MARCH 5th - Hula Love



On this day in 1963, Arthur “Spud” Melin patented the most important toy of the 20th Century--the Hula-Hoop. It became a huge hit for his toy company, Wham-O in 1958 when it was first marketed, selling close to 25 million Hoops in the 1st four months of production. But if you’re going to sell people a giant circle you need to get a patent for it, and Melin did exactly that on this very day. The Hula-Hoop is not all that important, you say? Tell that to the mute hippie girl at the music festival. How else is she supposed to impress people without the aid of a Hula-Hoop? She needs it to mesmerize the pot-addled brains of the adolescent young men that are often entertained merely the blinking stage lights. She can’t talk, so the Hula-Hoop does all the communicating for her. It says, “Hey there, Pot-Addled Adolescents, I can move my hips like Shakira, as you can tell by the fact that this tubular circle never touches the ground.” And that, my friends, is how people fall in love. You see, the Hula-Hoop is a toy that facilitates love. So it is the most important toy of the 20th Century. Followed closely by the slinky, which everybody loves, but it does not promote or facilitate love, and may in fact promote feelings of jealousy and inadequacy, so the nod goes to the Hula-Hoop. Because love is a many-splendored thing and Melin’s Hula-Hoop just helps to spread those splendored things around--especially to mute hippie girls and pot-addled adolescents at music festival.

This day has been Marked.

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