

Similar interest was reported by the child development-parent educated department at Long Beach City College, where communication between children and adults was further stimulated by the youngsters’ enjoyment. However, the hospital staff soon found its adult patients were equally desirous fo enjoying the recreation it afforded. Serra Memorial Hospital in Sun Valley, California, originally planned to use it in its children’s ward to entertain the youngsters. Its obvious assets are augmented by a unique facility for entertaining persons with lengthy periods of time to fill, such as airline passengers, persons on lengthy auto trips, hospital patients, shut-ins and preschool youngsters. It was successful in its West Coast test marketing, spurring numerous inquiries from persons throughout the country who had received it as a gift. Individual interpretation and impressions make these swirling patterns emerge as oceans, mountains, flowers and limitless other scenes and patterns.Ī fascinating and creative plaything for children, it is also a provocative and decorative object for adults. Millions of vari-colored, non-toxic Microdium crystals, contained in an oval frame of clear, safe, heavy-duty polystyrene plastic, portray changing moving pictures as it is agitated or revolved. Its debut at a New York toy fair made it wildly popular, but the fish could not produce eggs fast enough, so the idea was dropped.Wham-O’s Magic Window: A toy for all ages (1973)Ĭreativity and versatility are two of the primary assets which make an exciting and unique toy product from Wham-O, creator or such all-time favorites as Hula Hoop, Frisbee and Silly String.Ī creative plaything for children, “Magic Window” is also a sensory experience for adults, representing a medium of creative interpretation. Melin turned this into the Instant Fish product, an aquarium kit that consisted of some of the fish eggs and some mud in which to hatch them. When the rains came, the eggs hatched and fish emerged overnight. While camping, he discovered a species of fish that laid eggs in the mud during Africa's dry season. One such product came as a result of Melin's safari to Africa in the early 1960s.

Many products, of course, were not successful.
WHAM O MAGIC WINDOW MOVIE
In 1962, they sold a limbo dance kit to take advantage of that fad, and in 1975 when the movie Jaws was released, they sold plastic shark teeth. In the 1960s, Wham-O came out with a US$119 do-it-yourself bomb shelter cover. Other products tried to take advantage of existing national trends. The company sold some 20 million of these during the 1960s, and the NFL named the Super Bowl games after it. It was made of a relatively hard elastomer Polybutadiene alloy dubbed Zectron, exhibiting a remarkable 0.92 coefficient of restitution when bounced on hard surfaces. In the early 1960s, Wham-O created the Super Ball. He sold the design to Wham-O in 1957 and the design was modified, the product renamed Frisbee and sales took off in 1959. In 1955 Fred Morrison began marketing a plastic flying disc which he called the "Pluto Platter". Shortly after, they got lucky again with the Frisbee. By the end of 1959, after US$45 million in profits, the fad slowly was dying out. Twenty-five million were sold in less than four months, and in two years sales reached more than 100 million units.

Knerr and Melin had created the biggest fad to date. The new Hula Hoop was born (the name "hula hoop" has been used since the 18th century). In 1957, Wham-O, still a fledgling company, took the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops" and manufactured them with Marlex.
