot experiment just using his Chicago newspaper, and
Speaker 2: in six weeks, the popularity of the Yo Yo and
Speaker 2: these competitions sold him fifty thousand new subscriptions, which gave
Speaker 2: him the confidence he needed to give Duncan free ad
Speaker 2: space and his papers all around the nation.
Speaker 1: And then we see some more tremendous marketing by mister Duncan.
Speaker 1: The patriarch of the Yo Yo now sends a bunch
Speaker 1: of street teams out professional Yo Yo demonstrators city the
Speaker 1: city schoolyard near your own. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: brilliant thing that Oscar Meyer would later do bymobiles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they basically, they said, the Yo Yo version of
Speaker 1: wienermobiles across the United States, across the land, and they
Speaker 1: promote these local contests. Kids learn tricks, they get very invested,
Speaker 1: they create their own grassroots independent communities. And now Duncan
Speaker 1: is like the Willie Wonka of yoyo's.
Speaker 2: And there's actually a name that they're using for these demonstrators.
Speaker 2: They called them Duncan Professionals, and a lot of these
Speaker 2: folks actually went on to start some companies that would
Speaker 2: give Duncan a run for their money. Once that trademark
Speaker 2: ran out, we'll get a little more into that. But
Speaker 2: what Duncan also was really good at was tapping into
Speaker 2: name recognition and celebrities. We had folks like Douglas Fairbanks,
Speaker 2: Mary Pickford. These are names that maybe won't ring as
Speaker 2: much of a bell to a modern ear. Baseball Hall
Speaker 2: of Famer Luke Garrig you probably have heard of Hack Wilson.
Speaker 1: All of these folks were photographed.
Speaker 2: Using their Yo yo's and would participate in paid promotions
Speaker 2: with movie icons like what is it our gang?
Speaker 1: Isn't it the Little Rascals? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. And
Speaker 1: they were promoting specific brands of Yo Yo's at different times,
Speaker 1: all owned by Duncan, by the way, things like Gold
Speaker 1: Seal and Oh Boy yo Yo's. If a town did
Speaker 1: not have a visible local celebrity, then you just got
Speaker 1: the police commissioner or the mayor or another high ranking
Speaker 1: public official to be in a photograph holding a Yo yo.
Speaker 2: And I just got to read this directly from our
Speaker 2: expert Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, because he puts it so beautifully,
Speaker 2: this idea that Duncan may have ruined themselves in their
Speaker 2: own effective marketing because their success with promoting the toy
Speaker 2: over four decades made the word yoyo a household name,
Speaker 2: almost more than the association with.
Speaker 1: Duncan in some ways.
Speaker 2: Once the pat or the trademark ran out, you started
Speaker 2: to see challenges to Duncan's soul right to use that name,
Speaker 2: made by folks like Joe Radavan of the Royal Yo
Speaker 2: Yo Company. And to our previous point, Radavan was one
Speaker 2: of those early Duncan professionals who himself was from the Philippines,
Speaker 2: so it's very full circle. In nineteen thirty seven he
Speaker 2: left Duncan and formed his own company, and in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five, after a lengthy court battle, Duncan was stripped
Speaker 2: of that trademark protection by the courts, which determined that
Speaker 2: the word yo yo had at this point ben become generic.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, now, because you can't own the word paper, right,
Speaker 1: you can't own the concept of wind or hats or
Speaker 1: what's another one, shoe feet no wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, though, that's not the case in other countries, because,
Speaker 2: as Meisenheimer points out, there are other countries like Canada
Speaker 2: where the word yoyo is still under trademark protection. The
Speaker 2: sixties saw a little bit of a wane in the
Speaker 2: popularity of yo yo's as new toys and you know,
Speaker 2: gadgets and things made it start to feel a little
Speaker 2: bit you know, old hat, a little bit antiquated. But
Speaker 2: in the eighties the yoyo experienced a massives with a
Speaker 2: new modern design. The new yoyos were made of plastic
Speaker 2: and had a ball bearing axle that made them a
Speaker 2: lot zippier allowed them to perform even longer sleeps or
Speaker 2: spin times right where you hold it at the bottom.
Speaker 2: It's called making it sleep, and even more complex tricks.
Speaker 2: That's when we see the American Yo Yo Association clocking
Speaker 2: the world sleep record for a fixed axle yo yo
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one by Dale Oliver at fifty one seconds.
Speaker 1: And as recently as two thousand and one we see
Speaker 1: that that record has been dwarfed. The American Yoyo Association's
Speaker 1: world record in twenty twenty one for sleep was thirteen
Speaker 1: minutes and five seconds, set by the legendary Rick Wyatt.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. Ben I wouldn't be surprised if it's
Speaker 2: been further dwarfed by now, because yo yo ing is
Speaker 2: is you know, you could a it's niche. It's not
Speaker 2: like an Olympic sport or anything. It doesn't quite have
Speaker 2: the same cachet as say X games type sports, but
Speaker 2: is getting there because there's a lot of like pretty
Speaker 2: cool people that are into yo yoing, like our very
Speaker 2: own Fay Webster, who is a fantastic musician from here
Speaker 2: in Atlanta who has a lot of connections to the
Speaker 2: hip hop community here, started off her career as a photographer,
Speaker 2: you know, hanging out with folks like Lil YACHTI and
Speaker 2: various other rappers from the scene. Her music isn't really
Speaker 2: in that vein at all. It's much more kind of awesome, crooney,
Speaker 2: very delightful, Billie holiday asque kind of music, vocal music
Speaker 2: because I sound like a grandpa myself. But she actually
Speaker 2: is a huge yoyo officionado, and I believe she's doing
Speaker 2: Yo Yo Invitational right here in Atlanta, So it's really
Speaker 2: cool to see that connection right here in our in
Speaker 2: our hometown. The modern National Yo Yo Championships were first
Speaker 2: held in Chico, California in nineteen ninety three recent pretty
Speaker 2: recent under the direction of a guy named Bob Maloney,
Speaker 2: who later became the director of the National Yoyo Museum
Speaker 2: in Chico. And this is again coming from Lucky Weisenheimer MD.
Speaker 2: They changed, though, however, drastically in nineteen ninety six, just
Speaker 2: the landscape of competitive yo yoing when a guy named
Speaker 2: Alex Garcia won the very first freestyle competition. Now that's
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, and what makes it freestyle is
Speaker 2: the type of yo yo where the yoyo is no
Speaker 2: longer attached to your finger, but it's attached to a
Speaker 2: counterweight that's held in your hand, which allows you to
Speaker 2: do tricks that completely disconnect the yo yo from your
Speaker 2: body and the actual yo yo from the string. You
Speaker 2: can pop it off and then roll it back on.
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of really really really magic, cool tricks
Speaker 2: that you can do with this free hand style of
Speaker 2: yo yoing. I would just really encourage anyone out there
Speaker 2: to just google or do some YouTube searches of some
Speaker 2: of the top yoyos across the country and around the world,
Speaker 2: because there's some stuff that's going to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we know this is still look, it's not
Speaker 1: the halcyon Ds of the nineteen sixties, but the yo
Speaker 1: yo is a cool idea. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It's a popular toy. If you have kids and you
Speaker 1: want them to have something kinetic to play with that's
Speaker 1: not going to hurt too many people, then forego the
Speaker 1: nunchucks and get the yo yo.
Speaker 2: Get them a yo yo. Competitive yo yos today can
Speaker 2: spend at up to eight thousand revolutions per minute. They're
Speaker 2: typically made of aluminum, titanium, or steel, and they are
Speaker 2: produced with extremely exacting machining standards.
Speaker 1: I want, you know what, I want a comic book
Speaker 1: adaptation of a superhero that uses a yo yo, Like
Speaker 1: you know, the way Daredevil uses the sticks or the
Speaker 1: way Batman uses the rings. It'd be cool to have
Speaker 1: a yo yo superhero.
Speaker 2: I completely agree, Ben, And there's no doubt that that
Speaker 2: yoyo superhero would be able to do most of, if
Speaker 2: not all, of, some of the modern tricks that we're
Speaker 2: just gonna rattle off for you real quick as we
Speaker 2: wrap up this episode. Not no longer the Humble, Walk
Speaker 2: the Dog, or Rock the Baby, Rock the Cradle, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it.
Speaker 1: We're talking about things like the Elevator, the brain Twister.
Speaker 2: These all sound like roller coasters, the mock five personal
Speaker 2: favorite here, the Poppin Fresh.
Speaker 1: I've got some firstal favorites as well. I love that
Speaker 1: there is a potential for combos in these moves Trapeze
Speaker 1: trapeze and brother trapeze and Brother slack rther that of
Speaker 1: course double or nothing. Oh, of course we.
Speaker 2: Got the zipper, the split bottom mounts, the Revolution and
Speaker 2: the reverse to your previous list Ben Slack Trapeze. Why
Speaker 2: is that what in all caps? I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: it just seems really extra. It's very intense. I had
Speaker 2: to get the win across. We've got the we got
Speaker 2: various whips, Ben, the jade, the iron, the plastic, the rejection.
Speaker 1: The Kamakase mount is uh interesting, and then there's whipped
Speaker 1: to Kama case. And then there's the Houdini mount, but
Speaker 1: not spelled the way you think.
Speaker 2: It's not spelled the way you think it could be
Speaker 2: a typo in this thing, but it might not as well.
Speaker 2: I think the mount is when you like it's just
Speaker 2: one of those ones where I think that the yoyo
Speaker 2: disconnects on the string and then you pop it back on.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: I've seen some videos where the titles of the tricks
Speaker 2: were listening underneath it and it's ringing a Bellhiste's the
Speaker 2: cold Fusion, the spiritual successor to walk the dog skin.
Speaker 1: The gerbil, Now, come on, that's egregious. It is do
Speaker 1: you hate no? I like gerbils. They're cute. I got
Speaker 1: no problem with trolls. I didn't invent the name.
Speaker 2: Uh the gyroscopic flop, which sounds like a bad trip
Speaker 2: to the doc.
Speaker 1: Now that's that's an endoscopic flop. That's different. Hey, the
Speaker 1: ping pong mm hmm yeah. Check out our earlier episode
Speaker 1: on the evolution of table tennis or ping pong. We
Speaker 1: have so many other names, tricks, hooks, all kinds of sides.
Speaker 1: We got a gunslinger, we got a grind. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the one point five Eli Hopp is now,
Speaker 1: but I hope it's named after a guy I do too.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these start to take on names
Speaker 2: very closely resembling skateboard tricks, and it really is at
Speaker 2: that level of cool to it to a certain degree now,
Speaker 2: like where people are making really cool videos of doing
Speaker 2: yoyo tricks. Also, like another thing that I enjoy is
Speaker 2: something called krdistry, where people are manipulating and doing crazy
Speaker 2: tricks with playing cards, not magic tricks, but just manipulating
Speaker 2: them and you know, doing crazy riffle shaking roll like water,
Speaker 2: making them roll like water. And this is another kind
Speaker 2: of spiritual successor to that. And there's tons of content
Speaker 2: out there if you want to check it out. So
Speaker 2: that's it for Yo Yo's man, So don't get out
Speaker 2: there and try yourself for Yoyo dope schmo Yo.
Speaker 1: Wonderful title, wonderful story. This makes me want to grab
Speaker 1: yo yo myself. We can't wait to hear your stories. No,
Speaker 1: we're probably going to get some feedback on this one
Speaker 1: from people who send us cool clips of them doing
Speaker 1: yo yo tricks. Big thanks to our super producer, mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Big thanks to our research associate for this episode,
Speaker 1: none other than mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you kindly, Ben, Thanks to Alex Williams who
Speaker 2: composed our theme, Christopher Rosiotis and Eve's Jeff Coates here
Speaker 2: in spirit.
Speaker 1: And thanks to our heist colleagues Ridiculous Crime. If you
Speaker 1: dig us, you'll love them. Big thanks of course to
Speaker 1: aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance and Polite.
Speaker 1: How do you do? To Jonathan Strickland to aka the Quist?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Fine? How do you do? Indeed, do you sir. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.