Richard “Rich” Knerr, the co-founder of the company that brought us the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip ’N Slide and the Hacky Sack, died this week at the age of 82.
While the Hula Hoop was arguably Wham-O’s most popular product (“No sensation has ever swept the country like the Hula Hoop,” Richard A. Johnson wrote in his 1985 book “American Fads”), demand for it ebbed quickly (“because every household in America had two and they lasted forever”), and the multimillion-dollar company is credited with introducing hundreds of other toys.
Here are some of their products, with links to videos of some of the commercials that helped make them famous:
- Water Wiggle (introduced in 1962)
- Wheelie Bar (introduced in 1964)
- Super Ball and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic (introduced in 1966)
- Silly String (introduced in 1972)
- Bubble Thing (introduced in 1984)
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