Speaker 1: Santa Talos is invincible, bronze bodies coursing I Corps and
Speaker 1: Christmas cheer. I saw three ships. He is here to
Speaker 1: hurl presents and goodies, and you are three ships as
Speaker 1: they come sailing on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, On
Speaker 1: Christmas Day in the morning, initiated Defense Vertical Ho Ho Ho.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. Can you know what we were doing right
Speaker 1: before we started recording? We were listening to the Smashing
Speaker 1: Pumpkins Christmas song. We were yeah, which wasn't bad I did.
Speaker 1: I didn't dislike it, No, I actually kind of love it.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious though, hearing Billy Corgan gushing breathlessly about how
Speaker 1: there are toys for everyone on Christmas Day, Uh, which
Speaker 1: is funny because like you can totally believe it, like
Speaker 1: you know, he's in I guess I wouldn't normally think
Speaker 1: of The Smashing Pumpkins as music for children, but like
Speaker 1: the the obsession, Like even as an adult, I can
Speaker 1: remember what it felt like to to believe that toys
Speaker 1: were incoming. Like how exciting that was that you would
Speaker 1: have new objects to play pretend with incoming presence hurtling
Speaker 1: towards your ship as they're thrown by the Bronze Age
Speaker 1: Automaton tell us, well, you know, I would say that
Speaker 1: even as an adult, I still know what it's like
Speaker 1: sometimes to want things. But there's nothing as an adult
Speaker 1: that I feel that is equivalent to the way that
Speaker 1: I wanted toys as a child. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I've I've spoken on the show before about how you know,
Speaker 1: you would want a toy so badly they would dream
Speaker 1: about it and see it in your bed with you
Speaker 1: when you woke up in the morning. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a different realm of of of wants
Speaker 1: and needs when you're that age. But toys are fascinating,
Speaker 1: you know, they've they've been with us since very ancient times.
Speaker 1: We have evidence of you know, toys dating back to
Speaker 1: so you know, have things like the wonderful horse toys
Speaker 1: of ancient Egypt. Uh. And they speak to the timeless
Speaker 1: nature of play and the use of physical objects in
Speaker 1: our play, and not only in our play, also in
Speaker 1: our instruction. But they also fit very much into uh,
Speaker 1: into the archaeological picture of ancient technology. The earliest physical
Speaker 1: evidence of wheels I think in the Western hemisphere, definitely
Speaker 1: in the America's is wheeled toys like you know, like
Speaker 1: little statuettes of of horses and stuff found in ancient
Speaker 1: Mesoamerica and South America. I believe that have wheels for
Speaker 1: moving around on yeah, and then you know, also they
Speaker 1: have often have dual purposes as well. I was when
Speaker 1: I was in Hawaii most recently, I went to a
Speaker 1: few different museums that were devoted to you know, you know,
Speaker 1: oceanic technology and oceanic culture, and they pointed out that
Speaker 1: model ships were essential to ship builders. You know, they
Speaker 1: showed in miniature what the larger product would be and
Speaker 1: helped you instruct others in how to build it. And
Speaker 1: in the reverses, you've also kind of made a wonderful
Speaker 1: toy in the process. But also I think toys are
Speaker 1: we shouldn't think of them as frivolous as far as
Speaker 1: inventions go, because play is not frivolous. The play that
Speaker 1: children do shapes the I mean, it's like the most
Speaker 1: important part of a child's education, I think, far more
Speaker 1: even than the technical subjects they learn as they grow up.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to be able to explore the
Speaker 1: physical world and manipulate things. Uh, And and toys are
Speaker 1: an important part of that. Yeah. In some cases toys
Speaker 1: are are actually training you know, young bodies and young
Speaker 1: minds for the manipulation of important tools. You know. Other times,
Speaker 1: especially in modern age, they can be more specifically educational.
Speaker 1: Though generally when you look at the history of toys,
Speaker 1: that is is kind of like the history of how
Speaker 1: we think about children, right. The idea that this is
Speaker 1: a time to educate them when toys is more or
Speaker 1: less uh, you know, a modern uh discovery if you will.
Speaker 1: But but also you know, there are always to think
Speaker 1: about toys, such as you know, thinking about them as products.
Speaker 1: I was reading an article by Edward a Newmark titled
Speaker 1: British Toys, which is just all about British toys. But
Speaker 1: he points out that you know, these are unique as
Speaker 1: items created for sale. Most toys are aimed at an
Speaker 1: individual who will not be a repeat customer, not until
Speaker 1: some twenty years later when they perhaps buy the same
Speaker 1: toy again for their own children. Most toys have an
Speaker 1: active life of a mere you know, a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and the test of a great toy is whether it
Speaker 1: will still be on the market a decade after its release.
Speaker 1: And so many toys pass into history only to to
Speaker 1: only possibly be resurrected twenty years light or on an
Speaker 1: updraft collective nostalgia. And yet other toys have become true
Speaker 1: classics and stand the test of time. They are the
Speaker 1: sort of iconic toys that you'll see Santa Claus bringing
Speaker 1: to children in um, you know, in cartoons and whatnot.
Speaker 1: The kind of toys that even modern Santa Claus fictions
Speaker 1: will will show Santa Claus making in his workshop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally this year, in twenty nineteen, Santa will not be
Speaker 1: bringing children POGs mostly, and will not be bringing children
Speaker 1: tickle me elmos unless there's some strange revival. But lots
Speaker 1: of kids all over the place are probably gonna be
Speaker 1: getting toy trucks and dolls and blocks. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are certain toy forms that stand the test of time. Yea,
Speaker 1: the sort of generic classic toys that that still show
Speaker 1: up under under the Christmas tree. There're still part of
Speaker 1: our our lives. Um see how we've touched on some
Speaker 1: of the roles that toys play, you know, they you know,
Speaker 1: we sometimes they educate. Sometimes it's a it's about tool use.
Speaker 1: Other times there you just see toys emerged sort of
Speaker 1: peeling off from technological advancements of the day, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and others are examples of specific designs intended
Speaker 1: to teach. So history is full of philosophical toys, educational toys,
Speaker 1: sports toys, war toys, adult toys, pointless toys, and more. Right,
Speaker 1: and for that reason, we thought it might be fun
Speaker 1: to do a couple of episodes here where we just
Speaker 1: look at a series of different toys throughout history, where
Speaker 1: they came from and what made them so popular. Right,
Speaker 1: And this will be great because these are inventions. These uh,
Speaker 1: these are things that people created and they're part of
Speaker 1: our our technico history, but they're not necessarily items that
Speaker 1: benefit from an entire episode's treatment. So let's let's throw
Speaker 1: open uh Santa Talos's bag and see what kind of
Speaker 1: toys we have to discuss here today. All right, First,
Speaker 1: it looks like we've got before some kind of strange
Speaker 1: lament configuration of box, except it's got a handle you
Speaker 1: can crank. Ye, I don't know what what is this year?
Speaker 1: It's a delightful little clockwork box. And and if I
Speaker 1: open it it has such sights to show me. It is,
Speaker 1: of course the Jack in the Box a classic toy. Again,
Speaker 1: this is one of those that you see in Santa
Speaker 1: Claus cartoons. You see Santa Claus making an old timey
Speaker 1: Santa Claus movies, and and indeed it still shows up
Speaker 1: under the tree, sometimes with a franchise character jumping out
Speaker 1: of it instead of kind of a generic old timey clown. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how does the Jack in the Box work for
Speaker 1: those those youngsters who have never actually held one. Well,
Speaker 1: one winds a crank on the side of the box
Speaker 1: to power a music box inside, generally playing something like
Speaker 1: pop goes the Weasel, you know something that's do and
Speaker 1: it means the faster you crank at, the faster the
Speaker 1: song goes. That's still under copyright. Are we gonna get
Speaker 1: in trouble? Uh? Actually, that's fair, you see even if
Speaker 1: it were. But at any rate, um, eventually it's going
Speaker 1: to trigger the box to pop open, generally at the
Speaker 1: end of the song. And when it pops open, a
Speaker 1: coiled spring is going to launch a clown puppet into action.
Speaker 1: And generally it is the equivalent of a small hand puppet,
Speaker 1: very much in the style of Punch and Judy, uh,
Speaker 1: the the old timey puppets. They have different names in
Speaker 1: different languages, but this would be the street puppet show
Speaker 1: to amuse children and adults, where Punch and Judy kind
Speaker 1: of just beat the crap out of each other and
Speaker 1: also encounter of various authority figures they encounter the devil. Um.
Speaker 1: It's often been compared like Punch is basically scratching aging
Speaker 1: Scratchy and pun. Punch is also kind of Homer Simpson.
Speaker 1: It's more violent Homer Simpson. Um, maybe it's more of
Speaker 1: a bender. I don't know. But but also in fact,
Speaker 1: I've read that Punch in a Box was a predecessor
Speaker 1: where you would actually just have Punch himself jump out
Speaker 1: of the box once you're done cranking it. This, according
Speaker 1: to Antonia Fraser, is a history of toys, but a
Speaker 1: history of to is by Fraser also stresses that the
Speaker 1: exact origins of the Jack in the box are unknown.
Speaker 1: Now I'm trying to think about categorizing this toy, like
Speaker 1: does it count as a toy? I mean, I guess it,
Speaker 1: I guess it must. But like how does one play
Speaker 1: with it? Right, Like, what is the act of playing?
Speaker 1: Once the thing is already popped out once and you
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen. Yeah, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: clockwork amusement, right, It's it's not necessarily something that I
Speaker 1: imagine factors into a lot of children's imagination play. It
Speaker 1: is kind of a spectacle that is unleashed, that is surprising,
Speaker 1: and it's also kind of a trick. Another toy item
Speaker 1: that that is very similar is, of course the canister
Speaker 1: of peanuts. That's what I was going to bring up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the spring snakes again, to go back to the Simpsons,
Speaker 1: the can of beer nuts, all beer nuts. But then
Speaker 1: of course you lift the lid and the snakes pop out,
Speaker 1: and it's still hilarious. I just watched an episode of
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert where he goes to New Zealand and he
Speaker 1: gives this to I think he gives it to Lord
Speaker 1: the Musician, telling her that it is an American tradition
Speaker 1: and she opens it and the snake scares her and
Speaker 1: it's delightful. Part of the joke being that there are
Speaker 1: no snakes in New Zealand. Oh, in New Zealand, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I've been thinking Australia and I was like, what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen The funnel web spider comes out. Now we'll
Speaker 1: get a little into possible origins here, but basically this
Speaker 1: is this has been with this for quite a while.
Speaker 1: Um and improve materials and technology made the toy a
Speaker 1: more widespread success in the eighteenth century, meaning that you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just going to be the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: something that would m please very wealthy children. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like this, this clockwork philosophical toy that the children would
Speaker 1: get to look at occasionally. But it does seem to
Speaker 1: emerge from this world of of of clockwork ingenuity. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we talked about this in our episode on the
Speaker 1: Canard de Gierra Tour The Pooping Duck um or the
Speaker 1: digesting Duck. I guess we put a lot of emphasis
Speaker 1: on the poop for some reason. But yeah, it was
Speaker 1: this era where there were people who were becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: good at mechanical engineering and creating these clockwork devices that
Speaker 1: had complex inner workings and thus could generate complex outward
Speaker 1: behaviors based on things that were hidden. You know, you
Speaker 1: couldn't see what was going on inside, but it was
Speaker 1: doing complex stuff. And this was part of a history
Speaker 1: of philosophical debate about whether, in fact living things were
Speaker 1: somehow like this, we're living things somehow machines in which
Speaker 1: all the individual parts could be identified and stuff, or
Speaker 1: were there sort of indivisible and ineffable elements that made
Speaker 1: actual life forms in nature different from the machines built
Speaker 1: by the clockmakers. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and part of
Speaker 1: this whole effort, this whole movement was was the the
Speaker 1: emergence of music boxes, which were tremendous uh success and
Speaker 1: uh and still are are very popular. Also self playing instruments,
Speaker 1: which we got into a little bit in our saxophone episode.
Speaker 1: There are part of this this whole world as well.
Speaker 1: But essentially you can also think of the jack in
Speaker 1: the box as a is a music box that packs
Speaker 1: some punch, sometimes literally. Uh. Now, in terms of where
Speaker 1: it this actual technology that like, like where the first
Speaker 1: jack in the box arises from, I've seen some i
Speaker 1: would say shaky sources attributing the invention to a German
Speaker 1: clockmaker of the sixteenth century named Klaus, just Klaus Klaus
Speaker 1: or Clause perhaps, which of course has leaved a little
Speaker 1: suspect because of Santa Claus. But I can't I cannot
Speaker 1: find a firm source on this. Perhaps it's out there,
Speaker 1: perhaps somebody can can bring it to my attention, but
Speaker 1: in my research I cannot find a firm source saying yeah,
Speaker 1: we think that a sixteenth century German clockmaker made the
Speaker 1: first Jack in the box. In fact, as previously mentioned,
Speaker 1: some sources state the origin is unknown. And I've noticed
Speaker 1: several toy history books that seemingly don't explore the history
Speaker 1: of the Jack in the Box at all. But in
Speaker 1: looking at Gary Martin's excellent phrase finder website, which which
Speaker 1: is is wonderful, I do recommend people check it out.
Speaker 1: He has an entry on the back in the Box.
Speaker 1: And I also was looking at a at a book
Speaker 1: titled Gothic Effigy by Saved Unwin Jones, and uh, and
Speaker 1: something becomes increasingly clear. The toy seems to have been
Speaker 1: named after some turn of phrase that pre existed it.
Speaker 1: So jack in the box you might have what called
Speaker 1: somebody a jack in the box before there was a
Speaker 1: Jack in the box toy exactly. Martin points to usages
Speaker 1: of the phrase jack in the box and sometimes lack
Speaker 1: in the box from the sixteenth century. That suggests that
Speaker 1: Jack in the box or lack in the box was
Speaker 1: sort of like pig in the poke. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with that, pig in the poke means like
Speaker 1: a pig in a bag, and the idea is don't
Speaker 1: buy a pig in the bag. You know, don't buy
Speaker 1: a pig site unseen, because you don't know what you'll get,
Speaker 1: something might be wrong with it. Yeah, this seems to
Speaker 1: have negative implications for the Jack in the Box restaurant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they really did, you know, like
Speaker 1: a full history. They just thought about the pleasant surprise,
Speaker 1: I guess the box. But yeah, so the ideas that
Speaker 1: Jack in the box would would mean, you know, something
Speaker 1: unpleasant that was purchased site unseen, or indeed, it might
Speaker 1: mean the swindler who sells boxes they either don't contain
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to contain or contain nothing at all.
Speaker 1: And that seems to play pretty well with the basic
Speaker 1: experience of the Jack in the box, right. The box
Speaker 1: contains a fright rather than any kind of material goods.
Speaker 1: It's and and again it's not even something you can
Speaker 1: play with inside. It's just a puppet that jumps out
Speaker 1: at you and startles you, and you know it is
Speaker 1: again not unlike its toy, Ken the snake in the
Speaker 1: canister of nuts. Now, by asking that question earlier though
Speaker 1: about whether it's a toy, I didn't mean to undermine
Speaker 1: its role. I guess I was just asking, like, what
Speaker 1: actually constitutes a toy. I think it's clear that these
Speaker 1: the Jack in the boxes as a toy or whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, are popular with children, have
Speaker 1: been for a long time, and they do even after
Speaker 1: they've been surprised once repeat the experience. There's something intellectually
Speaker 1: interesting going on there, developmentally interesting that they've already had
Speaker 1: it pop out once, they're not going to be surprised,
Speaker 1: but they'll still keep playing with it. They'll crank the
Speaker 1: handle again and like manipulate the speed of playback and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And let's face it, if you came into work one
Speaker 1: day and there was a Jack in the Box closed
Speaker 1: on your desk, what would you do. You'd have to
Speaker 1: crank it and see what pops out? Right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it does continue to have liked. Any anybody that's new
Speaker 1: to the Jack in the Box will have to invoke
Speaker 1: the experience and then they might invoke it again. Now,
Speaker 1: there is another potential origin story that sometimes makes the
Speaker 1: rounds um and that is the tale of a thirteenth
Speaker 1: century Norfolk Christian saint like figure, not an actual saint,
Speaker 1: but an individual by the name of Sir John Shorn,
Speaker 1: who is said to have captured the devil in a
Speaker 1: boot um and he was also said to be blessed
Speaker 1: in the healing of gout. And of course this is
Speaker 1: where it gets kind of complicated, right, because the um gout,
Speaker 1: of course, is an inflammatory arthritis that might well be
Speaker 1: described as a devil in the boot and has been illustrated,
Speaker 1: you know, various times through history as a monster or
Speaker 1: devil that choose on a person's foot. The idea that
Speaker 1: the gout can affect multiple parts of the body, but
Speaker 1: it often manifests in like somebody's big toe, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you could also get it in your elbow or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: And then of course there's like pseudo gout as well,
Speaker 1: which is which is different. But but classic gout has
Speaker 1: long been been with with humans and uh, and so
Speaker 1: that's kind of complicated because on one hand, he this
Speaker 1: particular individual was sometimes shown as having a boot with
Speaker 1: the devil peeking out of it. And so the argument
Speaker 1: is like, this is kind of the basis for the
Speaker 1: box that contains uh a what might have actually been
Speaker 1: a devil in some cases, but then becomes a clown
Speaker 1: or other figures as the you know, as it is
Speaker 1: adapted more for children. But I should point out that Martin,
Speaker 1: in looking at this, thinks that the historical historical connective
Speaker 1: tissue between Shorn and the Jack in the Box is
Speaker 1: pretty much non existent, so there's there's not a lot
Speaker 1: to actually go on there. But he he does point
Speaker 1: to a firework of the seventeen hundreds known as Lack
Speaker 1: in the Box. And uh, and this was mentioned in
Speaker 1: John Babington's Pyrotechnia, which was published in Sive And and
Speaker 1: this this, uh, this might well be be where the
Speaker 1: name comes from as well. So would this be a
Speaker 1: firework that pops out of a box in some way
Speaker 1: or at least is a it is a I get
Speaker 1: the the idea that maybe it had some sort of box,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was just the idea that it was
Speaker 1: a surprise that it it pops at all. And uh
Speaker 1: and therefore, you know, this could be something they got
Speaker 1: the name for this firework from the pre existing phrase,
Speaker 1: and then both of these helped to inform the naming
Speaker 1: of this strange box that has a puppet that jumps
Speaker 1: out of it, because again it is a shock and
Speaker 1: it is also literally a lack in the box, right,
Speaker 1: Jack in the box? Is a jack in the box
Speaker 1: supposed to be scary? Is it supposed to kind of
Speaker 1: startle the child? I think it is supposed to art
Speaker 1: all the child now and now is it scary as
Speaker 1: well as startling? I think that depends on what jumps out.
Speaker 1: Is it a clown which is delightful? Yes, clowns are delightable.
Speaker 1: Clowns are for children. It's only adults by and large
Speaker 1: who think the clowns are scary. But if it's a devil,
Speaker 1: then I think you could definitely make the argument that
Speaker 1: isn't it is intended to frighten the child or the
Speaker 1: or humorously frightened the adult that opens it. Now and
Speaker 1: looking at that book gothic effigy by Jones, Jones, however,
Speaker 1: contends that the devil is still present in the Jack
Speaker 1: in the box as quote horned jack bursting from his
Speaker 1: side of confinement unquote is the key idea toned down
Speaker 1: to a clown in the toy, and this would Their
Speaker 1: argument here is that this UH would have emerged from
Speaker 1: Gothic fascination with devils. Ornamental boxes UH, such as one
Speaker 1: that puts out was in Sheridan LeFanu's Wilder's hand In
Speaker 1: from eighteen sixty four, and he ties all of this
Speaker 1: in with the the ongoing influence of Gothic traditions on
Speaker 1: culture and children's costumes, toys, books, and more. Okay, so
Speaker 1: some intentional scary elements here or associate or at least yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the argument. But then again, those scary elements
Speaker 1: may have been removed to make it just merely startling
Speaker 1: to the child. But it is, I think, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: it is meant to be a startling toy. It is
Speaker 1: meant to be something you give to a small child
Speaker 1: and watch their faces. They are shocked, surprised, and then
Speaker 1: hopefully they will laugh because of course it was it
Speaker 1: was startling, But then there is no actual threat present.
Speaker 1: You know, my thinking has developed over the past few
Speaker 1: minutes when asking why is it that you see a
Speaker 1: child playing with the jack in the box repeatedly cranking
Speaker 1: it over and over and having the thing pop out
Speaker 1: even after they've already done it, you know, once or twice,
Speaker 1: they know what's going to happen. I wonder if these
Speaker 1: are sort of like experiments with object permanence, much the
Speaker 1: same way the game of he Kaboo plays a developmental
Speaker 1: role with children, like establishing that an object or a
Speaker 1: person can be hidden but will emerge again when the
Speaker 1: barrier division is removed. That's a good point. Another thing
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking about is that the second time you
Speaker 1: do it, especially, the child is probably more aware that
Speaker 1: they have control over when the startling moment occurs. They
Speaker 1: know it's going to occur at the end of that song,
Speaker 1: for instance, and there's probably something empowering there and realizing
Speaker 1: that they are the master of the fright they're about
Speaker 1: to receive exactly, and I would see that. I would
Speaker 1: say that really comes through in the way that you
Speaker 1: see children manipulate the speed of the crank when they
Speaker 1: do it, like they will often either speed way up
Speaker 1: or slow way down right towards the end of the song,
Speaker 1: as the song lets you know how much more time
Speaker 1: is left before the thing emerges, Like rushing towards the
Speaker 1: thrill and then maybe backing off a little bit. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. It makes me kind of want to pick
Speaker 1: up a Jack in the box. We don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think we have one in an household right now anyway,
Speaker 1: but I almost I want to find like a good
Speaker 1: one one with one with a devil inside, or a
Speaker 1: cramp us that would be nice, or a quartet of cinemabites.
Speaker 1: Sure no, surely somebody has made a lament configuration Jack
Speaker 1: in the box that would be That's perfect. It's so perfect,
Speaker 1: it has to have been done already. Right if you haven't,
Speaker 1: If that doesn't exist, whoever's got the right at c
Speaker 1: shop out there, you get on it. Yes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know there have been people have adapted Rubik's cubes into
Speaker 1: the limit configuration, but Jack in the Box is just
Speaker 1: a must have. All right, I think maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a quick break and the when we come back
Speaker 1: we can discuss the flying disc. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: What is this marvelous flying disc that that it now
Speaker 1: emerges from Santa Talos's sack? Well, of course it is
Speaker 1: to use the semi branded term the frisbee. Robert, were
Speaker 1: you a frisbee kid? When you were a kid, I
Speaker 1: mean we always had frisbees. You know, I never got
Speaker 1: into like frisbee golf or anything like that, but if
Speaker 1: a frisbee as a must have and still do today,
Speaker 1: Like we I threw frisbee or on a Robie maybe
Speaker 1: some variation on the frisbee design with my son, like
Speaker 1: literally just this weekend. So yeah, the I feel like
Speaker 1: the family the family tossing cliche is like the father
Speaker 1: and the son throwing the baseball right with the baseball gloves.
Speaker 1: I don't think that happens all that much except among
Speaker 1: like dedicated people who are actually into baseball. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: not into baseball, and I've done it because it's such
Speaker 1: a cliche. I'm like, you feel that your resistible tug
Speaker 1: off it, uh, and you and I and so we
Speaker 1: ended up getting the baseball glove the softball and we
Speaker 1: threw it back and forth, and I'm like, yes, I
Speaker 1: feel like a Norman Rockwell painting. This is great. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't. We've only done it, like, you know, two
Speaker 1: or three times, but I'm still it was it was
Speaker 1: neat to be a part of that Norman Rockwell experience.
Speaker 1: Well maybe my impression is mistaken, but I generally think
Speaker 1: that that you've got this cliche of people throwing the baseball,
Speaker 1: but what what is actually way more common is throwing
Speaker 1: the frisbee. The frisbee, in my opinion, is far more fun, yes,
Speaker 1: and less likely to break a window, though I remember
Speaker 1: from my childhood that somehow I always ended up getting
Speaker 1: hit in the mouth with a frisbee. But that's great
Speaker 1: that you're throwing a frisbee instead of a baseball. There
Speaker 1: because the frisbee is nice and lightweight and its modern
Speaker 1: plastic form. So the frisbee is a toy that has
Speaker 1: both ancient and uniquely twentieth century origins. As for the
Speaker 1: ancient origins, we know that humans have been throwing circular
Speaker 1: disc shaped objects for sport for thousands of years, at
Speaker 1: least at least as far back as the eighth century BC.
Speaker 1: For instance, we know that the discus throw was one
Speaker 1: of the five sports of the ancient Greek pentathlon, which
Speaker 1: consisted of a foot race, a javelin throw, a discus throw,
Speaker 1: a long jump, and finally wrestling. And I think training
Speaker 1: for this multi event competition held some association with military training.
Speaker 1: You can see how there would be some overlap with
Speaker 1: the skills on display there, but the discus competition seemed
Speaker 1: to involve athletes throwing a heavy, circular disc, not in
Speaker 1: the way we generally throw a frisbee today with a
Speaker 1: flick of the arm, but by flinging it through a
Speaker 1: whole body twisting or spinning motion where you would spin
Speaker 1: the body around or twist the body around, and then
Speaker 1: transfer the angular momentum of the spinning body into a
Speaker 1: throw when you release the disk, and so physically the
Speaker 1: discus throw sort of turns the body into a sling,
Speaker 1: you know, like the weapon traditionally associated with shepherds, where
Speaker 1: you would generally generate momentum and a rock or something
Speaker 1: by spinning it around in a circle. You do this
Speaker 1: with your whole body for the discus. There are mentions
Speaker 1: of disc throwing events in Homer's Iliad. Sometimes it's used
Speaker 1: as a measure of distance, so like you could just
Speaker 1: say that something was as far away as a young
Speaker 1: man can fling a discus. That's in there, which is
Speaker 1: a great unit of measure. Uh. There also appears to
Speaker 1: be a reference to some form of discus throwing as
Speaker 1: one of the funeral games after the death of Patroclus.
Speaker 1: It's a Patroclus burns on the funeral Pyre, and then
Speaker 1: they have games in his honor. Uh, And so I
Speaker 1: wanted to read this section. This is in the Samuel
Speaker 1: Butler translation, though in the translation I'm about to read
Speaker 1: from the thing being thrown is not called a frisbee
Speaker 1: or a discus. It's called a quoit, which can mean
Speaker 1: like a disc, but can also I think mean a
Speaker 1: ring rather than a solid disc. But anyway, the account
Speaker 1: goes like this. Then uprose the two mighty men, Polypoides
Speaker 1: and Leontius, with Ajax, son of Telemon, and noble Epius.
Speaker 1: They stood up one after another, and Epius took the quoit,
Speaker 1: whirled it, and flung it from him, which set all
Speaker 1: the Achaeans laughing after him, through Leontius of the race
Speaker 1: of mars A jax son of Teleman through third, and
Speaker 1: sent the quite beyond any mark that had been made yet.
Speaker 1: But when mighty Polypodies took the quoit, he hurled it
Speaker 1: as though it had been a stockman stick, which he
Speaker 1: sends flying among his cattle when he's driving them. So
Speaker 1: far did his throwout distance those of the others. Again,
Speaker 1: with point of comparison that it's not very helpful to me.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you do with the stockman stick,
Speaker 1: but apparently that means you could throw it really far.
Speaker 1: And then of course it shows up again in the
Speaker 1: works of Homer, like in the Odyssey, there's a section
Speaker 1: where Odysseus embarrasses some dudes, I think the Phaeacians, by
Speaker 1: throwing a huge discus farther than any of them can.
Speaker 1: Uh so. The discus throw is also depicted in a
Speaker 1: famous bronze sculpture from classical Grease, the disco Bolus, which
Speaker 1: just means disc thrower by the sculptor my Run of
Speaker 1: luther Ae and the The original work is lost, but
Speaker 1: there are a ton of copies from the Roman period,
Speaker 1: and it's the famous post. You've probably seen it depicted
Speaker 1: somewhere where the discus thrower is sort of leaned over
Speaker 1: with the body twisted with the arm out, and of
Speaker 1: course most people probably know. The discus throw is also
Speaker 1: part of the modern Olympic Games, and they use sort
Speaker 1: of a lens shaped disc of about two kilograms or
Speaker 1: about four point four pounds for the men's competition and
Speaker 1: a discus of about one kilogram or two point two
Speaker 1: pounds for the women's event. Know, when I was thinking
Speaker 1: about the Olympics, I started thinking like, well, what is
Speaker 1: it that makes the discus special as a thing to throw?
Speaker 1: Like there are other types of throwing competitions, I mean,
Speaker 1: just competitions of people seeing how far they could throw
Speaker 1: a rock or a javelin or something. Go way back
Speaker 1: into history, there's the shot put event where you're just
Speaker 1: throwing a heavy ball. What is it that makes the
Speaker 1: discus special as a thrown object? And it turns out
Speaker 1: that the discus actually does have a lot of very
Speaker 1: interesting unique properties that they're based on its shape. So
Speaker 1: to get into those from moment, I was reading an
Speaker 1: article by the North Carolina State Professor of Mechanical and
Speaker 1: Aerospace Engineering Larry Silverberg, talking about the physics of the
Speaker 1: Olympic discus throw event, and he mentions that a lot
Speaker 1: of the skill in the discus throw is actually controlling
Speaker 1: the release of the discus. You know, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not all in just like how hard you can whirl
Speaker 1: your body, how strong you are. It's very tightly controlling
Speaker 1: how the disc is oriented and what what happened is
Speaker 1: when it leaves your hand. And I would say the
Speaker 1: same thing is actually very true of throwing a frisbee.
Speaker 1: I don't know how experienced you are with trying to
Speaker 1: like aim a frisbee super carefully or get it to
Speaker 1: sail as far as possible, But like I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the skill actually comes down to what's happening
Speaker 1: right when you release it from your fingers. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I'm not one that is usually
Speaker 1: especially skilled at throwing things, but I feel like there
Speaker 1: is there's something about throwing, you know, a frisbee or
Speaker 1: frisbee like toy that feels very intuitive. You know. I again,
Speaker 1: I haven't played frisbee golf and try like that level
Speaker 1: of accuracy, but I find that when I throw a
Speaker 1: frisbee to someone, I have a much better ability to
Speaker 1: actually get it get it to them. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Well, yeah, I know exactly what you mean
Speaker 1: this intuitive property, which is funny because at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think, more so than like a javelin or a
Speaker 1: baseball or a shot put, the discuss is it's fickle.
Speaker 1: It's dependent on air and wind conditions. You know that
Speaker 1: they can be the discus or the frisbee can be
Speaker 1: unpredictable in how it travels in ways that these other
Speaker 1: objects are not, even though in some ways it feels
Speaker 1: very gentle and easy and intuitive to throw it somewhere, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you're just throwing the shock put or or
Speaker 1: a larger rock, you probably don't have to account for
Speaker 1: wind all that much. Yeah, I mean maybe a little bit,
Speaker 1: but not nearly to the extent that you would with
Speaker 1: a flat object like a discus or a frisbee. Uh.
Speaker 1: And silver Bird writes that it's really important to control
Speaker 1: the angle of release, like you want to get it
Speaker 1: at the perfect angle to make it travel the farthest.
Speaker 1: He identifies a range between thirty seven and forty two
Speaker 1: degrees as optimal. And just think about like trying to
Speaker 1: find tune the release of a discus while you're whirling
Speaker 1: your whole body around to get it to an like
Speaker 1: a slice of the angle that's small. And then of
Speaker 1: course you have to, as we were saying, account for wind,
Speaker 1: like if the head wind is blowing in your face,
Speaker 1: you want throw it probably flatter, which makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: because you don't want the headwinds blowing the like catching
Speaker 1: under it and blowing it back towards you. You want
Speaker 1: to maximize the angle at which it gets lift but
Speaker 1: doesn't get blown back in the opposite direction. I was
Speaker 1: also reading a good twelve article in re Reuters by
Speaker 1: Sharon Begley which summarizes some of the basic aerodynamics uh
Speaker 1: and some recent sports biomechanics research about the discus event.
Speaker 1: So a few key takeaways. Because of its shape, throwing
Speaker 1: a discus is different from throwing a round object like
Speaker 1: a baseball or throwing a javelin. A discus is at
Speaker 1: its core a wing. It's an aerofoil it as it travels,
Speaker 1: it stays aloft by generating lift, similar to how the
Speaker 1: wings of an airplane generate lift to keep the plane
Speaker 1: in the air. And like with airplane wings, the physical
Speaker 1: design of the discus matters. A flatter design with more
Speaker 1: surface area generates more lift. But once you've already picked
Speaker 1: out your discus, you know you can't like bring a
Speaker 1: huge different shape discus to the Olympic event. As you know,
Speaker 1: once you've got the physical dimensions of the discus lockdown,
Speaker 1: in order to generate maximum lift, you need to mess
Speaker 1: with a couple more main variables. One is that you
Speaker 1: want to maintain a high speed of the throw, and
Speaker 1: this is also the same way that an airplane needs
Speaker 1: horizontal speed to maintain lift via its wings. Right. If
Speaker 1: an airplane slows down, it will lose altitude, right because
Speaker 1: it can't generate as much lift under the wings. A
Speaker 1: discus needs to maintain horizontal speed to maintain that lift
Speaker 1: under its body as it slows down due to drag.
Speaker 1: As it travels through the air, the lift it generates
Speaker 1: will decrease and it will fall. But then also again
Speaker 1: what's super important is getting just the right angle. You
Speaker 1: want the front edge of the discus raised slightly higher
Speaker 1: than its back edge to generate the most lift, and
Speaker 1: you also want to keep the disc rotating, of course,
Speaker 1: to stabilize the angle. The faster the discus is spinning,
Speaker 1: the flatter and more stable its angle will stay. And
Speaker 1: you might think about why that be, But I bet
Speaker 1: a lot of people have done the physics experiment in
Speaker 1: like a high school physics class, where you hold a
Speaker 1: spinning bicycle wheel by a little handle on its hub,
Speaker 1: and then you try to rotate the wheel against its
Speaker 1: plane of against the plane on which it's spinning, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to twist your wrist or something. There's a huge
Speaker 1: amount of resistance it's like really hard to turn it
Speaker 1: because rapidly spinning objects resist changes to the plane of
Speaker 1: their rotation, like the angular momentum of the spinning wants
Speaker 1: to keep it flat. It's interesting to apply that to
Speaker 1: some of like the fictional spinning weapons you see sometimes
Speaker 1: utilized in films on things specifically One of the Three
Speaker 1: Storms and Big Trouble and Little China, as these spinning
Speaker 1: gadgets that are like spinning blades, and granted that's a
Speaker 1: blender hands. Yeah, granted that's a sorcerer, so you know,
Speaker 1: we can we can give them a little credit. But
Speaker 1: in reality, like that would be difficult to actually use
Speaker 1: a weapon like that, right because it's spinning. Oh yeah, yeah, Jine.
Speaker 1: If the spinning very fast, you would get some resistance
Speaker 1: to trying to move your hands around. Likewise, I think
Speaker 1: other examples here you can see a robot using one
Speaker 1: like Maximilian in the Black Hole. But again, high powered robot.
Speaker 1: We can cut it some swack, I guess. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so you want the right angle, you want high speed,
Speaker 1: you want rapid spinning to stabilize the angle. And also
Speaker 1: in this article, there's a counterintuitive finding that's conveyed by
Speaker 1: somebody named Mont Hubbard who's a director of the Sports
Speaker 1: Biomechanics Lab at the University of California, Davis. And basically
Speaker 1: what this person says is that you can actually get
Speaker 1: the farthest possible throw by throwing into a slight headwind.
Speaker 1: That seems you wouldn't think that, but this is because
Speaker 1: you can maximize the relative wind speed and generate more
Speaker 1: lift that way, which means more lift means it stays
Speaker 1: higher in the air longer and travels farther. Now it's
Speaker 1: clear that the Olympic discus is a competition instrument. It's
Speaker 1: made for solo distance throwing and of course made for
Speaker 1: humiliating your inferiors in ancient Caspotamia. So it's rather different
Speaker 1: from the frisbees or throwing discs that that kids toss
Speaker 1: around for fun. The East tendu in in the twentieth
Speaker 1: century to be made of plastic. They're much lighter. They're
Speaker 1: designed to glide softly and generate tons of lift for
Speaker 1: long distance travel with minimal throwing force. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be really strong or spin your whole body around
Speaker 1: and generate the angular momentum to throw a frisbee right
Speaker 1: and then it'll it'll generally bounce off of a window
Speaker 1: instead of going through it. That sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, as often happened hitting me in the mouth.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you can imagine getting hit in the
Speaker 1: mouth with a four and a half pound discus, that's
Speaker 1: not good. So where did the frisbee come from? This
Speaker 1: different variation on the model? Uh? For that, we need
Speaker 1: to meet a dude named Walter Frederick Morrison, known as Fred,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use as a few sources here. One,
Speaker 1: uh an obituary for for Morrison from twenty in the
Speaker 1: l A Times by Dennis McClellan, UM, an article I
Speaker 1: found in Time by Jennifer Latson, and also a summary
Speaker 1: of his life I found by somebody named Phil Kennedy
Speaker 1: who was a co author with Fred Morrison of an
Speaker 1: autobiographical account of the creation of the frisbee. But so.
Speaker 1: Fred Morrison was born in the town of Richfield, Utah,
Speaker 1: on January twenty third, nineteen twenty. At the age of eleven,
Speaker 1: his father, who was an optometrist, moved his practice and
Speaker 1: thus the whole family, to California. As an adult, Morrison
Speaker 1: worked as a carpenter and later as a building inspector
Speaker 1: in the l A area. But in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: when Fred Morrison was around the age of seventeen, he
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend Lucille, who would later become his wife,
Speaker 1: were at a Thanksgiving celebration at the house of Lucille's uncle.
Speaker 1: And at this party, guests just started throwing a popcorn
Speaker 1: can lid around, uh, tossing it to each other in
Speaker 1: the backyard, which somehow sounds like either a very awesome
Speaker 1: party or a horrible party, Like how do you end
Speaker 1: up that way? You're either having a really good time
Speaker 1: or things are going terribly just desperately searching for fun.
Speaker 1: Either way, it fits perfectly with the in the spirit
Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving. But but I I guess I'm imagining like
Speaker 1: one of those big tins of popcorn like we still
Speaker 1: have today, and you know, sometimes there's different flavors of popcorn.
Speaker 1: You pull the lid off of it, sucker, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a perfect frisbee. And apparently Fred and
Speaker 1: Lucille had so much fun they kept throwing the popcorn
Speaker 1: lit around for the following weeks. They played with it
Speaker 1: so much that it suffered a lot of wear and
Speaker 1: tear and eventually got some kind of sharp edges and
Speaker 1: became dangerous, so they retired the popcorn can lid. They
Speaker 1: stole a cake pan from Fred's mother's kitchen and started
Speaker 1: throwing that around instead, and it looks like this started
Speaker 1: a cake pan tossing tradition. About a year later, Fred
Speaker 1: and Lucille took the cake pan to the beach in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica, where they were just tossing it for fun.
Speaker 1: But apparently on this beach trip, somebody else thought that
Speaker 1: what they were doing looks like fun and came up
Speaker 1: to them and offered to pay a quarter for the
Speaker 1: cake pan so they could have it, take it and
Speaker 1: toss it with their friends. And Fred Morrison, i think,
Speaker 1: speaking to the Virginia Pilot said quote that got the
Speaker 1: wheels turning, because you could buy a cake pan for
Speaker 1: five cents, and if people on the beach were willing
Speaker 1: to pay a quarter for it, well, there was a
Speaker 1: business ding ding dang flipping the cake pans. So first
Speaker 1: they just straight up bought cheap cake pans from the
Speaker 1: store took him out to the beach to flip for
Speaker 1: a profit. So I guess there's really originally no value
Speaker 1: add here, right, except perhaps for the insight that it
Speaker 1: might be fun to throw a cake pan. Uh and
Speaker 1: maybe you know, that might not have occurred to people otherwise,
Speaker 1: so maybe there is an added value there. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean it's kind of like selling overpriced umbrellas on a
Speaker 1: rainy day for people who forgot their umbrella. It's it's
Speaker 1: very convenient, and yes you get to overcharge them, right
Speaker 1: or you know, selling bottles of water on a hot
Speaker 1: parking lot or something. You know, people just didn't think
Speaker 1: to bring their own. Uh So Fred and his father
Speaker 1: apparently considered designing a custom metal disc for throwing, but
Speaker 1: this never came to fruition and they kept selling cake
Speaker 1: pans at the beach until Fred Morrison went away to
Speaker 1: serve in the Army Air Corps or during the during
Speaker 1: World War Two in the European Theater, where he flew
Speaker 1: bomber missions over Italy. He was ultimately captured and held
Speaker 1: as a prisoner of war, and after being freed and
Speaker 1: returning home, Morrison came up with a design for a
Speaker 1: new kind of throwing disc, which he called the Whirlow Way.
Speaker 1: And I think this was named after some kind of
Speaker 1: racing horse. He was a fan of horses the whirlow way.
Speaker 1: That's what the Freeman used to overturn the rule of
Speaker 1: ar harconins the yeah yeah, the wording way. So I
Speaker 1: must assume Fred Morrison consumes some spice and saw over
Speaker 1: the sands of time. Yeah. But so, Over the next
Speaker 1: few years, together with a partner named Warren Franscioni, Morrison
Speaker 1: worked on a number of different designs and prototypes for
Speaker 1: disks made out of that most wonderful of twentieth century
Speaker 1: consumer materials, plastic. So now instead of metal discs, you've
Speaker 1: got plastic discs. And because of the sudden UFO craze
Speaker 1: that gripped America beginning in nineteen forty seven, they called
Speaker 1: their product the Flying Saucer. Apparently Morrison was a great salesman,
Speaker 1: and he would attract crowds during flying saucer demonstrations at
Speaker 1: fair grounds, like demonstrating how far the disc would glide
Speaker 1: with a gentle toss. Apparently they would make jokes about
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, how could it really travel
Speaker 1: so far? Are there hidden wires? Can you see the
Speaker 1: hidden wires? And they were able to sell some of
Speaker 1: the toys, but not enough to justify the business, and
Speaker 1: Morrison and Fransky only parted ways around nineteen fifty. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm realizing just how ingenious this product
Speaker 1: is now that I think about my own usages of
Speaker 1: the frisbee, because there are other products and other toys
Speaker 1: that are very much in line with that. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know those stats we gave earlier about you know, one
Speaker 1: to two years of play life and then it's shelved
Speaker 1: and then if you don't sell another one to that
Speaker 1: individual until they're grown up. But the frisbee can be
Speaker 1: used by children and adults alike. And even though frisbee
Speaker 1: is probably pretty durable, you can break a frisbee, and
Speaker 1: more to the point, you can land of frisbee in
Speaker 1: a place from which you cannot retrieve it. Yes, and
Speaker 1: then what do you have to do either way? You
Speaker 1: have to buy any frisbee? Right, Well, the the unpredictability
Speaker 1: of frisbee is the way they can get caught on
Speaker 1: a breeze or sail off into the neighbor's yard. That
Speaker 1: sort of makes you, yeah, it makes it more likely
Speaker 1: that you'll end up having to buy a new one,
Speaker 1: right And then, of course that's not even getting into
Speaker 1: the fact that you can print your company's logo on
Speaker 1: it and hand it out. So good. I just wonder
Speaker 1: how many like Dow Chemical Frisbees and Raytheon Frisbees are
Speaker 1: out there. But so around nineteen fifty four, Fred Morrison
Speaker 1: wanted to get back into the game. He was interested
Speaker 1: in giving the flying saucer another try, So the following
Speaker 1: year Morrison had a new model that he renamed the
Speaker 1: Pluto Platter, again going with the space theme. I think
Speaker 1: he was like, Pluto, that's the most recently discovered planet.
Speaker 1: Let's name the name the toy after it. Uh And
Speaker 1: you can see a patent for Morrison's model that you
Speaker 1: can actually look up from I think filed in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven, awarded in nineteen fifty eight. But it looks
Speaker 1: a lot like a frisbee you would see today. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a plastic disc with a lip that curves under.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen fifty seven Morrison struck gold because that
Speaker 1: was the year he sold the rights to the Pluto
Speaker 1: Platter to a toy company called Wammo. Wammo Inc. And
Speaker 1: Wammo from this point on took care of the manufacturing
Speaker 1: and sales. I think they also helped him secure his patent,
Speaker 1: and then Morrison collected royalties on his design. But of
Speaker 1: course we don't call these things pluto platters today, So
Speaker 1: so what happened already? In nineteen fifty seven, the toy
Speaker 1: had come to be known as a Frisbee, a name
Speaker 1: which Morrison apparently originally hated, but he warmed two over
Speaker 1: time as he collected his millions. Uh so where did
Speaker 1: the name come from? Well, it turns out Fred and
Speaker 1: Lucille were not the only kids throwing baking pans at
Speaker 1: each other. In eighteen seventy one, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a
Speaker 1: guy named William Frisbee spelled f r I s b
Speaker 1: i E, not b E open the Frisbee Pie comp Any,
Speaker 1: which amazingly sold pies, and apparently it was something of
Speaker 1: a local tradition for students at various East Coast universities
Speaker 1: like Yale, which is also in Connecticut, to throw Frisbee
Speaker 1: pie tins at each other and yell. Frisbee and the
Speaker 1: Wammo Company learned about this tradition and named their new
Speaker 1: acquisition after it. So that's where the name comes from.
Speaker 1: It's a pie company. Uh and uh. And once Frisbee
Speaker 1: the frisbee belonged to Wammo, it underwent some more design improvements. Crucially,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, a WAMMO employee named ed Headrick
Speaker 1: added a series of ridges or grooves on the surface
Speaker 1: that helped the thrower grip the plastic and also increase
Speaker 1: the weight of the rim to help the frisbee fly
Speaker 1: with greater stability. And this is actually a thing in
Speaker 1: the design of of discus or frisbee. If you distribute
Speaker 1: more of the weight to the outer edges, that helps
Speaker 1: it spin faster, have more angular momentum in spinning, which
Speaker 1: again is good for helping it maintain a stable angle.
Speaker 1: And that that Time article I mentioned earlier includes an
Speaker 1: amazing quote from an earlier Time article, one from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two about frisbee groupies of the period a k a. Frupies.
Speaker 1: And I've got no words for this. It goes quote.
Speaker 1: Dr stancl Johnson, a long haired Santa Monica psychiatrist who
Speaker 1: serves as Frisbee's official historian, has an apparently sober explanation
Speaker 1: for the discs popularity they are. He says, quote the
Speaker 1: perfect marriage between man's greatest tool his hand and his
Speaker 1: greatest dream to fly. That seems like he's kind of
Speaker 1: reaching a bit there. But then again, I don't know
Speaker 1: waxing poetic a little bit about the frisbee, but it's
Speaker 1: possible we could catch ourselves saying something like that. So,
Speaker 1: of course, now we know that frisbee is not just
Speaker 1: a toy to toss with your family and your friends.
Speaker 1: But there's all this, you know, frisbee sports of a
Speaker 1: million different kinds. There's ultimate frisbee. There's frisbee golf, which,
Speaker 1: uh that I admit that I've played these sports and
Speaker 1: actually kind of enjoyed them. And yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: frisbee golf looks fun. Is there frisbee sports stigma? I
Speaker 1: sent stigma? I don't know why. Um, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's just they're varying individuals who engage in frisbee golf,
Speaker 1: and some are undoubtedly going to be um, you know, miscreants, sure,
Speaker 1: just but others are going to be you know, fine
Speaker 1: frisbee enthusiasts. Well, I confess I've played frisbee golf and
Speaker 1: I liked it. All right, We're gonna take another break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will reach once more into
Speaker 1: the gift bag, all right, we're back. I'm gonna reach
Speaker 1: into the bag once more and Wammo, here's another one.
Speaker 1: This is a hula hoop. You mean the Wammo toy company. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're gonna factor into this invention as well. So
Speaker 1: this is a really fun toy to discuss. Actually wrote
Speaker 1: an entire how stuff Works article about this back in
Speaker 1: the day, how hula hoops work. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to blow through all the info in that article because
Speaker 1: in that I got to get into a lot of
Speaker 1: fun things like performance art with barbed wire hula hoops
Speaker 1: and so yeah, flaming hula hoops. The role of who
Speaker 1: it was it was it was really cool, and it
Speaker 1: was one of those where it was assigned to me
Speaker 1: and I kind of groaned a little at first, and
Speaker 1: then by the end of it in the but I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, hula hoops are amazing. It also
Speaker 1: gets into the physics far more than I'm not really
Speaker 1: gonna get into the physics here today, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: touch on the key history. So hoop toys themselves are
Speaker 1: quite ancient, uh, just lost in the midst of history.
Speaker 1: Because all you need are some dried vines uh, in
Speaker 1: the ability to sort of you know, loop them together
Speaker 1: and to make a loop. And as such, you know,
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians had hoop toys. Now I understand that
Speaker 1: a lot of the ancient hoop toys were used for
Speaker 1: for vertical rolling. Yes, yeah, and then granted we still
Speaker 1: do that today. One of my favorite things to do
Speaker 1: with the hula hoop is to do the trick. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know that it has a name
Speaker 1: where you take it and you fling it out vertically
Speaker 1: but in a way so that it will be rolling
Speaker 1: back to you. Yeah, you put backspin on it, tossed
Speaker 1: it with backspin and it rolls too. I love that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous trick. I feel like I'm I'm performing
Speaker 1: magic every time I do it, and I'm a little
Speaker 1: shocked that everyone around me isn't isn't commenting on how
Speaker 1: marvelous this trick is. But of course we all know it.
Speaker 1: We all we all know the trick. And then of
Speaker 1: course they're simply too. You know the act of rolling
Speaker 1: a hoop around, usually using a stick to propel it,
Speaker 1: which I often think is being kind of the kind
Speaker 1: of thing you would see in a film or a
Speaker 1: TV show like you would see Opie Taylor or Tom
Speaker 1: Sawyer doing this. Yeah, kind of just an old timey,
Speaker 1: simple toy, but something that would be fun to do.
Speaker 1: And so hoop rolling and hoop games were popular amid
Speaker 1: the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans. The hoop is
Speaker 1: also a potent as a physical symbol representing cyclical, yawnick
Speaker 1: and cosmic concepts. The hero Ganymede is often depicted with
Speaker 1: a hoop, and in North America, the Taos Peblo people
Speaker 1: of what is now New Mexico used hoops and sacred
Speaker 1: dances and rituals to represent, you know, the cilical nature
Speaker 1: of life. Various cultures, including the ancient British and the
Speaker 1: Cahokia people of the Mississippi River Valley. These are the
Speaker 1: mound builders who reached their peak in the thirteenth century
Speaker 1: and declined before the coming of Europeans. They engaged in
Speaker 1: what we often referred to as kill the hoop games.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a combination of two different throwing acts.
Speaker 1: Someone will roll a hoop and then someone will throw
Speaker 1: a spear or some other object, but often it's a
Speaker 1: spear through the hoop. So it's you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hit an artificial moving target with your weapon or thrown object.
Speaker 1: Kind of skei shooting. Yeah, yeah, kind of like an
Speaker 1: early version of ski at a skeat shooting. But most
Speaker 1: agree that in playing with hoops like this, the discovery
Speaker 1: of what we think of as as hula hooping was
Speaker 1: sure early experimented with. So if you have children, even
Speaker 1: ancient children, uh, in any of these cultures we've discussed
Speaker 1: messing around with hoops, killing the afternoon with a hoop,
Speaker 1: undoubtedly somebody is going to realize that you can put
Speaker 1: it on your arm and spin it around, you can
Speaker 1: put it on your neck and spin it around, and
Speaker 1: you can put it on your waist and spinning around.
Speaker 1: It's just how we we were curious creatures and in
Speaker 1: our tool use, we're going to get there. Uh, We're
Speaker 1: going to spin that hoop around our body at some point.
Speaker 1: And we also know that from just from military history,
Speaker 1: the concept of a hoop weapon in the form of
Speaker 1: the Chockram weapon of India, which we have an older
Speaker 1: episode of stuff to blow your mind about. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know this is something that is sometimes spun around a
Speaker 1: finger before launching. Kind of like a sharp roby toy,
Speaker 1: but used as a shock weapon on the front lines.
Speaker 1: And I believe it still remains a a ritual weapon,
Speaker 1: like a holy item for the sikhs Uh. You'll sometimes
Speaker 1: see it presented as such. But but that in that
Speaker 1: we see like the idea of spinning a hoop type
Speaker 1: item around your body was already known now. According to
Speaker 1: Charles Penalates extraordinary origins of everyday things, there was a
Speaker 1: medieval hoop craze, apparently during the fifteen hundreds, an Edwardian
Speaker 1: craze that resulted in the reports of dislocated backs and
Speaker 1: heart failure, and then hula itself for hula hoop, because
Speaker 1: again these were not called hula hoops. Hula enters the
Speaker 1: Western world in the seventeen hundreds with the knowledge of
Speaker 1: Polynesian cultures. Hoop dancing for fitness became a European craze
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds, in early nineteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: then in nineteen fifty eight Whammo enters. The picture gives
Speaker 1: us the hula hoop as created by Richard near an
Speaker 1: author Spud that Melon, who were said to have been
Speaker 1: inspired by tales of Australian children playing with bamboo hoops.
Speaker 1: But this one, of course, the Whamo hoop is a
Speaker 1: plastic hoop, and it cost uh I was reading something
Speaker 1: like a dollar ninety eight and in and it's sold
Speaker 1: something like twenty five million units in two months and
Speaker 1: by the end of fifty eight and made forty five
Speaker 1: million dollars. So it was a colossal hit for Wammo.
Speaker 1: But it was also a craze, so it did not
Speaker 1: last as long like the hula hoop. Sometimes the hula
Speaker 1: hoop and a human engage in a lifelong relationship. You
Speaker 1: know that you really get into it, you're performing hula
Speaker 1: hoop dances, etcetera. Other times, the hula hoop is something
Speaker 1: you play with a little bit and then it gets
Speaker 1: thrown in the garage and forgotten about. And and also,
Speaker 1: unlike the frisbee, uh, it's it's harder to destroy a
Speaker 1: hula hoop. You've really got to you've really got to
Speaker 1: try to destroy who. I don't have you ever destroyed
Speaker 1: a hula hoop? Not destroyed one. I'm just not sure.
Speaker 1: It's harder. Oh, you're you're much less likely to lose
Speaker 1: a hula hoop into a neighbor's yard or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I can't help but think that also attributed the
Speaker 1: fact that sales of the hula hoop really fell off.
Speaker 1: But luckily this was exactly the same time when WAMO
Speaker 1: moved on to the Frisbee. Uh so they really had
Speaker 1: a one to punch on inventions or reinventions that they
Speaker 1: could target towards the uh know, the toy hungry American consumer, right,
Speaker 1: making tens of millions off of just basic round objects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: recreate it, give it a fancy name, and market it.
Speaker 1: That's something we see time and time again. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when we do our next episode, which will be another
Speaker 1: reach into the toy bag, we'll see this again where
Speaker 1: something ancient and well known simply gets a new name
Speaker 1: and gets marketed a whole lot and it becomes this
Speaker 1: new invention. Um as for the hula hoop. Again, sometimes
Speaker 1: we forget about the hula hoop, but it has remained
Speaker 1: with us. You can still buy a hula hoop, but
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you are, there's a store around you
Speaker 1: where you can buy one, probably, and it even is
Speaker 1: as far as holidays go. It even factors into our
Speaker 1: Christmas songs. There's the which one is that horrible chip
Speaker 1: monk monk song? Uh? Me, I want a hula hoop? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to plan that loops the loop Me, I
Speaker 1: want a hula hoop. There you go, Classic toy. I
Speaker 1: would think a chipmunk is too small to use a
Speaker 1: hula hoop. Yeah, now we'd have We definitely would have
Speaker 1: to get into the physics of it, because a small
Speaker 1: hoop is going to be far more um energy intensive.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that a chipmunk. As much as
Speaker 1: I love chipmunks and squirrels, and I know our listeners do,
Speaker 1: to wait a minute now now that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: aren't the chipmunks in the Chipmunks not regular chipmunks size?
Speaker 1: They are more the size of human children that they
Speaker 1: are the size of human children, which is that's a
Speaker 1: grotesque blasphemy against nature. But still that might make them
Speaker 1: more able to use an actual hula hoop. All right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go ahead and call this episode here,
Speaker 1: but we will be back next week with more toys,
Speaker 1: generally like classic toys, I think, and we'll will explore
Speaker 1: their history where they came from. Do they have ancient roots,
Speaker 1: they have modern roots? Inevitably do they have both. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we'd obviously love to hear from anyone who
Speaker 1: has thoughts on these various toys. And also, are you
Speaker 1: a discus thrower? Have you experience with the sport of
Speaker 1: throwing a discus? Do you have thoughts on Joe's commentary
Speaker 1: on on on the physics of throwing the discus? What's
Speaker 1: your experience with those physics? We would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you, absolutely please share, all right, If you want
Speaker 1: to listen to more episodes of Invention, head on over
Speaker 1: to invention pot dot com. That's the uh, that's that's
Speaker 1: the I guess the homepage for the show. But of
Speaker 1: course you can find this podcast anywhere you get podcasts,
Speaker 1: wherever it is. Make sure you've subscribed that way you
Speaker 1: will definitely get part two of our toy exploration and
Speaker 1: leave us a nice rating if you have the power
Speaker 1: to do so, you know, whatever the page is, because
Speaker 1: that helps us out in the long run. Also, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out Stuff to Blow your Mind. That
Speaker 1: is our other podcast and uh and there's you know,
Speaker 1: years and years worth of great content there as well.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get into for
Speaker 1: us with feedback on this episode, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention is
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