I Remember JFK

« The Day After | Main | LED Watches »

Add to Google

Wham-O SuperBalls

1965 SuperballThanks, superballs.com, for the image ;-).

Wham-O Toys were a big deal in the 60's. One of their products came out in 1965, a big year for toys. It was a ball made of highly compressed rubber. That gave it amazing bouncing ability. In fact, as the ad said, you could bounce it over a house!

And I did, too. Once I convinced my parents to shell out the 98 cents necessary for its purchase, the first thing I did was bounce it over the house. What a rush!

The SuperBall traces its origin to a California chemist named Norman Stingley. He compressed rubber under 3500 lbs. of pressure to create a sphere that bounced like no ball had ever bounced before. Realizing its potential as a craze, he offered it to his employer, the Bettis Rubber Company of Whittier. The rubber was not quite ready for prime time (it would fall apart within minutes of play), and they declined any interest in it.

Enter Wham-O.

Wham-O worked with Stingley to create a more durable rubber. By mid 1965, the SuperBall was released, along with an avalanche of TV commercials. Wham-O scored yet another instant hit, and more than seven million SuperBalls were sold by year's end.

The ball, besides having tremendous bouncing power, also has a mighty grab. You could drop it on a hard floor with some english and it would hop back and forth, reversing its direction each time. We also threw them back and forth the length of a city block.

Like many toy crazes, the mighty rush to buy them soon died down, but the toy itself survives to this day. Wham-O still cranks out SuperBalls, as do many imitators. But in the mid 1960's, the entire country was caught up in SuperBall fever.

By the way, as I penned this article, a 1965 SuperBall in its original packaging was up to $31.00 with three days left on its eBay auction. So if you have an original, put it in a safe place!

Recommend I Remember JFK to your friends!

Get emailed notifications of new articles!


NOTE: I will not sell any email addresses I receive, and will not send any unsolicited emails, either. If you sign up for new article notifications, that is ALL you will receive, and you can cancel at any time. You have my word.
--Ron Enderland

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.baldguyweb.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/55

Comments (4)

Tim:

Super Balls rocked! I remember the deadly (and much underestimated) second Super Ball bounce. WOW. My favorite boyhood ball. Wiffle a close second.

Rivers End:

I remnember super balls well! I don't remember the Whamo name. I must have had them! These balls would bounce over a house. Probablem with bouncing them that high, you would tend to loose sight of them. I remember getting the balls in gumball machines. Usually clear with colored designed inside of them. I remember collecting various superballs mostly for collecting.

I remember the time well. and at age 7, right near school getting out, I got a package of 6 little super balls. They were so cool but easy to loose and find. They ave remained around a long time. many prize dispensers would give you one for a quarter or might give you one if you were lucky.

The 60s had so many funny fads like that.

Jan Armstrong:

My Mum, who worked at a metropolitan radio station,was always ahead of the latest trends, so I was the "first on my block" with one when the Super Ball was launched here in Australia back in the 60's.

I was obsessed with this thing and played with it for hours on end - to the point where I could have easily been killed by a car! One evening, after school, I was bouncing it outside on a main road and it got caught in a tram track and went hurtling down the hill - with me running heedlessly and full pelt after it! - through a set of traffic lights and down to the tram depot, a quarter of a mile away, where the tracks deviated. From there, it was anyone's guess where it went, being on twilight and the ball being grey in colour. I spent ages frantically looking for the thing and I was frightened and panicked about what my Mum would say. She was furious that I'd been so careless,and reckless, but she eventually bought me another one anyway, but by that time the novelty had worn off and I was too afraid to play with it!!

Post a comment

Like the site? Buy Ron a cup of coffee! Note to those who would use my images
You may use any images you find on my site on your own personal site. COPY the images to your own server, PLEASE. If you link directly, you will likely get a logo encouraging others to visit I Remember JFK instead of the graphic that you expected. In return, I request that you include a link back to I Remember JFK. Fair enough?

Add to Google
Visit I remember JFK's Forum!
12 users currently visiting I Remember JFK
Get Emailed Updates of New Articles!
NOTE: I will not sell any email addresses I receive, and will not send any unsolicited emails, either. If you sign up for new article notifications, that is ALL you will receive, and you can cancel at any time. You have my word. --Ron Enderland, webmaster

My Policy on Advertisements

You will never see a Flash ad, a popup ad, or a banner ad at I Remember JFK. What you will see are unobtrusive, friendly text ads. If you get popups here, the problem is that you have adware or spyware on Microsoft Windows. I recomment you download and install Ubuntu Linux and enjoy safe, adware-free surfing. Barring that, install Spybot and Ad-Aware to kill the bugs.

With that, if you have ad-disabling software such as AdBlock Plus, I respectfully request that you make an allowance for my website in its settings. You have my personal guarantee that there is no intrusive advertising here.

Ron Enderland, webmaster

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on December 26, 2006 12:39 AM.

The previous post in this blog was The Day After.

The next post in this blog is LED Watches.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.