Something You Should Know - Glitches in Human Evolution & The Wham-O Toys Story

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

We all want people to like us and obviously a lot of things determine just how likable you are. However, there are a few simple techniques to make you appear more likable instantly. I start this episode with three ways, according to Psychology Today, that will make you more likable to others when you meet them. And they aren’t what you probably think. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201107/get-anyone-you-instantly-guaranteed-1 Evolution is what got us to where we are today. But the evolutionary road we have traveled to get here is a bumpy one. Biology professor Nathan Lents author of the book, Human Errors: A Panorama of our Glitches from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes (https://amzn.to/2zo2u67) takes us on a journey of the human evolution timeline and points out what went right and what went wrong.  As you go through life, you collect stuff. Then, over time that stuff collects in your home and you forget about it – even if that stuff serves no purpose, is outdated or useless. We start with a list of things you may not even notice that are most likely cluttering up your home that you really ought to throw out – NOW! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/08/things-in-your-home-to-get-rid-of_n_4748455.html Frisbee, Hula-Hoop, Slip & Slide – they are all toys you and just about everyone else have played with for over 60 years. And they are all made by the WHAM-O Toy Company. Had did one small company create such iconic toys? Tim Walsh, author of The WHAM-O Superbook: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory (https://amzn.to/2NE8LxX) takes you inside the workings of WHAM-O, which has specialized and excelled by making outdoor toys while other toy companies have gone high tech. PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! https://monday.com One platform, better teamwork - First 2 weeks free! https://bluechew.com First order free! Use promo code; SOMETHING https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! https://www.walgreens.com/topic/promotion/mywalgreens.jsp Shop, Save & Stay Well - Join for free at myWalgreens.com https://deals.dell.com/en-us or 1-800-BUY DELL for the best Black Friday savings available now! https://wondery.com/shows/jacked-rise-of-the-new-jack-sound/ Jacked: Rise of the New Jack Sound the new podcast from Wondery. Listen and subscribe today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, three simple ways that can instantly make you more likable. Then the fascinating quirks in the timeline of human evolution. Human evolution is a story of us changing pretty rapidly and anything you do quickly you don't do well. Human evolution, we favored our cognitive abilities so much that the rest of our body was allowed to change pretty haphazardly.

Also, a bunch of things almost sure to be in your home that you need to throw out right now. And the amazing story of Wham-O-Toys. They've been a part of all of our lives, from the Frisbee, the Slip and Slide, and of course, the hula hoop. The hula hoop craze was born in January of 1958, and by October, the fad was over. But in that time period, they sold close to 100 million hula hoops. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know

are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. This episode is publishing on Thanksgiving Day, November 26th, 2020. Probably one of the weirdest Thanksgivings any of us will ever have. And if you are listening on Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving from everyone here at Something You Should Know. First up today, getting people to like you. We all want people to like us. And it turns out that whether or not people like you depends a lot on the signals you send out non-verbally.

It turns out there are three gestures, according to Psychology Today. The first is the eyebrow flash. It's that quick up-and-down movement of the eyebrow. As people approach one another, they eyebrow flash each other to send the message that they do not pose a threat. Second is the head tilt. The head tilt is a slight tilt of the head to one side or the other. And this cue signals that the approaching person is not a threat because they are exposing their carotid artery. The carotid artery is the primary source for blood to reach the brain and, if disrupted, causes severe brain damage or death within minutes.

So exposing the carotid artery sends the signal that the person exposing their carotid artery does not pose a threat, nor do they think that the person they are approaching poses a threat. And then there is the smile. A smile sends the message, I like you. When you smile at someone, they have a hard time not returning the smile. A smile triggers a small endorphin release in the brain, which promotes a feeling of well-being. In other words, when you smile, you feel good about yourself. So there it is, the eyebrow flash, the head tilt, and the smile. In other words, when you smile, you feel good about yourself. So there it is, the eyebrow flash, the head tilt, and the smile. Use all three and you will probably be irresistible. And that is something you should know.

After thousands and thousands of years of evolution, we humans have done pretty well. We're on top of the food chain, we're smarter than the other animals, and physically our bodies seem pretty functional. Or are they? If our bodies have evolved to such perfection, why do so many people have back trouble? Why do we get colds all the time? Why do we breathe and eat through the same hole? So maybe we're not as evolved as we think we are. Nathan Lentz is a professor of biology and author of the book Human Error, a panorama of our glitches from pointless bones to broken genes. Hi Nathan, so this is an interesting take on being human and all that's wrong with us. Where did the idea come from?

I sort of stumbled on this by reading from some anthropologists that were working about 10 or 15 years ago. And in their writings, they made it clear that during the last about 3 million years in Africa, our lineage was evolving more rapidly than any of the other apes, the other primates even. We were going through a lot of changes in a very short amount of time. That sort of piqued my interest because we tend to think of evolution as working on very long time scales and things happening really almost imperceptibly slowly. But actually, human evolution is a story of us changing pretty rapidly. And anything you do quickly, you don't do well. And so I think that a lot of quirks that we have, we share with other animals, but we also have a lot of quirks that are just ours and that are

purely a function of us changing so fast. Human evolution, we favored our cognitive abilities so much that the rest of our body sort of was allowed to change pretty haphazardly. Well, you're right. I think of evolution as moving so slowly as that you can't really see it happening. But on the other hand, I mean, if you just go back a couple hundred years, people were shorter then. My mother used to live in a house in Connecticut that was built in the 1700s. And my brother always used to hit his head on the top of the doorway because the doorways were so short because people were short.

And we've evolved into being taller. And that seems to have happened pretty fast. Yeah, things can change really quickly and the world is changing as well. The environments are changing very well too. And so most organisms are sort of struggling to keep up. And we made some changes to try to adapt to a changing world, but there's no target, right?

There's no end point to this. So it is just kind of a race against our competitors. And that's resulted in things like what? For example, our upright posture, that transition happened really quickly. And so our spine, our knees, our ankles, they're not perfectly adapted to this upright walking. We certainly walk better upright than we do on all fours. But if we had made that transition more slowly, I suspect we would have knees that don't twist and tear as much as we do on all fours. But if we had made that transition more slowly, I suspect we would have knees that don't twist and tear as much as we do. We would have spines that aren't weirdly S-shaped

and with slip discs coming out all the time and ankles that have this vulnerability right on the back, which is the Achilles tendon. We have a lot of sort of vulnerabilities and little quirks of our anatomy that I bet if that transition had happened more slowly, we would have gotten it better. Yeah, like who hasn't had back trouble? Well, if we were so well designed, you would think very few people would have back trouble, but everybody has back trouble. Almost everybody, yeah. But see, there's two separate issues there with our back. So first of all, I think that the design itself isn't great.

You know, more of a straight or a J-shaped spine would be better than this S-shaped feature that we have. But the other problem is that we don't really use our bodies now in the way that we did when it was evolving. So, I mean, the majority of us spend our waking hours mostly in chairs, and chairs never existed before the modern age. So our body really isn't designed to be in a chair all day. Some of it is not great design, but some of it is we're not using it for what it was designed for. And what was it designed for? Well, the posture of, say, hunter-gatherer tribes, they spend time squatting, standing, and laying down. And so when they're relaxing, they're often just laying on the floor, laying on the ground. The sitting posture really isn't great for us, but it just

feels comfortable. And then we've gotten used to it. So now it seems like that's the most comfortable posture is sitting in a chair, but it really isn't in good concert with our body to be sitting so much. But if we do it long enough, maybe it will be. Well, it's unlikely, I think, that we'll evolve into a creature that's built for chairs because the way that evolution works is through the success or failure of individuals. So unless you somehow leave more offspring because you're good in a chair, I just think we've escaped most of the forces of natural selection. Not that we're not evolving, but we're really not playing by the same rules anymore in terms of who reproduces and who doesn't. So knowing that, knowing that we shouldn't be sitting in chairs, I mean, what,

for example, what changes have you made, if any? I work at a standing desk now, both at home and at work. I just try to be on my feet. And when I take phone calls, I try to pace the room rather than sitting in a chair. And I think it's made a difference. I don't have as much back pain as I once did. So get out of your chairs, I think, is one lesson. How do humans compare to other creatures on the planet? How do we compare to them in terms of how often we get sick and what we get sick from? We are more sickly than our closest relatives, that's for sure. And just to finish the point

on the back, a slipped disc is absolutely unheard of in the other apes. So gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, they never have a slipped disc. That's just not an issue. Their spine is very well designed for their posture. But if you're talking about other forms of sickliness, the example I use in the book is that the average human adult, this is not even counting children, just adults, suffers between four and six of the common cold every year. Again, this is not something that the other apes deal with. We have sinus cavities in our face that don't drain very well because they have to work against gravity. And the drain pipe of our largest sinus cavity is at the top, not the bottom, the top. And so it makes it much more likely that

mucus will pool and you'll have sort of ripe conditions for an infection. So we really do get sinus infections much more commonly than our relatives do. But we've been told, and it would seem, that so much of the way we are was adaptable to something. And yet when you look at it through your lens, it looks like we missed the boat in a lot of this. The other way to look at it is that perhaps more than any other primate, we're evolved to be generalists. So we're not particularly specialized for one particular thing, one particular activity or way of living. And so what we lost in the ability to be very well suited for something we gained in being able to survive in lots of different climates. So if you look at gorillas,

for example, they're really very well adapted to a very specific climate and lifestyle. Same with chimpanzees, orangutans. But if you look at humans, we live on every single continent and we thrive in a wide variety of, and this was true even before, you know, farming and civilization, we really have the ability to make a living in a lot of different ways. And that partially explains why we don't seem perfectly adapted for anything. Not that there's such a thing as being perfect. But we're the ultimate generalists in the natural world. And I think it really led to what would later become our unique human features of this big brain and so on and so

forth. So I think we're good at lots of stuff rather than being excellent at just one thing. My guest today is Nathan Lentz. He is a professor of biology and author of the book Human Error, a panorama of our glitches from pointless bones to broken genes. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and

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There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Nathan, I guess you're saying that as generalists, we're not excellent at a few things, we're good at a lot of things, but that ability to be good at a lot of things and to being able to deal with almost any possible scenario. And if you are totally reliant on your body to do that, it'll never work. I mean, if you can imagine living in a tundra in the Arctic and then living in a desert and then living in a rainforest, totally different physical challenges involved. So the only way that a species can really cross all those boundaries and still thrive is to be very smart, right? So you can invent clothing and you can invent irrigation and you can invent water storage. So once you free up your body from having to bear the burden of survival and you put that on your brain, it's sort of expected that your body is not going to be perfect because it didn't have to be. There was no pressure on the body to get absolutely everything right. So I think it's a good story,

actually. I think it's an uplifting way to look at our past is these flaws. Unfortunately, when you're in the throes of a cold or if you have back pain, it's easy to just see it as a negative. But I like to see it as a positive because it shows how much we've overcome, how much we've been liberated by our big brains and our cleverness, which by the way, could be our biggest flaw of all. But I think it's a happy story more than it is a depressing story. But do you think, or can you look back and based on the past, predict that these flaws that you're pointing out will eventually engineer themselves out of us or not? No, I don't think so. I think we have mostly escaped the forces of natural selection in terms of, you know, in order to, natural selection only works by mutations followed by selection,

meaning who survives and who doesn't. And so back pain is not a predictor of reproductive success anymore. People who have back pain aren't less likely to reproduce than those who do, unless it's so debilitating that it kills them as a child. But that doesn't happen. So I think if we fix these things, it'll be through intervention. And I don't think that's right around the corner by any means. I mean, I think we're going to be curing genetic diseases fairly soon. We have the technology to do that now. But fixing a back, like your spine, with genetic tools, we don't even know where to start in that process. So I don't think those are going anywhere. But we don't have to. That's the point. We can fix it surgically. And I think our tools to do that will continue to advance. So it's another story of how our brains have sort of humans changing because that's what humans do.

But you're pointing out that the changes that happen throughout evolution serve a purpose, and that purpose all comes back and always comes back to survivability and reproduction. That's right. So if you look at the transition to upright walking, our ancestors were in the rainforest and they started to explore a new habitat, which was the border of the rainforest and the open grasslands, the Savannah in Africa. Well, you have a big advantage in the Savannah if you can stand up because you can see over other things, you freed up your hands to do things, and you have, you know, good social interactions. You freed up your hands to do things and you have, you know, good social interactions. You're looking each other in the face and so forth.

And so the individuals who could stand up better, um, were more successful. They were more, they were more likely to get their food and to, and to feed their children and all of that. And so they out-competed. If you, if you think of all the members of the species as competitors with each other, even if they're not directly, but in the sense of who leads more offspring, those who were able to stand upright did the best. But the thing is, is that it wasn't overnight, right? It was a gradual transition, living in the border and then eventually living out in the grasslands entirely, which is what we know our ancestors eventually did. But there's a loss there too, because once you start transitioning to a striding gait, you know, walking the way we do now, you can't climb trees very well. And there were advantages

to being able to climb trees. So every single innovation came with a trade-off. Well, here's a question I guess I've always wondered about, and maybe it's simplistic, but humans evolved from apes, but we still have apes. So why did some of us become human and others just stayed apes? So apes have been changing too. If you look at chimpanzees and gorillas, you know, our most recent common ancestor with chimpanzees is about 7 million years ago. But that ancestor wasn't a chimpanzee and it didn't look like a chimpanzee. It probably looked a little bit more like a chimpanzee than it looked like a human just because we've been evolving faster. But we're no more closely related to that ancestor than the chimpanzees are. So every species

is constantly changing. And gorillas, we go back even further. You're talking about 10, 11 million years. But that ancestor wasn't a gorilla. It didn't look like a gorilla. It looked like, you know, something else, something between a human chimpanzee and gorilla. But we know that our line was evolving fairly rapidly and that we do know that gorillas have been living in mostly the same kind of way for a long time, which is why actually their fossil record is so poor, actually, because in the rainforest, things don't fossilize very well. But what we do know is that humans started really changing in their behavior and how they were living and how they were thriving. And that is a good recipe for evolution, for fast evolution.

Because when you start doing things differently, you change the rules of the game. And who is successful versus who is not will be different in different environments. So if you take a gorilla and put him in the grasslands, he's not going to do very well. But if you take that gorilla into a rainforest, he's very well suited. So as you transition from one environment to the next, the rules are different and that enforces evolution. And the sad part about it is evolution works best when individuals are dying fast because they're taking their genes with them and the few that survive sort of give rise to new innovations. So where you see rapid evolution, what you're also seeing is a lot of death and

suffering. Why then are we still evolving? If we don't have the death and suffering that initiates these changes in evolution, then why are we still evolving? If we don't have the death and suffering that initiates these changes in evolution, then why are we still changing? Because anytime you have non-random reproduction, then you have evolution. So here's just a very simple case of this. If you look at the birth rates among the Japanese, they're very, very, very low. And this is also true of the Italians and other groups. And if you look at the birth rates in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Somalia, they're very, very, very high. So right there, you automatically know that the gene pool is in flux. There will be more people of Somali descent in a generation than there are now and there will be less contribution from the

japanese and the italians so there is change happening but that could change so fast and and it's it's not based on survival it's based on reproductive rate so right there you know there's some changes because we know that somalis and japanese are not identical genetically so there's some flux that's taking place where that will will take us, we don't know, because that could all change very quickly. And our ability to alter our own genetics is just now beginning. So that could have an impact as well. So I can't predict where we're going to be 100 years from now, but I can say that we won't be exactly as we are now, at least in the basic sense. Do other species have races like we have races? Oh, sure. Absolutely.

So if you look at mountain gorillas, for example, there's three or four populations and there's a little bit of interbreeding, but they have gone in slightly different ways. And that could be the beginning of speciation where they might eventually diverge into new groups, but there's no way to predict that future. Populations are always diverging and then coming back together and you just never know at any one point, you just have a snapshot. But yeah, and what's interesting to me is that the different populations of the same species start to show what we show in terms of our differences. So, for example, I don't know if you know this, but chimpanzees and bonobos, they both communicate with gestures.

So they have like body language. Well, those that body language takes on regional dialects. So they will they will have slightly different versions in different places. Really, you can map what's happening with our language, you know, the linguistic history of our species with other species. And it works sort of the same way. So, you know, you have to be separated for a very long time to really become different species. But that's certainly, you know, what's happened many times. So that would, you know, lowland gorillas versus highland gorillas, will they eventually be two species?

You know, who knows? But they definitely are showing those signs just like we did. Well, we are the result of human evolution. We are who we are and we're here because of it. And it's interesting as you talk to listen to how it's worked well and how it's worked not so well.

And yet, nevertheless, here we are. Nathan Lentz has been my guest. He's a professor of biology, and he is author of the book Human Error, A Panorama of Our Glitches, From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Nathan. Thanks, Mike. I've really enjoyed this interview.

Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games,

and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice then we have but am i wrong which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice plus we share our hot takes on current events then tune in to see you next tuesday for our listener poll results from but am i wrong and

finally wrap up your week with fisting friday where we catch up and talk all things pop culture listen to don't blame me but am i Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. If you live in North America, and maybe some other parts of the world, at some point in your childhood or your child's childhood, you have bought and played with a toy made by the Wham-O Toy Company. Hula hoop, frisbee, slip and slide, super ball, silly string, hacky sack. It would have been impossible to escape your childhood without coming into contact with these toys. And the reason I'm talking about this is that the company, Wham-O, and the toys it created that you've played with, it's all a pretty interesting story. Tim Walsh is a speaker and a writer who has written quite a bit about toys.

One of his books is called The Wham-O Superbook, celebrating 60 years inside the Fun Factory. Hey, Tim. Welcome to Something You Should Know. So when I think of Wham-O toys, I think of all the ones I've ever remembered or played with. They were outdoor toys. How did Wham-O get started? They started in 1948 around a slingshot. Spud Malin and Rich Knurr are the founders of Wham-O, and they were into falconry. And they were teaching their birds how to dive for prey by shooting meatballs in the air with a homemade slingshot. And the legend goes that a gentleman walked up to them and said, Hey, where did you get that slingshot?

And their entrepreneurial light bulbs above their heads went off and said, We should start making slingshots. And Richner told me that they went to Sears and Roebuck, and for $7 down and $7 a month, they got a bandsaw, and they started making the Wham-O slingshot in 1948. And predictably, you know, when your first product's a slingshot, they evolved into making other weapons. They were into hunting. But they made really strange weapons like tomahawks and throwing daggers and blowguns,

things that clearly were not for adults. They were for teenage boys. So that was their product line from about 1948 to about 1957, when in 1957 they came out with something called the Pluto platter, which would be renamed quickly to the Frisbee. And that's what launched them? Well, actually, no. In 1957, the Frisbee came out first, and it didn't sell that well to begin with. But the following year, 1958, things exploded with the hula hoop. I spoke to Rich Naird, one of the founders of Wham-O, and he told me that the hula hoop craze was born in January of 1958,

and by October, the fad was over. But in that time period, they sold close to 100 million hula hoops. That includes Wham-O's sales and all the other toy companies that knock them off with other types of hoops. But the hula hoop was the biggest craze ever and probably still remains one of the biggest toy crazes ever from the summer of 1958. And looking back in retrospect, what's the big reason why the hula hoop was such a huge fat? I think two reasons.

One was the simplicity. You know, hoops have been around since, you know, the times of Christ. There's tomb drawings from Egyptian times of cane hoops or bamboo hoops. They've been around forever. It's just such a simple thing. But keeping it revolving around your waist in sort of gravity-defying manner is not easy. A lot of us, you know, can't do it. So I think there was a little bit of a skill level needed or some sort of practice needed for people to kind of master it. And when one kid saw another kid doing it, they had to try it,

and the word of mouth took off from there. So I think those two factors really made it one of the best toys ever. And in that short period of time, they sold, you know, gazillions of hula hoops. But I thought I remember reading that they could have sold more, but they literally couldn't keep up with the demand. So there was actually a hula hoop shortage. There was at the height of the demand in the summer of 58, they were making 20,000 hula hoops a week trying to keep up. And, of course, predictably in the toy industry, when you have a hit like that, you're going to have company. And Mark's Toys and a lot of the other toy companies of the time came out with their own hoops.

And there were so many hoops on the market that it was just oversaturated. And almost as quickly as it took off, the fad died. And it was, as I said, dead as a doornail in October, which is what Rich Knurr told me. And it really, one of the most interesting facts about the hula hoop is the fact that Wham-O survived it. Because when you sell that many of a product and then have the floodgates just shut off, a lot of companies go bankrupt. But they were able to weather the storm and then had a hit with Frisbee shortly thereafter. And was it riding the coattails of the hula hoop?

You know, in other words, you know, from the makers of the hula hoop, this is their new great thing. Or did the Frisbee stand on its own as a great thing? Well, I think it certainly helped that WAMO was put on the map because of the hula hoop. They were all over the press. The New York Times, Life magazine covered the hula hoop, so they were certainly known. So that certainly boosted their chance to come out with a new product. But the Pluto platter was just genius in its simplicity. The fact that that's what they called it,

and then some kids that were familiar with the Frisbee Pie Company up in the northeast kept calling them Frisbees. So Wham-O said, well, if you can't beat them, join them. We'll change the name to Frisbee Pie Company up in the Northeast kept calling them Frisbees. So Wham-O said, well, if you can't beat them, join them. We'll change the name to Frisbee. But really today, there's Ultimate Frisbee. There's Canine Frisbee. There's Freestyle. There's Frisbee Golf. You'd be hard-pressed to find a toy that's more popular in more incarnations than the Frisbee.

So I think in that regard, it sort of stood on its own as really a smash hit toy right after the biggest craze of all time. So that's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. And that relationship you just described between Wham-O and the pie company that made the pie tins, that was it? Because I always thought there was a stronger relationship between the Frisbee Pie Company and the toy. No, the Frisbee Pie Company was founded in the 1850s, and they were in New England, Connecticut. And really, the legend goes that some workers would flip over the pie tins and have catch with them, and that's not uncommon. In my research, I found that cookie can lids and woven paper plate holders were used to throw.

Of course, they were too light, and the metal tins and the metal lids were a little too heavy and kind of dangerous. So when injection molding plastic came after World War II, there were a lot of companies that made plastic discs, and the Pluto platter was one of them through Wham-O. But because this pie company had been around forever, kids on college campuses in Dartmouth and Princeton and throughout the Northeast were referring to these plastic discs as frisbees, or they were frisbeeing, or any kind of spelling variation. And Wham-O recognized that, geez, if everyone's calling it this, we might as well change the name. And they were able to secure a trademark. So they made a deal with the pie company for the rights to the name? No, actually, the pie company was sort of defunct, and they did

spell it differently. Frisbee Pies was F-R-I-S-B-I-E, and the Frisbee Disc is F-R-I-S-B-E-E. So they spelled it a little bit different. And actually, the Pi Company closed its doors the same year that Frisbee took off. So it's sort of a transition of power from pies to discs. I remember getting my first slip and slide, which I remember was a big whammo toy. In fact, I think at one point it was one of their biggest sellers. How did the slip and slide get started? Well, an upholsterer by the name of Robert Carrier came home one day and saw his 8-year-old son, Mike, with a hose running on their slick, painted driveway. And he and his buddies were running and sliding on the concrete.

Robert Carrier said, you guys are going to kill yourself. And he was an upholsterer. So the next day he brought home a long roll of Naugahyde, this vinyl coated fabric, and he created what would become the slip and slide. He stitched a long tube, which he attached to a hose, and he sewed the other end shut. And then he left spaces in between that long length of tube where the pressure would force water out and lubricate the surface of this fabric. And pretty soon he had kids from all over the neighborhood running and sliding on this fabric. And he brought it to Wham-O and said, you know, this could be made into a toy. And they made it shorter and made it out of plastic instead of vinyl.

But they released the slip and slide in 1961 and sold about 9 million of them that year, almost an immediate summer hit. And today it's still on the market going strong. Yeah, I always remember that whenever we got the slip and slide out and the neighborhood kids came over, somebody would always get hurt. There'd be a rock underneath there or something and somebody would always end up getting hurt. Yeah, and nothing killed the grass like flip and slide. My parents would leave them up, and we'd take them down, and the grass would be dead. But thankfully, my dad didn't care about that. But yeah, today, they're strictly for 12 and under and for a 110-pound kid or less

because adults were getting injured because they're too heavy and they can run too fast and slide too far. Also, today's slip and slides have sort of a collection pool, an inflatable part at the end to kind of cushion your landing. But a lot of kids will remember from the 60s and 70s of running and there would be a muddy, grassy swamp in the end of the slip and slide. So there were some injuries with the toys over the years. Everyone has certainly played with a Super Bowl, but what is it? What is a Super Bowl? Super Bowl, technically, is a compressed polybutadiene.

It's a type of rubber that is compressed under a lot of pressure. Wham-O famously advertised 50,000 pounds of compressed energy. But it's really just a high-bounce ball. And a chemist by the name of Norm Stingley invented it in 1965 and brought it to Wham-O. And he told me that the first ball that he molded blew up when he tried to open the mold. It really was so dense that it just had to get out of the mold and tore itself to pieces. So he patented a way that you could just barely fill the mold and create a Super Bowl. And he brought it in to Spud Malin, one of the founders of Wham-O,

and told me the story that he bounced it under the table and made it come back to him, and then he handed it to Spud, and Spud predictably bounced it too hard, and it smashed into the ceiling, and they said, oh, we need to do this. And they launched the Super Bowl in 1965 and became an immediate hit. Now it's still on the market, but of course you can buy really cheap high-bounce balls and coin-operated machines outside of Kmart and Walmart, so the Super Bowl has got a lot of competition.

But in 1965, it was the ball to have. When you look at the Wham-O catalog online on their website, in many ways it looks like time stood still, where other toy companies are making very high-tech-y kinds of toys. Wham-O still focuses on the outdoorsy toys, and not a whole lot of them. So why don't they just sell what they have and let it all become part of Hasbro or Mattel?

Why don't they just sell out? Well, they have sort of been bought and sold through the years. The original owners sold the company in 82, and then it was sold a couple more times before its current owners took hold of it. The real challenge they have, Mike, is when a lot of these legendary toys came out, there was only three TV stations. So you could advertise a 99-cent Super Bowl on national television

or a $2 Frisbee on national television, and you were sure that a huge amount of the population would see it. Well, now there's thousands of channels, and there's no way that you could afford to advertise such an inexpensive toy with TV advertising. So really, they sell on word of mouth and on their historic, classic style, you know, the fact that we've all played with Frisbee and Hula Hoop and Super Bowl. So they have a battle when it comes to promoting their products, and that's probably why the Slip N' Slide is their biggest seller, because there's enough of a margin in that toy to afford to do a little more promotion, whereas Frisbee and Super Bowl and Hula Hoops sort of have to stand on their legendary status.

But they aren't a big player like a Hasbro and Mattel, and they're not as big as they once were. Yeah, they are bigger. Of course, their heyday was the 60s because we're focusing on sort of their big hits, but they had a stretch of hits there with Air Blaster Toy, Super Elastic Bubble Plastic in 1970, you know, Monster Maggot comes to mind in the middle of the 60s. So they had a string of hits. Silly String was a huge hit for them in 1969. It's no longer made by Wham-O. A lot of their classic toys were sort of licensed off to other people. So the 60s were their heyday. So I would agree that nowadays, you know, they sort of are resting on their laurels of some of their bigger hits.

But I would say from 1960 to 1970, they really were hitting their stride. Is there a good story about one of their products that really bombed? Well, it's funny you mention that word. I read everywhere in researching this book that they did a bomb shelter during the weapons race with the Soviet Union. And sure enough, I got access to their archives, and they made, in 1960, a fallout bomb shelter. And I asked Rich Knurr about it, and he said, well, it was really just a bunch of bricks that you bought from us, and then you made your own shelter.

That's all it was. And I asked him if he sold many of them. He said, no, not really. And really, in their history, what they did was they'd create a product and run some ads for it like they did with their original slingshot. And if they got orders, then they would make some and sell them. If they didn't get any orders, that was the end of that. So they did a lot of strange toys that were sort of experimental.

They made a bow-making machine called the Bowmatic that looks like it came right out of Ron Popeil's infomercial. That didn't sell too well. So they certainly had their share of flops along with their mega hits. Yeah, but I guess back then you could do that. You could come out with a product, run it up the flagpole without spending too much money, and see if there was any interest. That's right. Their slingshot was advertised in the back of Field and Stream and magazines of that era.

And that's really where they took off as a mail-order company. And then they slowly got into retail and had sales reps taking their products throughout the country and eventually the world. But they started off by just running some ads and seeing if they got some response. And they were certainly advertisers in the back of comic books. In the days of sea monkeys and ant farms, they had a product called Instant Fish, which came out right around the time of sea monkeys, and it didn't take off because they couldn't get the dormant fish eggs fast enough, and that was one of their famous flops.

But they were right there with sea monkeys. The two guys that started this, did they retire wealthy? I mean, you would think the people behind the Frisbee and the hula hoop and these iconic kind of toys should have gotten very, very rich. So did they? They did. In 82, they sold their company for $12 million, which was a good amount of money in 82, still today. And it was a lucrative deal, so they took it and they stayed on and worked for Kransko, the company that purchased them for a few years. But I think they missed it.

Shortly thereafter, they sort of probably regretted from talking to the family members that that was their, the love of their life was that company. And from everyone I talked to, all the employees that I spoke to, they really created a family atmosphere. And their legacy really is that, the fact that another legendary product they made called Hacky Sack in 83 and Frisbee are two toys that really have this culture around them, this sociology around them where people have married because of these toys.

They meet at tournaments. They end up having kids because of this plastic disc or this little bean bag that you're kicking around. And really, the Wham-O legacy is the fact that, you know, marriages and families and that real family atmosphere carries on even after the founders sold the company. Well, I always think it's interesting, and I hopefully think other people think it's interesting, to hear the backstory of, you know, products that you've known all your life,

of toys you've played with, and the story of the Wham-O toy company and their iconic toys is interesting to me and obviously interesting to you because you wrote a book about it. The book is called The Wham-O Superbook, Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory. Thank you, Tim.

It is interesting how we all accumulate the same stuff and we all have the same tough time throwing it out when we don't need it anymore. Sometimes it just becomes part of the clutter and we don't even see it anymore. it just becomes part of the clutter, and we don't even see it anymore. Here are a bunch of things I bet you have that you can toss out right now and free up some space in your home.

That extra packet of buttons that came with the shirt that you've already donated to charity. Old holiday cards. All those plastic grocery bags under your sink. Unidentified foil-wrapped things that are in your fridge or freezer. Any calendar in your house that isn't a calendar from this year. Promotional mugs or glasses that came free with a meal. All the stacks of magazines that you haven't touched in months and will never touch again.

Expired coupons, half-scrawled lists, notes, and post-it reminders that you have no idea what they even mean anymore, old invitations, anything you've agreed to take from your parents' house solely out of guilt, hobby supplies for hobbies that you've already given up, paperback novels that you'll never read again. VHS tapes and DVDs you'll never watch again.

Printed recipes that you tried, you didn't like, but you saved the recipe anyway. Old pens that don't even work anymore. Discount shopper loyalty cards to places you don't even shop anymore. Discount shopper loyalty cards to places you don't even shop anymore. And all the chopsticks, duck sauce, ketchup, mustard, and soy sauce packets that came with a to-go meal that you'll never, ever use. Clean out all that stuff, you probably got a whole lot of new space. And that is something you should know. Please take a moment to leave a rating and review for this podcast wherever you listen to it on iTunes or TuneIn, Stitcher, Google Play. It's a great way to support this podcast, as is doing business with our advertisers.

I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Bantwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Redolph Buntwine,

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