Wham-O company co-founder dies at 82

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Loved, loved, loved Wham-O's toys when I was a kid back in the early-to-mid 1960s. In addition to the then-ubiquitous frisbee, I especially enjoyed the wheelie bar attached to my bike. Oh, and I once broke my friend Michael Maguire's bedroom window with a Superball---which I think was also a Wham-O product.
 
I remember desperately wanting a Frisbee back in the day, early 60's but my Dad refusing to spend the $1.99 or whatever it cost grumbling how he wasn't going to spend that much money on a piece of plastic. But I did get one, the power of persistent whining LOL Th
 
All three of our dogs play Frisbee. It's an excellent sport for dogs, they get in plenty of that "free range running" which is great for their muscles. We use a Nylabone Frisbee made especially for dogs, it's easier on the teeth than a conventional frisbee that's made out of hard plastic. The Nylabone version is made of softer, more flexible plastic.

Our vet seems to think that all the frisbee playing over the years has contributed to the legnthy lifespan that our Dalmatian has, she's 16 years old and still going strong. However, she did "retire" from Frisbee about 4 years ago.
 
The Wham-O Toy I Never Got:

I had a Hula-Hoop. I got a Frisbee, though I never cared much for it. I had a Super Ball.

But what I really wanted was the Wham-O Bird, a wind-up plastic bird with flapping wings. You can see it at the link below.

The TV ads made it look like the coolest toy ever, but none of my hints to my parents resulted in my getting one. Wish they still made them.

 
Super Ball long gone

Hello friends,I used my week's allowance to buy a superball.I could not resist hitting it with a baseball bat.Mickey Mantle never hit a ball any longer distance.I haven't seen it since,and that was 1964!
Tom
 
Wham-O Bird

I still have a superball rolling around in a drawer somewhere. Like most kids back then, we all wanted to know what was inside that made it behave the way it did. But after opening up one that had cracked or otherwise been damaged, we found no guts inside. Unlike golf balls, which were always fun to crack open.

I never knew about the Wham-O Bird but I had personal experience with an identical item, possibly the same patent, but I'm pretty sure it was a foreign manufacturer. Instead of Wham-O Bird, it was called "Tim" and flapped around like a real bird. It made a racket but still got the cats into attack mode when it would fly around. I think these guys probably couldn't handle crashing into things so you had to be in an open area, otherwise one crash and you'd likely end up with something inoperable, from both the bird's perspective and the user's.

We have a "Wild Bird Center" store near us. I'll have to check and see if they have anything like this. If any retailer would have it on the shelves, they would be the one.
 
Tim Flying Bird

Sandy, I should have done this before I posted above. Google "Tim flying bird" and you'll find what I'm talking about. Appears to still be available if you still want one!

Ralph
 
Ralph:

Thanks for the heads-up on the Tim Flying Bird!

Of course, spoiled little '50s consumer brat that I am, I should insist on a Wham-O Bird, accepting no substitutes. You young whippersnappers on this list shoulda seen us in our pre-teen prime. If a girl wanted Barbie, it was no use trying to palm off a Tammy or Tressy or Betsy McCall on her. If a boy wanted a Duncan Imperial yo-yo, nothing from the dime store was gonna fool him. We would have staged a mass revolution if anyone had tried to feed us generic store cereal instead of all that sugary brand-name goodness Kellogg's flogged to us between Hanna-Barbera cartoons. In fact, we used to go down the cereal aisle ahead of our moms, comparing the "Free Toy Inside!" offers with the cut-out games and toys printed on the back of other boxes. "Let's see- will it be the Post Toasties with the plastic Thunderbird inside, or the Cocoa Puffs with another car for my Cocoa Puffs train printed on the back?"

Yes, we were pretty unbearable. And dsmn proud of it. :-)
 
Excellent scenario Sandy! I think I still have an emerald green Duncan Imperial in that same drawer where the superball is living. I haven't been able to get my finger through the loop in decades, though!

One collection of cereal box items I still have is from the early 50's. I can't tell you what the cereal was, but the prizes were stamped metal emblems (a la license plates but much smaller) for about 20 or so railroad companies (maybe more but that's all I ended up with). All different shapes, like keystone for the Pennsylvania, round for Southern Pacific (and others) etc. I need to put them in a frame somehow and display them. I'm into trains so that's why I've saved those things all these years.

While there may not be prizes inside cereal boxes anymore, the stores know that kids rule in that aisle most of the time and all the sugary stuff is down at their eye level.

And have you noticed how they've changed some of the names of the cereals to appear less sugary? Like the old Sugar Pops is now Corn Pops. I'm sure there are others, but that's the one that comes to mind. I always wondered why that one had a foil-type bag to hold the contents. Trix was always my cereal of choice as a kid, but of course if a different cereal had an offer I couldn't resist, that was the one I'd ask Mom or Dad to buy.

These days people complain about how long it takes to get a rebate back in the mail. Have they forgotten that it would take literally months to receive anything sent away for via cereal box? By the time the thing arrived in the mail you had either forgotten having sent away for it or you were no longer interested!
 
Ralph:

"And have you noticed how they've changed some of the names of the cereals to appear less sugary? Like the old Sugar Pops is now Corn Pops."

Now that is sad. Without recourse to Googling, I can recall that commercial jingle:

"Ohhhhhh, the pops are sweeter
And the taste is, too.
They're shot with sugar
Through and through!
Kell-ogg's Sugar Corn Pops-
Sugar Pops are Tops!"
 
And don't forget the "Wheel-O"...a curved metal bar with a spinning plastic wheel that had magnets on either end of its axis...totally pointless, but endless fun when I was six or seven.
 

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