Sixty Years of Wham-O

• Author: John Tarpey
• Position: WIPO Communications and Public Outreach Division

But this is not to say that they are without a place in history. The Hula Hoop, the Water Wiggly sprinkler, the Slip'n' Slide, the SuperBall and the Frisbee all hold a rightful place in the annals of innovation as products which - while perhaps not life-saving, ground-breaking, or even necessary - were hugely successful in bringing enjoyment to millions of people throughout the world.

The career of Richard Knerr, who with his partner Arthur "Spud" Melin founded Wham-O in 1948, and who died last month at the age of 82 in Arcadia, California, is a testament to the power of the creative impulse to brighten the lives of multitudes. The fact that the pair left a lasting impact on popular culture was no small feat either.

Knerr and Melin saw commercial potential in what became the Hula Hoop when an Australian friend visiting California demonstrated a wooden ring used in children's gym classes down under. The duo refashioned the hoop from brightly-colored, tubular plastic, added beads inside that produced a rhythmic sound to accompany the circular hip-shaking necessary to keep the hoop aloft, and sold 40 million of them in 1958. By 1960 they had sold 100 million worldwide, a record at the time for any toy.

Crazes

The Hula Hoop was perhaps the first fad that was spread by the new medium of television, and remains, according to social historian Richard A. Johnson in his book American Fads, "the standard against which all national crazes are measured." Indeed, any book or film attempting to capture the zeitgeist of the early years of the Cold War is as likely to feature an image of starry-eyed, gyrating Hula-Hoopers as that of another, more menacing innovation of the era, the mushroom cloud.

Knerr and Melin (who died in 2002) were as much re-inventors as they were inventors. As the Hula Hoop craze was beginning to fade near the turn of the decade, they happened upon the Pluto Platter, a flying disc invented - and sold from his station wagon up and down...