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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that takes a spin through history one day at

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Speaker 1: a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at

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Speaker 1: how an ancient piece of exercise equipment became one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest toy crazes in modern history. The day was

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Speaker 1: March fifth, nineteen sixty three. The Whamo Toy Company received

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Speaker 1: a patent for the Hula hoop. It was awarded to

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Speaker 1: the company co founder Arthur Mellon, though neither he nor

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Speaker 1: his partner Richard Ner can truly be said to have

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Speaker 1: invented the now iconic toy. That's because people have been

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Speaker 1: twirling thin, lightweight hoops around their bodies for fun and

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Speaker 1: exercise for thousands of years. Some of the earliest evidence

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Speaker 1: of the practice dates back to around three thousand BC,

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Speaker 1: when Egyptians began twisting curved reeds and grass stems into circle,

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Speaker 1: which they would then swing around their waists to stay fit.

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Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks made their version out of woven grapevines.

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Speaker 1: In the early Romans formed theirs from strips of scrap metal.

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Speaker 1: By the fourteenth century, home made hoops had started popping

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Speaker 1: up in Great Britain as well, where they were not

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Speaker 1: only swung around the hips, but also rolled along the

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Speaker 1: ground propelled by sticks. The hooping craze raised concerns among

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Speaker 1: British doctors, some of whom blamed the toy for everything

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Speaker 1: from back pain to heart attacks, but the warnings did

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Speaker 1: little to slow the hoop spread, and over the next

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Speaker 1: few hundred years, countries all over Europe and beyond began

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Speaker 1: putting their own spin on the rhythmic hip rocking hoops.

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Speaker 1: As for the name hula hoop, it's believed to have

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Speaker 1: been coined in the eighteenth century when British sailors visited

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Speaker 1: the Hawaiian Islands and observed the traditional hula dance for

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Speaker 1: the first time. They noted the similarity between the dance

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Speaker 1: movements and the hip gyrations required for hooping, and the

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Speaker 1: new name slowly caught on from there. Despite the long

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Speaker 1: history and international recognition of hoop toys, no company had

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Speaker 1: ever thought to mass produce and market the item. It

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Speaker 1: existed almost exclusively as a home made novelty or a

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Speaker 1: small scale regional product. That finally changed in nineteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: when the founders of California based company Whammo, were introduced

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Speaker 1: to the hoop by a friend he had just returned

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Speaker 1: from vacationing in Australia, where he had seen school children

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Speaker 1: using bamboo hoops to exercise in gym class. At the time,

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Speaker 1: Whammo had an open door policy, meaning that anyone could

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Speaker 1: suggest a toy idea, and if it was good, the

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Speaker 1: company would license it and pay a royalty to the

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Speaker 1: person who had pitched it. Whammo's founders, Nur and Melon,

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Speaker 1: saw the potential of the hoop right away, but they

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Speaker 1: also recognized that it wasn't exactly an original idea. That

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Speaker 1: meant that securing a patent would be tricky, so for

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Speaker 1: the time being, they focused on securing a trademark and

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Speaker 1: bringing the toy to market as quickly as possible. Over

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Speaker 1: the next few months, they figured out how to mass

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Speaker 1: produce lightweight hollow hoops using Marlex, a new kind of

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Speaker 1: plastic developed by Phillips Petroleum. Then, after a bit of brainstorming,

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Speaker 1: the toymakers made the same connection to the famous Hawaiian

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Speaker 1: dance as British sailors and decided to call the product

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Speaker 1: the Hula hoop. The name was a smart choice for

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Speaker 1: several reasons. First, it capitalized on the era's Polynesian pop trend,

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Speaker 1: the same one that it popularized tiki bars. And second,

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Speaker 1: it was easy and fun to say, giving it all

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Speaker 1: the markings of a strong brand name. For example, the

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Speaker 1: word hula follows a consonant vowel consonant pattern, which gives

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Speaker 1: it a soft, pleasant sound, and since that's also the

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Speaker 1: easiest kind of letter company to pronounce, words that use

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Speaker 1: it are often the first ones that infants learn to say,

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Speaker 1: no matter which language they speak. With the Hula Hoop

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Speaker 1: trademark secured and their patent request pending, Nurr and Melon

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Speaker 1: started marketing the toy in the spring of nineteen fifty eight.

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Speaker 1: Aside from its catchy, illiterative name, the Hula Hoop also

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Speaker 1: benefited from an elaborate and unorthodox advertising campaign. Whammo held

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Speaker 1: publicity events at California parks, playgrounds, and college campuses demonstrating

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Speaker 1: just how fun the new toy could be. They even

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Speaker 1: handed out free hoops to curious onlookers so that people

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Speaker 1: could show them off to their friends and convince them

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Speaker 1: to buy their own. The tactic worked like a charm

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Speaker 1: as the product was simple to understand, challenging to master,

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Speaker 1: and affordable to own at a price of just a

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Speaker 1: dollar ninety eight. As a result, Whammo sold an estimated

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Speaker 1: twenty five million hula hoops and the first four months alone,

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Speaker 1: and the company hit forty five million dollars in sales

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Speaker 1: by the end of the first year. Person to person

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Speaker 1: marketing played a huge role in that initial success, but

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Speaker 1: so too did the new medium of television. Plenty of

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Speaker 1: news reports and variety shows demonstrated the silly new trend

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Speaker 1: on air, driving sales through the roof and kicking off

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Speaker 1: would many consider to be the first modern fad. The

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Speaker 1: hula hoop whipped the entire country into a frenzy, causing

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Speaker 1: Whammo to race to keep up with demand. Kids may

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Speaker 1: have been the target audience, but plenty of adults took

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Speaker 1: the hoop for a spin as well. However, not everyone

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Speaker 1: was a fan of the hot new toy. In Japan,

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Speaker 1: officials outlawed hula hooping and public because they thought the

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Speaker 1: hip gyrations promoted impropriety, and in Russia the craze was

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Speaker 1: denounced altogether as an example of the empty consumerism of

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Speaker 1: post war American culture. The hoops detractors didn't have to

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Speaker 1: worry about the trend for very long, though. By the

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Speaker 1: fall that same year, sales had already dried up, and

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Speaker 1: it seemed like the hula craze was gone just as

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Speaker 1: quickly as it had come. That was bad news for Wammo,

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Speaker 1: as the company had produced a vast inventory of hoops,

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Speaker 1: expecting the trend to have longer legs than it did.

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Speaker 1: The unsold stock cut deep into the company's profits, so

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Speaker 1: much so that it ended nineteen fifty eight with losses

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Speaker 1: of ten thousand dollars. It would take years for Wamo

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Speaker 1: to sell through its surplus stock, and in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: competitors introduced their own hoops under different names. The flood

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Speaker 1: of knockoff slowed in nineteen sixty three when Wammo was

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Speaker 1: finally awarded the patent for the Hula hoop, but by

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Speaker 1: then the exclusive rights to the toy weren't nearly as

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Speaker 1: lucrative as they would have been when it first went

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Speaker 1: to market five years earlier. That said, there was still

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Speaker 1: a silver lining for Wammo. The Hula craze, while short lived,

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Speaker 1: had given the company a kind of national exposure that

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Speaker 1: it had never dreamed off as a regional toy maker.

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Speaker 1: To make the most of that newfound buzz, Whammo relaunched

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Speaker 1: one of its original toys, the Pluto Platter, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, rebranding it as the Frisbee. Going forward, the

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Speaker 1: company would produce a steady stream of wacky and beloved

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Speaker 1: novelty toys, including the super Ball, Silly String, the Slip

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Speaker 1: and Slide, and the Hacky Sack, all of which are

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Speaker 1: still going strong today. Of course, the Hulu is still

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Speaker 1: around as well, twirling around the wastes of hoopers young

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Speaker 1: and old, just as it has been for thousands of

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Speaker 1: years and count. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now

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Speaker 1: know a little more about toy history today than you

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Speaker 1: did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with the show,

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Speaker 1: consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can

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Speaker 1: find us at TDI HC Show. You can also rate

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Speaker 1: and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or you can

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Speaker 1: get in touch directly by writing to this Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history class