Arthur Melin, 77, a Promoter of the Hula-Hoop, Is Dead By 1957, the company had sold several million of the disks.But nothing could compare to the whirlwind force of the Hula-Hoop, which Wham-O introduced the next year. Youd never see a company making both toys and weapons now. Knerr and his partner, Wham-O co-founder Arthur "Spud" Melin, specialized in fun, with the Hula Hoop, Slip 'N Slide, Silly String and Super Ball, entertaining countless Wham-O Bird Ornithopter (1959) sold in a large cardboard box, ready to fly. In the height of the Cold War, when families were building backyard bunkers to live in following nuclear attack, Wham-O marketed Do-It-Yourself Fallout Shelters for $119. Guest panelist John Payne identified the inventor and manufacture of the Hula Hoop. An estimated 25 million Hula-Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone. Melin, who had Alzheimers disease, died Friday in Newport Beach. With his business partner, Richard Rich Knerr, he successfully marketed the Frisbee, as well as several other joyful additions to human silliness, such as the Hula Hoop, the Slip N Slide and Silly Putty. "We didn't want it used as a toy, we wanted it to be a sport," Melin said in a 1998 interview with the Pasadena Star-News. Arthur Melin, the co-founder of Wham-O, which introduced fads like the Hula-Hoop and lasting diversions like the Frisbee, died on Friday at a care center in Costa Mesa, Calif. ). Air Blaster (1965), which shot a puff of air that could blow out a candle at 20 feet. Then, in 1958, Wham-O toy company founders Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin saw the potential in the humble hoop and began to mass-market a 40-in. [6][7] 25 million were sold in four months, and in two years sales reached more than 100 million. Overview. Verify and try again. Knerr, Walsh says, had sellers remorse right away. They balanced and complemented each other.. This Is How Rich Youd Be If You Invented These Iconic Products Please enter your email and password to sign in. "Then their barber recommended they put an ad in a magazine and try mail order," he says. Kids, with their resistant vertebrae, had an easier go of it than some adults, who suffered hernias and slipped discs. He was 77 and had Alzheimer's disease. Wham-O rebounded a few years later with the unusual spring of the SuperBall, made of a compressed plastic known as Zectron. Please try again later. The Hula had been Melin, who started toy giant Wham-O in 1948 with his boyhood friend Richard Knerr, died Friday. Millions of rings sat in piles like gargantuan wrist bracelets. hide caption. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. (It was later sold to Mattel, which then sold it to a group of investors.). The ball was uninjured. Some versions say Knerr had become aware that the idea had come from flinging the Frisbie pie tins, and he changed the spelling slightly to trademark the name. While the hula hoop never went away, it has had a bit of a revival in the past five years with popular hoop fitness classes. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. CB Rank (Person) 1,575,211. You can even hire a personal hula hoop trainer. But nothing could compare to the whirlwind force of the Hula-Hoop, which Wham-O introduced the next year. Wham-O's most famous contribution to silliness, the Hula-Hoop, was born in 1957. The Americans had trouble duplicating the moves of the Australian kids until a Wham-O executive, Richard Gillespie, finally mastered the art after four straight days of practice. He patented a design for a two-handed tennis racket with an adjustable handle.Ten years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. According to Ripleys Believe It or Not, in April 2004, a performer at the Big Apple Circus in Boston simultaneously spun 100 hoops around her body. Thanks for using Find a Grave, if you have any feedback we would love to hear from you. Wham-O began selling the disc they called the "Pluto Platter" two years later before modifying it and renaming it the "Frisbee.". It became Wham-O's long, slow seller, with its own plant in San Gabriel, California, taking off in the 1960s as a counter-cultural exercise, the toy of hippies and of guys trying to impress their girls with Frisbee flips - "Flat flip flies straight. Following the Hula Hoop, Wham-O continued to produce a steady stream of wacky and beloved novelty items, including the Superball, Water Wiggle, Silly String, Slip n Slide and the Hacky Sack. Melin and Knerr were boyhood friends, mugging for cameras and dreaming up ideaslike a mink button that could cover a womans naveltoo ridiculous for larger companies to ever consider. Soon, Wham-O was producing 20,000 hoops a day. He had lived for many years in San Gabriel before his retirement. A local barber suggested they sell the contraption. In 1955, the founders of the Wham-O toy company, Arthur Spud Melin and Richard Knerr, saw Morrisons flying disc. Knerr and Melin devised a test of an early version of the hula hoop in 1958 by holding demonstrations at parks. Almost certainly not, Vanessa Hudson to replace Alan Joyce as Qantas chief, Covid graduates struggle with teamwork - Deloitte and PwC, Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton quits Google and warns over dangers of machine learning, Permanent TSBs interest income jumps 86% on Ulster Bank deal and rising rates, Ukrainian forces shell village in Bryansk region, says Russian governor. , It was difficult for dad to see his friends health decline, Lori Knerr says. He gave company officials an impromptu lesson in how to use a rattan hoop imported from Australia. By various estimates, 20 million to 40 million were sold that year worldwide. Read more:12 WackyProducts from Wham-O You Have to See to Believe.. Along with his wife, Melin is survived by five daughters, Linda, Sally, June, Carol and Della; one brother, Tom; and 11 grandchildren. Rather, he said, the name came from a comic strip of the era called Mr. Frisbie.But the connection was not coincidental to the success of the Frisbee, which found its earliest acceptance at Eastern colleges. This memorial has been copied to your clipboard. (modern). According to company legend, a visiting Australian casually mentioned to Spud Melin how, back home as a kid, he had rotated a rattan, or bamboo hoop, around his waist in gym class. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. There was no one like Melin or Knerr sitting over a drawing board and trying to come up with an outlandish product. Photo courtesy of Phil Kennedy. Initially, Melin and Knerr marketed them on college campuses by word of mouth. March 5, 1963: the Hula Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. After buying a hand saw at Sears, they started churning out the weapons and selling them via magazine ads in 1948., As business partners, Melin and Knerr had an easy camaraderie. Knerr once had a baby elephant delivered to Melins wife, Suzy, after Melin went on an African safari without him. WebArthur Spud Melin . [8] "Hula Hoop mania" continued through the end of 1959, and netted Wham-O $45million (equivalent to $418million in 2023[9]). Year should not be greater than current year. ''He said it would be huge. You can always change this later in your Account settings. The kinetic energy in the material was substantial: it could bounce over a two-story home. The domestic size sold 20m. The History of the Frisbee In 1957, Toltoys of Australia brought the concept of the Hula Hoop to Knerr and Melin. All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. Knerr spent his final hours in Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, Calif., after suffering a stroke earlier in the day at his home. They tried to sell their birds to enthusiasts, but got more interest for the shot, which they named Wham-O, for the sensation felt when it hit the target. In the early 1960s Wham-O created the Super Ball, a high-bouncing ball made of a hard elastomer Polybutadiene alloy, dubbed Zectron, with a 0.92 coefficient of restitution when bounced on hard surfaces. But I said, 'You can't put that on television. Try again later. It was like a new medium, says Tim Walsh, a Wham-O historian and author of The Wham-O Super Book. For about a year in the 1950s, the company markets their sporting goods under the name WAMO. Mr. Melin became active in conservative causes like immigration reform, but continued to pursue inventions. Travel broadens one, it is often said, and it certainly gave Melin ideas. Wham-O began selling the Hula Hoop a short time later and eventually would sell 25 million of them. Of their new releases, only Magic Window, which displayed psychedelic patterns in grains of sand, was a bonafide hit., People were gravitating towards stuff like Simon and Pong, Walsh says. They were flat broke. Soon, crowds of teenagers rotating their hula hoops were featured in Life magazine and on the Dinah Shore Show. Headricka veteran who spied on Nazi movements during World War IIpaid college kids to toss the disc on campuses. As manager of this memorial you can add or update the memorial using the Edit button below. In 1962, they sold a limbo dance kit to take advantage of that fad; and in 1975, when the movie Jaws was released, they sold plastic shark teeth. Tilted flip curves. There is 1 volunteer for this cemetery. The cause was Alzheimer's disease, his wife, Suzy, said. If subjects mastered the swing of it, they got to keep the toy. ''. He left behind a legacy of fun. All the funny product namesFling-a-Ring, Zip Zap, Water Weiniehad been exhausted. Wham-O took a fair share of wild swings in the marketplace. Real devotees were dubbed Frisbyterians.. Co-Creator of Frisbee and Hula Hoop Dies at 82 : NPR If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. Magic Window (1971), two 30 by 30 centimetres (12in 12in) oval plates of heavy clear plastic, with a narrow channel between them containing "microdium" (glass) crystal sands of varying colors that created complex patterns when shifted. Which memorial do you think is a duplicate of Arthur Melin (27070295)? 5 March 1963 The Hula Hoop is patented - PressReader After all, the ball was unharmed. Edit Overview Section. On this day in 1963, the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company's co-founder, Arthur "Spud" Melin. Wham-O would never have seen that success if not for their open-door policy: Anyone could telegram, mail, or show up in person with a toy idea. Melin became active in conservative causes like immigration reform, but continued to pursue inventions. The companys name, Wham-O, came from the sound the slingshots supposedly made. "[My mother] and Spud's wife would demonstrate hula hoops in parks and recreation centers around the country," Chuck says. There would be other fads, trends, and ideas. The retail price for the rubber-band-powered toy was $3 (about $24 in 2020 money). 1948: WHAM-O founded. Costa Mesa, Orange County, California, USA. The original Hula-Hoop girl is sitting in a caf wearing a leopard-lined jacket, gold-painted nails, and Revlon lipstick in a shade called Orange Flip. The 76-year-old also built a large family. Increasingly, kids were turning less to outdoor play and more toward higher-priced electronic offerings, which meant bigger profit margins for companies. Wham-O named them for the Hawaiian-dance-like hip rotations needed to keep them aloft. John Daly asked the gentleman if First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower, oversaw the interior decorating of Most wont even look at an idea unless it comes through an agency. They started making slingshots, just for kicks, out of the ends of orange crates, Chuck recalls. We wanted it to be a sport.. Their first major development was a buy-in - the Frisbee. In 1948 they formed the WHAM-O Manufacturing Company in the Knerr family garage in South Pasadena. Richard Rich Knerr co-founded the Wham-O company, which specialised in fun products such as Silly String and the Super Ball. Richard Knerr (19252008[2]) and Arthur "Spud" Melin (19242002[3]), two University of Southern California graduates who were friends since their teens, were unhappy with their jobs and decided to start their own business. The elephant was unloaded and the delivery truck left. Arthur Spud MelinAmerican Role Model - Corsini Consulting Arthur Spud Melin, co-founder of Wham-O Inc., which gave the world such leisure icons as the Frisbee, the Hula Hoop and the Superball--along with such duds as Instant Fish--has died. (It was later sold to Mattel, which then sold it to a group of investors.)Mr. It is known for creating and marketing many popular toys for nearly 70 years, including the Hula hoop, Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly String, Hacky sack, Wham-O Bird Ornithopter and Boogie Board,[1] many of which have become genericized trademarks. 1948: WHAM-O founded. Please enter your email address and we will send you an email with a reset password code. [28] If Spud and I had to say what we contributed, Knerr said, it was fun. Today, Wham-O is owned by the Aguilar Group, a private investment company, and still markets their trademark products. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, Canada, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current, Thank you for fulfilling this photo request. But Spud and Rich knew good ideas were out there and were willing to listen.. They had her sign for it first. By the summer of 1958, the Hula-Hoop, and its many imitators, took the nation by storm. ''Spud brought it home and showed it to me,'' Mrs. Melin recalled yesterday. Include gps location with grave photos where possible. But when the products hit, it made up for the lean years. A system error has occurred. The panel were stumped by the chief painter at the White House. Instead of counting a fortune, Wham-O was sitting on inventory they wouldnt clear for years. Melin and Knerr started with slingshots and named their mail-order company after the sound a slingshot made when its projectile struck a target. Everyone is just too litigious. Since then, he has been involved in several experimental treatments, Mrs. Melin said, and he has willed his brain to the University of California at Irvine, where he was treated.Besides his wife, he is survived five daughters, Linda Melin, Sally Melin, June Macy-Melin, Carol Denham and Della Peterson; a brother, Tom Melin; and 11 grandchildren. ''Mr. But they hit the big time when Walter Frederick Morrison walked in with a toy flying disk, marrying the 1950s furor over UFOs and a game played by Yalies tossing empty pie tins from the Frisbie Baking Co. in Hartford, Conn. Wham-O began selling the plastic disks in 1957 as Pluto Platters. Retailers in the United States were skeptical, but the two sensed a hit. When Melin and Knerr started their company in 1948, they named it for the sound made by their top product--a slingshot hitting its target. And like his father, Arthur Smith excels at his job. (It was also 1958, before the advent of more sophisticated distractions.) By various estimates, 20 million to 40 million were sold that year worldwide.But as quickly as the fad arrived, it ended, when school began, leaving Wham-O with millions of hoops and a $10,000 loss for the year.Wham-O rebounded a few years later with the unusual spring of the SuperBall, made of a compressed plastic known as Zectron. The next year it was refined and reintroduced as the Frisbee.For years, college students, especially at Yale, had played a game of catch with pie tins (or in some versions of the story, lids of cookie jars) made by the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Conn. Mr. Knerr said in an interview yesterday that the similarity of the name of Wham-O's disk to the name of the student game was a coincidence. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. Stingley and the company spent two years trying to create a manufacturing process that would result in a stable ball (prototypes were prone to exploding). He was a good player in his own right, earning the nickname Steady Ed for his even throws. The domestic size sold 20 million. WebThe hoop has been a popular children's toy for thousands of years, and the introduction of the Hula Hoop in 1958 by the Wham-O toy company has been documented by sociologists as one of the biggest fads ever to take hold in America and one of the most significant events of the time. They began demonstrating the toy in parks and on television, and the fad quickly went viral. Both the Hula Hoop and Instant Fish sprang from Melins interest in other parts of the world. The Frisbee was originally marketed under a different name, the Pluto Platter, in an effort to capitalize on Americas fascination with UFOs. Over the years, Wham-O churned out 25 million Hula Hoops. Commercials were shot in their own backyards. When the rains came, the eggs hatched and fish emerged overnight. The bosses explained that they patented the mechanical principle behind it, the ratio of waist to diameter: "Small hoops or big waists just won't work.". Born in Los Angeles, Mr. Melin, known by his childhood nickname Spud, formed Wham-O with a friend, Richard Knerr, in 1948, while they were working for their fathers and attending the University of Southern California. You have chosen this person to be their own family member. 3 1 greengrenades To be the man, you gotta A group of investors then bought Wham-O back from Mattel in 1997 for about $20 million and relaunched many of its best-known toys, including the Slip 'N Slide. You may request to transfer up to 250,000 memorials managed by Find a Grave. Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O - Santa Rosa Press Democrat 1957: WHAM-O acquires the rights to the Pluto Platter from Fred Morrison and renames it Frisbee. Hula Hoop promoter Arthur 'Spud' Melin dies - Deseret News Old ones were retired, for a few years or permanently, as their popularity waned. Its first hit toy, a flying plastic disc known as the Frisbee, debuted in 1957. Melin passed away in 2002; Knerr, in 2008. Wham-O also benefited from the relative economic sense of advertising nationally. After selling more than 100 million Hula Hoops in 16 months, Arthur Spud Melin and Rich Knerr took a look at their books. So they marketed abroad, first in Europe, then everywhere, although Japan banned them as lewd, and the Soviet Union called them "an example of the emptiness of American culture". Since the toys were simple and inexpensive, they could be sold by a wide range of retailers, from large Department Stores to five and dime stores.
