IT goes without saying that no one really wants tidings of a death.
Feb 6 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette
Having said that, we all go with mixed feelings from those around us. How many times have you heard a eulogy to the dear departed that emphasised the positive and ignored the negative? Plenty of times, I guess.
So it’s not often that you get to hear of the death of someone who, it seems, was only concerned with bringing light and fun into the world – and making a few bob from this.
But there was one the other week and I feel I want to share the obituary with you.
I speak of the late Richard Knerr, the guy behind a US company with the lovely title of Wham-O, and who developed the Frisbee and the hula hoop for those long, hot summers in the Fifties and Sixties.
Richard Knerr studied commerce after the Second World War but didn’t seem that interested in getting into the grey suit. In partnership with an old school pal, he began to train falcons, using a home-made slingshot to fire meatballs into the air. Customers seemed more interested in the slingshot than the falcons, so they started to make them in his dad’s garage and sold them alongside a range of plastic boomerangs.
The business grew fast, but only really took off after he saw youngsters flicking the cut-off tops of Frisbie meat pie tins – a local delicacy in his part of California - into the air. A quick re-naming to avoid lawsuits, and the Frisbee was born. The rest, as they say, was history.
The Frisbee was followed by the hoops. Knerr moulded lightweight plastic hoops in bright primary colours, and added a rather unconvincing Hawaiian name, hula. He fed the craze by giving away the first batch to local kids and then telling his Wham-O reps to carry them with them when out on the road. Soon the company was producing 20,000 a day.
Dick had made his millions. But he still chased fun. There was the Wheelie Bar, attached to the back of bicycles to stabilise them. He also developed the Bubble Thing, a ringed spoon to make bubbles “as long as a bus” and the “Huf'n Puf” blowgun, which shot rubber darts. He also produced probably the bounciest ball in history - the “Super Ball”. When a giant promotional version was dropped from his office window it bounced 15 floors, with the rebound destroying a parked car.
Right up to the Eighties he was still chasing fun. “You don’t catch fish if you don’t drop your line in the water” was his motto, and he certainly hooked a few.
- Park Bencher
