Hula Hoop ®
Many of the greatest toys owe their success as much to marketing as to invention. Kids have been playing with hoops for centuries - rolling and spinning them with sticks, tossing them, and even swirling them around their middles. In 1957, Wham-O toy company founders Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin learned that kids in Australia twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class. Within a year, Wham-O had created a hollow hoop out of Phillips Petroleum's newly developed plastic Marlex. They named their creation "Hula Hoop" after the swivel-hipped Hawaiian dance its users seemed to imitate. Wham-O sold 25 million hoops in just two months, and sales reached $45 million in the first year. Adults bought the toys for children, but usually gave the hoops a try before turning them over to the kids. Hula Hoops are not hard to master, but they favor the thin-waisted over the pear-shaped, and women over men. First attempts are always hilarious. Lively person-to-person marketing in parks, on playgrounds, and on college campuses created the biggest fad of the 1950s.