The Dead Thread - Bilge

B bamalamalu Tiki Socialite Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 1289	B bamalamalu Posted posted on Sat, Jan 19, 2008 1:59 PM Wow. Busy thread lately... Richard Knerr, who gave the world Hula Hoop, Frisbee, dies at 82 By John Rogers ASSOCIATED PRESS 3:35 p.m. January 17, 2008 LOS ANGELES Richard Rich Knerr is being remembered this week for creating a multimillion-dollar company out of slingshots, flying saucers and spinning hoops. But he did much more than that. Knerr and his partner, Wham-O co-founder Arthur Spud Melin, specialized in fun with products like the Hula Hoop, the Slip 'N Slide, Silly String and the Super Ball, entertaining countless people from one end of the world to the other. They showed dogs a pretty good time, too, with another iconic Wham-O product, the Frisbee. Knerr, who retired from the toy marketing business when he and Melin sold Wham-O in 1982, died Monday after suffering a stroke at his home in suburban Arcadia. He was 82. Melin, his partner and lifelong friend, died in 2002. The company motto was 'Our Business is Fun,' and that really describes both Dad and Spud, Knerr's son, Chuck Knerr, told The Associated Press on Thursday. They were two boys who just loved to have fun. They let the whole country in on the fun in 1958 when they began selling round, plastic hoops at 98 cents apiece. People snapped them up by the millions, as seemingly everyone in America that summer attempted to spin the things around their waists, hips, necks or knees. No sensation has ever swept the country like the Hula Hoop, Richard A. Johnson wrote in his 1985 book American Fads. Just as quickly, however, the fad ended. By the time September rolled around you couldn't give them away because every household in America had two and they lasted forever, Chuck Knerr recalled his father telling him. It didn't matter because not long after that the Frisbee, which had been introduced the year before, began to catch on and not just with people. Dogs loved to play with it too. One such animal, Ashley Whippet, became a celebrity in the 1970s because of his astounding ability to chase and catch the things. Because dogs tended to chew up Frisbees and people tended to lose them, they proved a much more lucrative product for Wham-O than Hula Hoops had. Knerr and Melin went into business for themselves in 1948, making $2 a day selling slingshots they made out of old orange crates in Knerr's garage. They named their fledgling company after the sound Melin liked to make every time he fired a slingshot. The pair met by chance as teenagers outside a Pasadena movie theater. They went into business together because Melin raised falcons and they used homemade slingshots to fire meatballs at young birds to teach them to dive for prey. Their slingshots proved so popular that their barber suggested they place an ad in a magazine and start selling them by mail order. It sounds strange to say it now but at the time nobody ever made and sold a slingshot, Chuck Knerr said. They were always homemade. Soon the boys were bringing home orders from the post office by the sack full, allowing them to pay off the bandsaw they had bought at a Sears store for $7 down. Knerr would say years later that he discovered the Hula Hoop while at a sporting goods trade show in Chicago. An Australian man, during a conversation in the men's room, told him of a fitness craze sweeping his country and agreed to send him a few of the exercise tools. Knerr and Melin were at the beach one day when they saw a former Air Force pilot named Fred Morrison playing with the flying disc he'd made. They bought the rights to it, modified it and changed its name from Pluto Platter to Frisbee, naming it after a comic strip character Knerr liked. Wham-O introduced the Slip 'N Slide in 1961, the Limbo Game in 1962 and the Super Ball in 1966. Silly String came along in 1972 and the introduction of the Hacky Sack in 1983 created another craze. As the years passed and Wham-O became a brand recognized the world over, its founders continued to operate it as a small business based in the suburban San Gabriel Valley. They sold it to Kransco Group Companies in 1982. Mattel bought the company from Kransco in 1994 and sold it to a group of investors in 1997. It is now based in Emeryville. In addition to his son, Knerr is survived by his wife, Dorothy, daughters Melody Marquez and Lori Gregory, stepchildren Richard Enright and Jeanne Stokes and eight grandchildren.

Wow. Busy thread lately...

Richard Knerr, who gave the world Hula Hoop, Frisbee, dies at 82

By John Rogers
ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:35 p.m. January 17, 2008

LOS ANGELES Richard Rich Knerr is being remembered this week for creating a multimillion-dollar company out of slingshots, flying saucers and spinning hoops. But he did much more than that.
Knerr and his partner, Wham-O co-founder Arthur Spud Melin, specialized in fun with products like the Hula Hoop, the Slip 'N Slide, Silly String and the Super Ball, entertaining countless people from one end of the world to the other. They showed dogs a pretty good time, too, with another iconic Wham-O product, the Frisbee.

Knerr, who retired from the toy marketing business when he and Melin sold Wham-O in 1982, died Monday after suffering a stroke at his home in suburban Arcadia. He was 82.
Melin, his partner and lifelong friend, died in 2002.

The company motto was 'Our Business is Fun,' and that really describes both Dad and Spud, Knerr's son, Chuck Knerr, told The Associated Press on Thursday. They were two boys who just loved to have fun.

They let the whole country in on the fun in 1958 when they began selling round, plastic hoops at 98 cents apiece. People snapped them up by the millions, as seemingly everyone in America that summer attempted to spin the things around their waists, hips, necks or knees.

No sensation has ever swept the country like the Hula Hoop, Richard A. Johnson wrote in his 1985 book American Fads.

Just as quickly, however, the fad ended.

By the time September rolled around you couldn't give them away because every household in America had two and they lasted forever, Chuck Knerr recalled his father telling him.

It didn't matter because not long after that the Frisbee, which had been introduced the year before, began to catch on and not just with people. Dogs loved to play with it too.

One such animal, Ashley Whippet, became a celebrity in the 1970s because of his astounding ability to chase and catch the things.

Because dogs tended to chew up Frisbees and people tended to lose them, they proved a much more lucrative product for Wham-O than Hula Hoops had.

Knerr and Melin went into business for themselves in 1948, making $2 a day selling slingshots they made out of old orange crates in Knerr's garage. They named their fledgling company after the sound Melin liked to make every time he fired a slingshot.

The pair met by chance as teenagers outside a Pasadena movie theater. They went into business together because Melin raised falcons and they used homemade slingshots to fire meatballs at young birds to teach them to dive for prey.

Their slingshots proved so popular that their barber suggested they place an ad in a magazine and start selling them by mail order.

It sounds strange to say it now but at the time nobody ever made and sold a slingshot, Chuck Knerr said. They were always homemade.

Soon the boys were bringing home orders from the post office by the sack full, allowing them to pay off the bandsaw they had bought at a Sears store for $7 down.

Knerr would say years later that he discovered the Hula Hoop while at a sporting goods trade show in Chicago. An Australian man, during a conversation in the men's room, told him of a fitness craze sweeping his country and agreed to send him a few of the exercise tools.

Knerr and Melin were at the beach one day when they saw a former Air Force pilot named Fred Morrison playing with the flying disc he'd made. They bought the rights to it, modified it and changed its name from Pluto Platter to Frisbee, naming it after a comic strip character Knerr liked.

Wham-O introduced the Slip 'N Slide in 1961, the Limbo Game in 1962 and the Super Ball in 1966. Silly String came along in 1972 and the introduction of the Hacky Sack in 1983 created another craze.

As the years passed and Wham-O became a brand recognized the world over, its founders continued to operate it as a small business based in the suburban San Gabriel Valley. They sold it to Kransco Group Companies in 1982. Mattel bought the company from Kransco in 1994 and sold it to a group of investors in 1997. It is now based in Emeryville.

In addition to his son, Knerr is survived by his wife, Dorothy, daughters Melody Marquez and Lori Gregory, stepchildren Richard Enright and Jeanne Stokes and eight grandchildren.

Post #355994 by bamalamalu on Sat, Jan 19, 2008 1:59 PM