WEBVTT - Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.960 Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:12.560 Works dot com. Hang, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.079 Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.400 over there. Uh, and this is Stuff you Should Know 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:24.080 the podcast. How's going It's fine, great. How's it going 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.920 with you? Good? Jerry's distracting me a little bit because 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.280 all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:34.080 her new hula fire dance routine. It's pretty dangerous. It's dangerous, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.280 but it's um it's interesting to see out of the 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:43.360 corner of one's eye. Performance art, performance hula art. Can 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.839 you hula hoop? I cannot, sir, I'm too self conscious 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.000 too to even try it. Yeah, it's it's a grown man, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.400 forty four year old man hula hooping. Plus when I 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.920 do it, like as I rotate my hips and make 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:03.320 the same ro tap my hips, Yeah, it makes the 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.720 sound of like almost congealed jello just slopping around in 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:08.960 the ball. You know what I mean. I don't want 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.000 to make that sound. Yeah, but um, I did see 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.760 at a the East Atlanta Strut Festivals, one of Atlanta's 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.760 many great neighborhood festivals. I believe the Strut to Me 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:21.880 is known for having the better music of most of 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:26.200 the festivals. And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played Space Knife, 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.160 not space Knife O. This one was I can't remember 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:31.640 the name of this band, but that band is no 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.160 longer now he's got a new band. Even that guy 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.080 is always coming up with new stuff. You could never 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.960 pay him down too good. You should check out Space 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.160 Knife though. People on the web you can find it. 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:42.959 It's good. It was in our TV show too. Yeah, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.000 that's his alter ego. But anyway, Freg's band was playing 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.560 and this I was pretty hula naive hoop naive at 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.200 this point. And a few years ago, and um, there 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:59.920 was this lady doing uh hula routine to his band 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.880 playing and I videoed it. It was so awesome. So 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:07.120 she was hoop dancing hoop dancing. Yeah, like the neck, 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.760 the arms, the legs, moving around with it like supremely 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.799 talented hooper. Yeah. If you go onto the web and 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.320 and type in hoop dancing, it's gonna bring up some 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.120 pretty impressive videos. Yeah, and it's quite a workout. I 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.359 could tell. We'll get to that. But just watching her 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.880 I got tired, and so I drank another beer and 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.880 just listen to music. Yeah, and pretended you were hula 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.239 hooping in your head. Yeah, you're like, I'm so good 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.120 at this in my head. But I was like, man, 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.240 that's a thing. Again. I had no idea, but it's 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.360 a big thing, ya, hula hooping. Yeah, but it's been 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.080 around for a while, Yes, it has. For example, Chuck, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.560 did you know, As Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.440 this article from Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yeah, and 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.640 he says that the hula hoop has been around in 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.160 some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions. Wow, 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.200 that's really saying something. That is saying something. So let's 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:05.639 get in the way back machine. Oh we're play back time. Yeah, 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.239 let's go back to one thousand b C. My friend, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.919 we're in Egypt and their little children, Egyptian children with 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.079 dried up grape vines they've made into hoops playing with them, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.400 and there's some Egyptian news like get off of my 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:25.640 patch of sand kids, Yeah, you know, instead of a lawn. Sure, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.079 I get it. That was good. That was all right. Um, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.280 so they there, they no doubt used them in similar 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.160 ways that we did today, But they what one thing 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.240 they did, which was a big sporting thing to do 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.800 for a long time, which I don't get personally. The 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.839 fun value that is is using a stick to push 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.440 a hula hoop to the road. I think the fun 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.080 and it is that the hula hoop as it's traveling 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.720 down the road, which does seem to be the oldest 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.360 use of the hoop as playtime activity, Right, it wants 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.360 to fall, it wants to follow over, right, So if 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.480 you can keep it um going, then there's probably a 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.640 tremendous amount of personal satisfaction that you can carry all 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.840 the way to bedtime with and maybe have good dreams 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.360 because of Yeah, I don't even see if you had 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.080 a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop, I don't 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:21.000 see how a stick like how you would even push it. Uh, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.240 you would want a stick with maybe um like a fork, No, 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.160 probably something like a stick with a big wad of 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.200 chewed bubble gum on it to like just have some 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.840 sort of point of contact. Because, as we'll see when 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.040 we talk about hula hoop physics, friction plays a big 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:42.080 part in making hula hoops. Hula hoop, Yes, around the 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.560 waist that is well in any in this case as well, 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.880 and the stick makes contact with the hoop, you're using 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.680 friction to push it along. Good point. So I see 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:51.479 your point. Like, if you're going to use a stick 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.640 on a like a plastic hula, who it's gonna slide 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.479 off or it's gonna want to Maybe it scares me. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.560 That's why I think it's dumb. Maybe I would be 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.560 made a love by the hoop maybe at first, but chuck, 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:05.560 you would have to hang in there and stick with it, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.719 and um, pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:14.679 Egyptian kid. Yeah, like an ancient Egyptian child. Hoop rolling 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.240 was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well and Rome. Um, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.000 they decorated them with bells and things and toys. Uh, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:28.480 fifth century BC. There's you ever heard of ganny Mede? Ganymede. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:33.560 He was a handsome hero, Oh he was. He supposedly 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.160 there's an old fifth century BC urn of him, um 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.760 where he's holding a rooster that was apparently a gift 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.080 from Zeus and a whop hula whop, clearly hula hoop 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.800 and apparently this discovery Um, I'm not sure why it's 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:54.040 called the Berlin Painter urn, but it is again no idea. 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:59.040 But um apparently they said, well, I wonder if hoops 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.960 played a role in the earliest Olympics. And I guess 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.400 they've discredited that idea now, but for a while because 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.920 of this urn, this picture of ganey Mead with a 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.760 hoop um, they wondered, was it a sport? Yeah, an 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.839 Olympic sport. But the Greeks supposedly did use hoops for 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.240 physical fitness as like a physical activity, in very much 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.240 the same way it's become popular today. I would imagine 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.760 a hulah an Olympic hula hooper would be sort of 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.200 like the you know, the what was the sport the 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:34.080 curler of today? Are you kind of like an ancient Greece, Like, hey, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.200 what do you throw the hammer? What do you do? 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.200 I'm a hula hooper, although I would guess would probably 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.080 be more akin to the hula hoopers of today. Yeah, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.320 the hooper roller is what the sport would have been. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.640 That would be more like curling, right, hula hooping. That's tough, man, 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.800 it is tough. Uh. What else? The ancient Briton's um 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.920 they had a game called a battle game called kill 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.080 the Hoop. Yeah, I like this one when they would 0:06:58.120 --> 0:06:59.799 roll the hoop and throw try to throw a spear 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:04.640 through it. Pretty neat and dangerous. Uh. And apparently they 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.680 also used it and the hula method and it would 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.720 people get injured. Yeah, it's there was a fifteen or 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.880 fifteenth century those are the four hundreds of the fourteenth 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:23.560 century century hula hoop craze in Britain in that bizarre 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.800 that is weird, and yeah, people were getting injured. There 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.200 was a proclamation by the early physicians. They would pull 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.880 up there like crows, mask their plague mass just long 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.160 enough to be like stay away from hula hoops, steer 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.120 clear of those things. Yeah, the warning was hoops kill 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.600 was I guess what was posted on the church door. 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.000 And this is like in addition to being in the 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.040 way of a spear that was being thrown at a 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.280 rolling hoop, like this is just from hula hooping. I 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.160 would stay away from the hoops altogether if I was 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.720 an ancient Briton. Yeah, because really, if you're like an 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.720 ancient Briton, you're going from like zero to sixty as 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.280 far as like physical fitness goes. Once you're hula hooping. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.000 Oh yeah, you know, just because you're not just sitting 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:11.960 around eating uh like lamb's brains, Yeah, drinking meat? Uh 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.640 what else? The Native Americans UM have a long culture 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.160 of using the hoop um in New Mexico, the taos 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.800 Uh Pueblo people, UM, they used them in ritual dances, 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.920 private healing ceremonies. And did you look up this chunky thing? No, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.000 did you find the chunky reference? I did. The kaho 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.240 Kean Native Americans. That was an unusual way to pronounced that. 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.360 How would you say it kaho Kean? I think in 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:49.240 Native American would be kaho Kean. That's fine. Uh. Near St. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.199 Louis apparently is where they played this game Chunky, which 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:53.839 I just had to look it up because a game 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:58.000 called Chunky with an E y and um. From what 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.880 I saw, it was more of a small stone disc 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.200 than like a hula hoop looking thing, and you would 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.040 it was like kill the hoop though in Britain, right, Yeah, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.040 they would throw a stick apparently it looked like a 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:17.079 combination of like um bocci and and kill the hoop. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:18.839 Weird because I think they would try and throw the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.120 spear where the disc would eventually land and the closest 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:26.360 to the disc one. That's like they're predicting where the 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.280 where the hoop would fall. I guess this makes sense, 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:35.040 although that's not really like Bocci at all. I mean, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:40.600 I get there's a proximity element that's boc s y Um, 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.520 but I don't know. I don't know. Like once I 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.439 saw that and saw pictures, I was like, I don't 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.560 even know if they should be in this article because 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.040 it's like a small doughnut that's a hoop of sorts. 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.640 I guess. So it's a stretch if he asked me. 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.440 But it was a big spectator sport, like fifty acre 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.480 stadiums of people would watch this would go to the 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.800 chunky games and so so there was chunky matches in 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.680 Koho kia Uh, and the pueblo used there. I think, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.120 as you said, they used hoops, and they weren't the 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.920 only ones. UM. There are other tribes from all over 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.640 North America and meso America. I believe UM that used 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:23.640 hoops for dancing. And apparently it was in nine thirty 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.320 a guy named Tony white Cloud, who was a Yemez 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.640 pueblo down in New Mexico. UM did like a hoop 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.560 dance in public and basically brought it back like it 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.600 had been virtually lost to the ages, at least as 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.840 far as uh the average American was concerned. Most people 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.520 didn't know this was the thing. Luckily, Tony white Clouds 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.440 like check this out did an awesome hoop dance, and 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:53.440 then by there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico. Um, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.679 and they're a big deal still to this day. Yeah, 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:02.120 of course, I think did he kick off the America crazy? No, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.800 he didn't. He was strictly native American hoop dancing, not 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.439 hula hooping. Okay, so let's go to well, let's take 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.199 a break actually, because this is this is the big 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:39.440 revelation here. That's right, all right, Josh, We're at that 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:45.760 point where mainstream America goes hoop crazy. But to get 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.840 to that point, we actually have to go backward again 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.000 in time for a second, back in the way back machine. 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.760 So let's go it running. Let's go to I don't know, Feediar, Tahiti, 0:11:54.840 --> 0:12:03.640 year Poesia. Yeah, and it's the eighteenth century. See all 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:08.040 these British sailors drink some rum, oh man, Okay, yeah, 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.760 in addition to the realm we've already drank today. Uh. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.199 So the British sailors that you see here, um, are 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.480 noticing a hula dance, right, and they're filing it away 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.559 in their mental catalog. And uh now when they reach 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.520 Britton again, why have we been saying it like that? 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.959 I don't know. Uh, they notice that it bears a 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.760 striking resemblance to what people do with the hula hoop. 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.760 You gyrate every time you'd say that, by the way, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.240 you can't can't not do it. So the term hula 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.600 became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.520 hips to gyrate to rotate them. When you rotate your 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:54.000 hips with the hoop. Uh, these British sailors ended up 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.160 applying the word hula to it, and it's stuck. That's 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.079 where it came from, was Polynesia, even though they was 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.640 no hoop involved in Polynesia. Correct, Yes, they just kind 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:09.480 of ganked that word. You think their own purposes is 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.000 all over again? That was a big nineties sternm wouldn't it. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:20.800 Let's go watch some X files. Um, what's actually yeah, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.520 the movies coming out soon night. Oh yeah, they're doing 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.480 another one, aren't they that thing will never die. I 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.440 don't think it should keep doing movies, That's what I say. Um. 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:34.200 So we mentioned that the Greeks I believe used it 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.760 for physical fitness, right. Uh. I don't think we said that. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.360 I think I said it, okay, Um the uh, the 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.720 Swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.320 too in the nineteenth century. In early twentieth century, Yeah, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:55.320 someone named Emil Jacques uh dal Crose and that was great. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:01.200 That's tough. UM had a program called Rhythmics, which, of 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.240 course I started singing Sweet Dreams this morning because of that, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.319 and I've been singing it all day as a result. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.200 So that was a special training program. It was apparently 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.439 a big deal. It was a big deal. So Rhythmics 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.880 used hoops for UM basically physical fitness, but also interpretive dance, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.360 that kind of stuff. It was a combination of It 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.560 was like dance training is is what I can gather, 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.800 and it used hoops. The reason that we're mentioning this 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.640 when we're talking about the American crazes, that it directly 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:37.240 led to the American craze potentially because yourhythmics spread from 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:42.160 Switzerland to UM. Great Britain and it was brought in 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.360 as part of like pe class in Australia. And it 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:50.040 was in Australia that the founders of Whammo were inspired 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.840 to create the modern hula hoop that we think of 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.280 today boom. So it's possible they watched the rhythmics class 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.680 or heard about the rhythmics class and with Australian kids 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.880 and then said, well, this is a clearly something of 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.000 Australian design and let's bring it to the US and 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.480 started crazy. They said, sweet dreams were made of these. Yeah. Uh. 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:15.920 And this was Richard Ner and Arthur spud melon mel 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:22.840 malin melon sounds like m l o n like Thornton melon. Uh. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:27.880 Don't tease me with that movie The Great Back to School. 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.640 I saw a bit of that recently and and the 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:32.680 only thought through my head was like, man, why couldn't 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:34.960 I have caught this from the beginning? Yeah, because I 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.360 want to see it all that And man, his son 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:42.120 is pasty. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought you were 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.240 saying that was a line for the movie. It should 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.680 have been. Yeah, his son Keith Gordon, who became a 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.440 great movie director. H really Yeah, the guy from Christine 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.320 and Back to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he'd he gave 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.000 up acting and started directing movies and directed uh a 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:58.640 bunch of good movies. One called Waking the Dead. You 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.560 should see, I thought, Keith Gordon co starred, and they live. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:09.960 I don't know, maybe I'll have to check that. Uh 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.680 So where were we? Oh? Yes, the two founders um 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.800 of WAMMO. They said, you know what, let's take these 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.480 wooden hoops, let's make them out of polyethylene. Let's make 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.640 them and let's charge a dollar ninety eight for them 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.400 and make them all kinds of fun colors. Yeah, and boom, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:33.160 the hulahoop craze in night was born. Like it was 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.360 the definition of a flash in the pancrase, a lot 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.200 of money in a very short span of time, like 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:43.400 a summer. Basically pretty much in Ninemo released it and 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.120 by the end of nineteen fifty eight these things were 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:51.320 rotting in the warehouse. But in the meantime they sold globally, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.760 globally from the summer to the end of ninety eight 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:01.720 a hundred million. Who who Yeah, more than that, I think, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.280 dam my brain, Yeah, you forgot what we were talking about. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.800 I almost said, Frisbee, did we do one on the frisbee. No, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.720 I thought we had, but we haven't have we No, 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.320 we did one on the boomerang, right, just like a frisbee, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.320 but it's like a dangerous frisbee. Uh. So they sell 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.679 all these hula hoops. They make a ton of money, um, like, 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.560 you know, over fifty million dollars in a short span 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.760 of time, which I'm sure they weren't happy with that 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.399 that it didn't last, but they were also probably like 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.520 an injection of cash like that is great for any business. Yeah, 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.120 and then they moved on to the frisbee and made 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.760 even more money. Yeah. And they did not secure a 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:40.359 patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.840 long run. Well, they couldn't because it was so yeah, 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:47.280 demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it. Nope, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.440 but they trademarked it. They did. They trade marked the 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.080 name hula hoop in the United States, which is why, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.440 uh we still call it hula hoop today. I guess 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.640 it just became we should probably put the title with 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.480 a are in a certain goal for this. Oh, yeah, 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.560 we should do that, like Barbie. Uh. It was named 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.880 the number thirty five toy of all time UM by 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:12.240 Time magazine and they know toys toys, And then from 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.679 nineteen sixty eight to nineteen eighty one there were national 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:20.440 hula hoop contests held and the guess in the early 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.040 eighties people were finished with it. There were also like 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:28.200 a tremendous amount of um music, like musical singles released 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.720 called the hula hoop song. Different people recorded different songs 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.679 about hula hooping. Doesn't surprise me. Yeah, it was a 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.920 crazy big time And you say that they were done 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.800 with it by the eighties, not true. The national competitions 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.840 there was so if you look at hula hooping records, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.800 the most recent hula hoop records from two thousand nine, Well, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.240 but was that part of a national competition probably, or 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:56.520 just a guy named Aaron Hibbs he hula hooped, just 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:01.200 hula hooped for seventy four hours and fifty four minutes. Wow. 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.760 He broke the record of I didn't even stand up 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:05.920 for that long. He broke the record of a girl 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.720 named Kim kob rely um. She held the record twice, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.280 in nineteen with fifty four hours and in nineteen eighty 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:18.120 four for seventy two hours, which is pretty impressive. People 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.800 do like hundreds of them at once. Yeah, there's a 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.320 guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair who set the record 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.119 in two thousand nine with a hundred and thirty two 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.040 hoops at the same time. That's impressive. He's basically probably 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.639 just like like the Michelin man made of hula hoops. 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.639 Ever tell you about the Surface Area Man constant him 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:42.680 in Athens that was out on Halloween, um in Athens 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.800 in college and those the dude I know. The guy's 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:47.800 name is Blake. He has You may have seen him. 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.960 He had big red dreadlocks, kind of a short guy, 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.359 just a ubiquitous Athens dude. He lives kind of in 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.160 my neighborhood now. I still see him every once a while. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.479 We called him Sideshow Blake because of Sideshow Bob. And 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.640 he came in bar and the Georgia Bar, and he 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:08.600 had these foam disks around his arms, around his legs, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.760 around his waist and neck that were huge, like probably 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.320 four ft across, and he was Surface Area Man and 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.320 that was just his costume because when he moved around, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.240 he took up like, you know, probably seventy five square 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.800 feet in space and he would just move through the 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.040 bar and say, I'm surface area man, and I'll always 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:29.719 remember every time I see Blake. I saw him at 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.320 the grocery store the other day. Was he dressed like that? No, 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.320 but that was like surface He wouldn't fit down the 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.159 grocery aisle. Does he have dread still? Yeah? Does he 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.480 really still rocking the red dreads? He's dedicating? He looks 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.320 exactly the same. Actually, but we weren't friends. I could 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.159 actually like him. Actually, I'm gonna just walk by him 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.159 and go surface area man. I'm gonna do it. All right, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.560 Let's talk about the Hudsucker Proxy for a quick moment, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.120 and then we'll take another break. Did you ever see 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.840 that one? I don't think I made it through that one. 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.920 The Coen Brothers, Yeah, uh not. All of their movies 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.879 are great. I disagree. I love the Cohen Brothers, but 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:11.040 some of their movies stink. Oh boy that they're part 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.960 of my pcent club where every movie they've made it 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.880 has been great. That is wrong? Which other ones? Don't 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.680 you like? The Man who Wasn't There? Love it? Uh? 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:26.080 Bob Robertson, They didn't. That wasn't there? Well it was terrible? Okay? Uh? Well, 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.280 the Hudsucker Proxy too. I liked it. I would put 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.960 it at lesser Cohen's for sure, you would have to, 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.040 but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Tim Robbins and 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.600 Jennifer Jason Lee and Paul Newman u in a fictitious 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:43.080 tale of the invention of the hula hoop. Um. It 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.159 is not the true biopic of the invention of the 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.240 hula hoop, but they co opted it for one of 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.320 their movies and it was nothing pretty great. But that's 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:54.560 just me, okay, all right, go ahead, Well no, that 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.520 was it that I just want to shout it out. Fine, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.320 Uh well, then let's take a break because are about 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:05.080 to get into physics in hoop games. Yep. After this, 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.919 no Country for Old Man terrible. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.399 I love that's maybe the best. Raising Arizon is probably 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:40.800 the best that It'd be tough for me to pick 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:42.479 on any given day, but far Ago is the one 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:46.440 I can watch over and over. Yeah, I would say 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:48.160 this three year time for first. Did we just come 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.040 back from the break? Just sick? Going right back into 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:51.639 the car? I don't know. All right, let's do it. 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.040 We'll see how Jerry edits this. Um, so let's it 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.000 wouldn't be a Stuff You Should Know podcast if we 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:02.240 didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly unscientific. Well, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.960 hula hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.800 you know, super complex, super complex. There's just a few things. 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:10.920 We are not in agreement on stuff today, are we? 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:12.800 I don't know what's going on. So let's say you 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.040 have a hula hoop, right, and it's around your waist, 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:19.240 and you take it and you wrote you have it 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.400 up against maybe one hips making contact with your body. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:24.879 That you're starting in the traditional way, then sure, and 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.560 you whip it around to one side, and as you 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.919 do you start rotating your hips. Right, I'm rotating my 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:35.800 hips chests. Uh. And as you do that, when you 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.800 rotate your hips, what you're doing is, first of all, 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:41.960 you're conserving the angular momentum you gave the hula hoop 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.480 when you pushed it in a certain direction, twisted it 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:48.240 around yourself. Right, that's right. You are the axis you, Yes, 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:50.600 you are the excess to and when you move your 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.200 hips around you, when you when you rotate your hips, 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.160 you're applying what's called torque. Yeah, because all this hoop 0:23:57.160 --> 0:23:59.639 wants to do is fall down around on the ground 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:02.639 and you look foolish. It wants to stop. Well, no, 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:05.200 it doesn't want to stop because of inertia. It wants 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:08.240 to keep going, but it can't because of friction. But 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:10.320 it wants to fall down to the ground like you said, 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.440 and make you look foolish. But ironically, that same friction 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.240 is keeping it from doing that. Who was the fool? Now? 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:21.640