March 26, 2026 • 42 mins
Most people think of yo-yos as a fun, old-school toy for kids: a pretty simple, clever device leveraging physics with a string and a weight. Yet as Ben, Noel and Max discover in today's episode, the story of the humble dates back into antiquity -- and the story of its evolution is riddled with ridiculous ups and downs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Yo Yo Yo Yo.
(00:28):
Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
for the Man, the Myth, the Legend. I'm gonna pull
a random one here, Noel h Max Plastic Whip Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Whoa the Man, the Myth, the Mystery, Max Shmo Yo
Yo Yo Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Now, that is none other than the legendary Noel Brown.
They called me Ben Bullen in this neck of the woods.
We tease this episode. A few weeks back. We were
talking about pong, which led us to exploring ping pong analog.
Right right, right, right right, And now Noel, you are
(01:14):
our research associate for this episode, and thank you so much. Man.
It turns out we're both pretty into yo yo's. Did
you have that phase as a child.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I was never any good at it, always fascinated by it.
Definitely have owned a yo yo or two in my day,
but I never really could master any of the tricks.
And it was kind of similar to my fascination with
stage magic. You know, it's a I don't know, I.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Like a trick, Ben, I like a trick that's very
hip hop of you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, your intro is very hip hop, and let's just
think we're talking about hip hop.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Though yo yo ing has become cool again, it would seem.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And there's some very zeitgeiste figures that are into yo
yo's that are in these days and they're bringing it back.
But that's not really anything new because the history of
the humble yo yo is littered riddled. Dare I say
to take a page out of the stuff they don't
want you to know intro with celebrity endorsements and you know,
(02:17):
very spectacular displays of yo yo prowess. So whether you
yourself cut your teeth walking the dog in the yo
yo parlance or rocking the baby also in the yo
yo parlance, I might be getting that a little bit
mixed up.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's the one where you hold it up and you
have the streams swing, yes, trying like a pendulum.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You could also maybe rock the dog or walk the baby,
depending or you might even have then correctly learned that
the yo yo was used as an ancient hunting weapon
for like clubbing seals or something. The humble yo yo
has likely crossed your radar in one fashion or another.
But the history of the ooyo, as we often come
(03:02):
around to in topics we discuss on ridiculous history and
stuff they don't want you to know, is the story
of genius marketing as much as it is one of
invention and some pretty rad tricks. So today we bring
you the ridiculous history of the yo yo or don't
be a shmo yo, Try a yo yo?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Before we go on. I really like the title of this,
and I'm a fan of giving people flowers while they're
still around to get the flowers. This title is awesome.
Can you see it one more time? Oh, don't be
a shmo yo, Try a yo yo.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Got a comma in there, just to make sure shmo
yo isn't one where I Also, I've been rewatching a
lot of curb lately, and he loves he calls people
a shmo yo sometimes, if I'm not mistaken LD.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So let's just jump right into the origin of the
yo yo. We're not quite sure.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Historians differ, and there's a lot of miss info out
there that may also itself be the product of some
marketing spin. Not quite sure how far the yo yo
dates back. What we do know is that there were
as far back as four hundred and five hundred PC
Greece images depicted in various you know, frescoes and the like,
(04:24):
depicting the use of something resembling the yo yo.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, so we're looking at carving's right, not written descriptions.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Were carving frescoes, you know, not cave paintings, but the
visual visual depictions.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, So a circle and a line.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Something along those lines, that's right, something along both circles
and lines. Yoyo's do exist in the Metropolitan Museum of
Arts Fletcher Fund collection from this period. But a lot
of countries have claimed to have invented this thing, and there,
as we often see in history, seems to be a
lot of parallel thinking around a little circular thing with
(05:04):
an axle in the middle and a string attached to
it that you can fling around in various ways. Some
historians argue about multiple sites of origin, like I was
just saying currently. However, the most accepted theory as that
it originated in Asia around one thousand BCE. Although there
aren't any records of the yo yo in Asia during
(05:26):
this period. The yoyo as we know it today, there
is something called the diabolo, the Chinese yo yo as
it is known in English, and you're our Chinese expert here, Ben,
maybe you can help with these pronunciations. It goes by
two different names.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I am definitely not an expert. This is definitely Chinese.
We can confirm that the two different names would be
a sell lib and omu go my man.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Both of these terms refer to the same object and
can be interchangeable depending on the region. So it literally
does translate to pulling bell or pulling ring, which is
very descriptive of the action of pulling the string to
make this object spin.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So this is maybe a little more Ben.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You've probably seen these like a top where you sort
of wind it up and rip the cord and then
the thing spins on its end. I'm thinking that's rings
about theolo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Okay, yeah, yeah, for the pulley bell or the shit.
That's that seems accurate. It reminds me a little bit
of those toys that may have been before your time,
the ring fighter things. I can't remember the name, but
you you pulled the string or you pulled like a
plastic tab and they rolled around in a little arena. Yeah,
(06:47):
that's right. I think those are.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Gosh, hold on a second, there's something Matt like Matt's
Kid like those, or there was a more modern version.
It was like, I think, out of Japan, and it
had a lot of trading cards associated with it and
a lot of culture. Now I'm totally spacing on the name,
and I know people out there are screaming their podcast device.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's okay, you're don't have to scream, folks, We'll figure
it out. We also know the second meaning that you
alluded to for dia bolo is hung shot, which is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Empty bamboo, empty bamboo, which likely refers to the hollow nature.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Of the objects.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And this is coming to us from a really great
blog post by Lingo Ace all about Chinese yoyo tradition's
history and tricks. And so when we see folks demonstrating
what the da bolo would have been, it typically is
more like two sticks with strings attached to it, looped
around a large item which has got the rounded shape
(07:48):
on either side that tapers in the middle, and then
you kind of use it to make the thing dance
across the stro.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
This is like a rave, it's a little it is
a still devil. Sticks coded I'm not gonna hacky sack.
Well yeah, well hackey sack of Jason.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think the yo yo, we can all argue, definitely
falls squarely into that camp. But during the l parallel
parallel thinking, to be sure, Ben, But during the late
eighteenth century we start to see examples of this popping
up in France. Of course, as they do in France,
they had to fancify it, so these versions were made
out of glass or ivory and were called the de Normandy.
(08:28):
We've got some citations from Britannica on that one, and
Duncan Toys you may know as kind of the king
of the yo yo, or at least the popularizer of
the yo yo. And they've definitely come back into their
own as far as the modern types and spin no
pun intended on.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
The yo yo.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
But they have a great section on their website talking
about the history of the yo yo, and they talk about.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
A picture of King Louis the XVIII. What's that one, Ben?
Is that thirteenth twelfth, fourteenth? You know me and them Roman.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Nomes things I appreciate. So he wasn't the son king,
he was a couple kings. Later shows him playing with
a yo yo as a child. We also have historical
documents showing the yoyo was popular to pass the time
during the French Revolution, like they needed something to do
to pass the time. I guess in between stormings, right.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Right, Well, not everybody can own a full working guillotine,
so you gotta you gotta have something to do with
your hands, right, God has something to do you with
your hands while you still got him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You did start to see the depictions of this and
paintings into the eighteen hundreds. And I believe our buddy
who was scared of rabbits, Napoleon was tossed it around
a yo yo before the Battle of water I guess
he wasn't scared of rabbits.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
He was just sort of mobbed by rabbits. He was unprepared.
He was unprepared historically on many levels. But also he
wasn't a dumb guy. And what a flex to walk
around before you go into Waterloo. I know you just
have a yo yo. No, that's that's an intimidation.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I think it's a bit of a power move ben
In England, according to Britannica, it was referred to as
the bandalore or I love this one because it just
kind of makes like an automatopoia a quiz.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Okay, so you would say, oh, let me have my quiz.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I love that it's so English, and I think Jonathan
strictly aka the Quizzer would approve an illustration depicted the
Prince of Wales. Later, George the Fourth got that one
right playing with his yo yo, and so it became
a hit with the jet seestying. I guess they didn't
have jests, but you know what I mean, fashionistas of
the time. Uh, the popularity of the toy a lot
(10:49):
like I guess lawn tennis, which preceded table tennis or
ping pong, started to enter the ranks of the nobility,
leading to a lot of references during this period, a
lot of them in political cartoons.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Showing this as a bit of a pastime of the swells. Now,
in your research yournal, you've included some drawings of the time,
some political cartoons, and I think we love to describe them.
What are the first is? I love it is a
(11:25):
unfortunate situation with an older school marmed type and she's
been a sailed two boys, she's been menaced sailed by
two boys. Children throwing yo yo's, and it's called The
caption reads.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
The sensation boll wow, the laziest pleasantry in the public streets.
Yo yo as the rage in the sixties, rude boys perhaps.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Doing around the world.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I think that's an eighteen pretty basic that's right, the eighteens,
pretty basic trick A lot of people might be familiar with,
where you take the thing, you fling it out and
then you pull it and you kind of do a
loopy loop with it, and then you pull it back
into your hand. We would be remiss if we did
not point out that the reason all of this works
is because of centripetal force and gravity.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Ah yes, gravity, our old nemesis, and energy which can
neither be created nor destroyed.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And it's it's basically, if I'm not mistaken, then it's
kind of preserved in the motion of the of the
yo yo and when you kind of yank it, that
energy allows it to travel back up the string.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Nailed it hold of one, just so, I mean, if
we walk the dog out here, though, I've got a
question for you, Noel. It sounds like parallel thinking teaches
us that the Mediterranean and parts of East Asia discover
the yo yo discovered that centrepetal force on their own,
(12:57):
and that it became popularized in Europe. But how did
it get to the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, it's a good question, Ben, And we do have
a couple other fun images kind of showing these very
bougie French folks playing with their toys.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The article that I referenced earlier are actually let me
reference this one specifically. I haven't yet doc Lucky's History
of the yo yo Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, who wrote a
book called Lucky's Collector's Guide to twentieth century Yoyo's histories
and Values. He's also the former chairman of the American
Yoyo Association's History and Collecting Committee, so he knows a
(13:34):
thing or two about the yo yo. And he points
out that a lot of these images from the period
that we're talking about here in Europe depicted adults playing
with this, and it sort of trickled down to the kids,
because you mentioned the one with the young whipper snappers
or the rude boys messing around with this older lady.
But most of the images did show old folks, older folks,
(13:55):
adults playing with these as a sign of kind of
like this was a pastime of the well to do
who were able to exercise their leisure time in this way.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Now you're too worried about the war, my friend, you
should do what I do. Take us slow constitutional in
the afternoon, go to the Angerrarium and witness your rented
pineapple and dangle quiz Tangle your quiz perfect.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
We got there, so you asked about how it kind
of got to what we know today. November of eighteen
sixty six, we've got James el Haven and Charles Hittrick
of Cincinnati, Ohio, who get the first patent for a
yo yo in the United States, and it was described
It described the patent a yo yo as coupled together
(14:42):
or as being coupled together at their centers by means
of a clutch. It was also the first time a
method called rim waiting was mentioned in the patent, and
it specifically said, it will be observed that the marginals
swell sea. The sea is being the exhibit in the patent.
Magery exercises the function of a flywheel. Flywheel being kind
(15:04):
of like a Pulley system of ropes and gears that
you would use to maybe operate scenes in a scenery
in a play, or you know, part curtains and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Right, And so what we're saying here, folks, is that
for thousands of years, various civilizations came up with something
like this, but the rubber hits the road, right, or
the stream hits the yo When we talk about the
idea of patenting.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Design and the Yo Yo Museum as a piece titled
the Brief History A Brief History of the yo Yo
and got some really fun info from that one as well.
They point out that the real importance of the patent
is that it suggests the very first use of patents
to protect design improvements from what we know more as
(15:54):
the historical version of the yoyo in the manufacturing of
a yo yo. So that's pretty neat. We start to
see the aforementioned haven and hetrick really entering into the
business of mass producing yoyos.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
So for thousands of years, different civilizations figured out something
like a yo yo, and then later it gets patented
and enters mass manufacture. I think a lot of us
listening tonight are going to be wondering if the yo
yos of the past were like the fidget spinners or
the rosaries of today.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
We've also often asked the question about how come there's
not one person credited.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
With like the fidget spinner.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We do know that patents can't expire as well and
get entered into the public domain as well as you know, trademarks.
It's a question for another day, but I think you're
getting at something. We also tease this idea of was
this thing used as a hunting implement?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Right, That's that's something he alluded to at the top.
I say we dive in because no, I don't know
much about this. I remember vaguely hearing stuff about Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's right, the Philippines in particular, a famous This is
a really I'm gonna pull a lot from this, or
we're gonna pull a lot from Lucky's the history of
the yo yo. Because this guy really is, I would argue,
probably the pre eminent yo yo scholar.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
He's on the committee.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
He's on the committee, and he also points out that
he himself is responsible for spreading some of the misinformation
that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
He owns up to that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I would go ahead and just find this whole article
and read Lucky Meisenheimer MD's piece where He goes into
a lot of these various conflicting histories of the yo
yo and the way he himself may have contributed to
some of that. But he points out that the claim
that the yo yo I'm just going to quote directly
from his writing was used as a weapon in the
(17:58):
Philippines isn't new. This has been the subject of much
debate over the last several decades. The Duncan Yo Yo
Company also used the weapon narrative as a promotional gimmick,
but behind the scenes they themselves recognized that this was
likely not true. We're going to get into Duncan in
a little bit, but I just thought we'd get this
part out of the way because it's a lot of fun.
(18:20):
One early yo yo demonstrator for the Duncan Company claimed
that he was the one who made up the story
in the first place. However, there is good evidence to
support that the yo yo was a weapon in the Philippines,
however not necessarily used in the way you might think so.
(18:43):
The story, as it goes the idea of this being
a century's old Filipino hunting device, describes a hunter, you know,
finding a refuge or a secret spot in a tree,
fortifying himself as so he can like kind of hide
from his target, holding a heavy, oversized yo yo, waiting
for his prey to pass below, and at the critical moment,
(19:05):
the yoyo would be flung, hurled, and balk the animal
right on the head, presumably killing it or knocking it out,
and then allowing it to return to the hunter, especially
if he missed and needed a second.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Shot, a boomerang on a string a bit of that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
However, Meisenheimer points out that the physics of the yoyo
make this pretty improbable that that would work. However, there
is no question that something like a yoyo existed in
the Philippines for quite a long time. There isn't any
documented evidence that it was used as a hunting tool
in this exact way. There is, however, evidence that the
Duncan Company popularized this themselves as a bit of a
(19:44):
gimmick in promoting the yo yo, it would seem Meisenheimer
says that the hunting origin is pure fantasy. It was
a memorable story and helped to sell yo yo's. The
hunting origin of the toy was printed so often, as
is often the case, that it has become an urban legend. However,
he also points out that it is there is evidence
that it was used as a weapon in some fashion,
(20:05):
though not the way we might think or the way
that was just described, Ben, think of think of it
as a way to like hide a string like a garrot.
Remember those where you like you got the creepy assassin
coming up behind you and strangling you with piano wire
after like.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Hey, might be a great guy. You know, true that
all assassins are creepy. No, it's true, just getting situations
and not all creeps are assassins. Max, what you got
to jump in here?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I'm not sure if you can get a yo yo.
But in the hit Man series, the video game where
you you know, play as an assassin, Oh, I love
that one, you can get very You can get a
garat obviously it comes like pretty standard. But you can
get like you know, like ear bud cables and stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
You can use for that. I don't know if you
can get a yoyo though. Okay, all right, well we
have some notes for you creators of hit Man. We
also know again it goes back to what you're saying
about parallel thinking, right, and about corporations wanting to sell stuff.
When I'm hearing this myth perpetrated by Duncan, which, as
(21:09):
you said, we'll get into in a moment, it reminds
me of those back pages of old school comic books
and you know, boy Scout type magazines where they would say,
we'll sell you a pair of nun Chucks and will
train you in the agent art. And right next to that,
I sound elderly now, but right next to that sometimes
(21:31):
there would be an ad for the Filipino art of
the yo yo.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Sure well, speaking of that man or to that point,
I'd mentioned that our expert here pointed out that there
is written evidence that it was used as some kind
of weapon, and that comes from an eighteen eighty eight
letter by doctor Jose Rizol, a Filipino national hero, who
wrote of his transatlantic voyage from America to England. Quote,
(21:59):
I am barked for your aboard the city of Rome,
said to be the second largest steamer on earth. At
the end of the voyage, a periodical is printed on board.
I met many people here, and as I had with
me a yo Yo, the Europeans and Americans were astonished
to see how I used it as a weapon of attack.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I think he's being cute.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I think he may well be ben but it is
it is evidence we can point to. Meisenheimer goes on.
So unless you want to dispute one of the most
famous Filipino historical figures writing, the question becomes not was
the yoyo used as a weapon in the Philippines, but
how was it used? So this is a point of
much speculation. I think we pointed out one possible use.
Another would be the thick leather cord of a particular
(22:39):
design of yo yo, perhaps used like a sarong in
martial arts, which is sort of that garat kind of situation,
and the suggestion that this mechanism allowed it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
To be concealed.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And there also appears to be a kind of startorial
version of this, where the thick leather cord of a
particular design of yoyo might have been used to like
wrap a or you know, sort of a stand in
for like underwear of some kind. Doctor Rissol had training
in martial arts, and it suggested that this is the
(23:10):
mechanism he used the yoyo as a weapon. It's basically
a concealed weapon.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Okay. I also think Risol, who is a national hero
of the Philippines. I also think he was being a
bit diplomatic when he was on this transatlantic voyage, and
maybe he was conversationally disarming people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I think you're right, Ben, I do think you're right,
but I did think it was worth mentioning. So now
as we've already teased Ben, we've got mister Duncan entering
the chat.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Which is I think a name inextricably linked for all
time to the yo Yo. Yes, yeah, if you had
a yo yo in the United States, you probably had
one from Donald F. Duncan, Chicago businessman who read into
his first yo Yo on a business trip to San
(24:05):
Francisco in nineteen twenty eight, and the person he saw
using the yo yo was a guy named Pedro Flores,
recently arrived from the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
For sure, he had already begun selling a toy labeled
with the name yo Yo, meaning come come in the
native language of the Philippines, which I guess that that
that's Trigallas. I think that's right, Ben, I'm not one
hundred percent sure. I do have another source from the
Smithsonian and they just refer to the native language of
(24:39):
the Philippines. So there may well be more than one,
but tone languages for sure. For sure, yoyo does what
I know of tagalag that does kind of track.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So it's
nineteen twenty nine. We're in the early days of that
year and Floory's has, as you said, he's created this
company Yo Yo Come Come. He gets his financing, he
gets his investors, his backers, and he makes correct me yournal.
(25:13):
He makes more than one hundred thousand of these toys yep.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Carved out of wood. He trademarks the name yo Yo,
and then he realizes a real kicker that this definitely
becomes part of the Duncan model. I think we all
know this. It is not something that is intuitively easy
to do well right, playing with the yo Yo. It's tricky.
You got to kind of know what you're doing. You
gotta have practice, and you first of all have to
(25:39):
be shown how to do it. So he assembles a
crack team of yo Yo masters to demonstrate some basic
tricks and get people on board with this toy.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You too can walk the dog. And this is where
our buddy Duncan comes into play. All right, So we've
seen this out on the West Coast. He is a marketer,
he is an entrepreneur, and get this, he is already
a manufacturer of wooden novelty items and toys, so he
has the infrastructure to make this happen.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, it just reminds me of the movie The Hudsucker
Proxy about the sort of like fanciful version of the
introduction of the hula hoop, and they keep saying, you know,
for kids, but they have a real hard time in
the movie figuring out how.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
To sell the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
It's basically just a hoop, and it takes this one
kid on the street picking it up and starting to
shimmy it around his hips before all the other kids
see him do it, and then they got to do
it too.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
They got to figure out how to do it. They
got to get one. That's what kicks off the craze.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So demonstration is key here and he Duncan raises five
thousand bucks, which a lot of money at that time. Gosh,
we should probably do an inflation calculator and a dude
a boop five thousand In nineteen thirty two money is
(27:06):
around one hundred and eighteen thousand, seven hundred and five
dollars and eleven cents roughly today.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
And with this windfall, Duncan, as we have it here
in the notes, secures Flores's remaining assets. He also acquires
that trademark Yo Yo. The trademark will not expire until
decades and decades later in nineteen sixty five, and competing
(27:34):
plastic yo yos begin to outsell the wooden ones. That's
what happens in the mid nineteen sixties. But for decades
Duncan was the monopoly man of yo yo's, and they
were mostly wooden, and they mostly came from this one
guy's company, yep.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And he took Flores's lead and did the very same
thing in terms of assembling these demonstration crews. Who would
go to school, who would you know, hang out in
Times not Times Square, but like you know, public parks
and maybe Times Square, various places in New York City
as well street as well as on the West Coast
exactly been. But the real marketing genius comes when he
(28:13):
approaches a guy you might have heard of, mister William
Randolph Hurst, the owner of the country's largest chain of newspapers,
and he decides that to offer kind of a trade
sort of put his money where his mouth is in
a way, or at the very least say I've got
an idea for you, mister Hurst, how we can do
(28:35):
some in we can help each other out. He comes
up with the idea to launch the yo yo and
feature them in newspaper ads advertising yo yo competitions. He
proposed to mister Hurst that if Hurst gave him free
advertising space, he could help increase the papers circulations through
(28:55):
these advertisements because he had the genius idea of it
be a caveat of entering. A prerequisite for entering the
contest that kids had to sell two to three subscriptions
to the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Amazing, amazing, and we also have to shout out. It
just hit me now reading through research here, it just
hit me. That's why yo yo's became such a trope
in later political cartoons. Absolutely because you would have a
yo yo competition entirely tied in with the empire of
(29:32):
William Randolph Hurst. Oh that's brilliant. Oh I feel so cold,
It's pretty Yeah, it's chilly for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Hurst is a little bit on the fence about this,
so he decides to test it in a little bit
of a pilot experiment just using his Chicago newspaper, and
in six weeks, the popularity of the Yo Yo and
these competitions sold him fifty thousand new subscriptions, which gave
him the confidence he needed to give Duncan free ad
(30:07):
space and his papers all around the nation.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And then we see some more tremendous marketing by mister Duncan.
The patriarch of the Yo Yo now sends a bunch
of street teams out professional Yo Yo demonstrators city the
city schoolyard near your own. It's kind of like the
brilliant thing that Oscar Meyer would later do bymobiles. Yeah,
(30:34):
so they basically, they said, the Yo Yo version of
wienermobiles across the United States, across the land, and they
promote these local contests. Kids learn tricks, they get very invested,
they create their own grassroots independent communities. And now Duncan
is like the Willie Wonka of yoyo's.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And there's actually a name that they're using for these demonstrators.
They called them Duncan Professionals, and a lot of these
folks actually went on to start some companies that would
give Duncan a run for their money. Once that trademark
ran out, we'll get a little more into that. But
what Duncan also was really good at was tapping into
(31:19):
name recognition and celebrities. We had folks like Douglas Fairbanks,
Mary Pickford. These are names that maybe won't ring as
much of a bell to a modern ear. Baseball Hall
of Famer Luke Garrig you probably have heard of Hack Wilson.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All of these folks were photographed.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Using their Yo yo's and would participate in paid promotions
with movie icons like what is it our gang?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Isn't it the Little Rascals? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. And
they were promoting specific brands of Yo Yo's at different times,
all owned by Duncan, by the way, things like Gold
Seal and Oh Boy yo Yo's. If a town did
not have a visible local celebrity, then you just got
(32:05):
the police commissioner or the mayor or another high ranking
public official to be in a photograph holding a Yo yo.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And I just got to read this directly from our
expert Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, because he puts it so beautifully,
this idea that Duncan may have ruined themselves in their
own effective marketing because their success with promoting the toy
over four decades made the word yoyo a household name,
almost more than the association with.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Duncan in some ways.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Once the pat or the trademark ran out, you started
to see challenges to Duncan's soul right to use that name,
made by folks like Joe Radavan of the Royal Yo
Yo Company. And to our previous point, Radavan was one
of those early Duncan professionals who himself was from the Philippines,
so it's very full circle. In nineteen thirty seven he
(33:01):
left Duncan and formed his own company, and in nineteen
sixty five, after a lengthy court battle, Duncan was stripped
of that trademark protection by the courts, which determined that
the word yo yo had at this point ben become generic.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yes, yeah, now, because you can't own the word paper, right,
you can't own the concept of wind or hats or
what's another one, shoe feet no wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
However, though, that's not the case in other countries, because,
as Meisenheimer points out, there are other countries like Canada
where the word yoyo is still under trademark protection. The
sixties saw a little bit of a wane in the
popularity of yo yo's as new toys and you know,
gadgets and things made it start to feel a little
(33:52):
bit you know, old hat, a little bit antiquated. But
in the eighties the yoyo experienced a massives with a
new modern design. The new yoyos were made of plastic
and had a ball bearing axle that made them a
lot zippier allowed them to perform even longer sleeps or
(34:15):
spin times right where you hold it at the bottom.
It's called making it sleep, and even more complex tricks.
That's when we see the American Yo Yo Association clocking
the world sleep record for a fixed axle yo yo
in nineteen ninety one by Dale Oliver at fifty one seconds.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And as recently as two thousand and one we see
that that record has been dwarfed. The American Yoyo Association's
world record in twenty twenty one for sleep was thirteen
minutes and five seconds, set by the legendary Rick Wyatt.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
One hundred percent. Ben I wouldn't be surprised if it's
been further dwarfed by now, because yo yo ing is
is you know, you could a it's niche. It's not
like an Olympic sport or anything. It doesn't quite have
the same cachet as say X games type sports, but
is getting there because there's a lot of like pretty
cool people that are into yo yoing, like our very
own Fay Webster, who is a fantastic musician from here
(35:15):
in Atlanta who has a lot of connections to the
hip hop community here, started off her career as a photographer,
you know, hanging out with folks like Lil YACHTI and
various other rappers from the scene. Her music isn't really
in that vein at all. It's much more kind of awesome, crooney,
very delightful, Billie holiday asque kind of music, vocal music
(35:38):
because I sound like a grandpa myself. But she actually
is a huge yoyo officionado, and I believe she's doing
Yo Yo Invitational right here in Atlanta, So it's really
cool to see that connection right here in our in
our hometown. The modern National Yo Yo Championships were first
held in Chico, California in nineteen ninety three recent pretty
(36:00):
recent under the direction of a guy named Bob Maloney,
who later became the director of the National Yoyo Museum
in Chico. And this is again coming from Lucky Weisenheimer MD.
They changed, though, however, drastically in nineteen ninety six, just
the landscape of competitive yo yoing when a guy named
Alex Garcia won the very first freestyle competition. Now that's
(36:24):
what we're talking about, and what makes it freestyle is
the type of yo yo where the yoyo is no
longer attached to your finger, but it's attached to a
counterweight that's held in your hand, which allows you to
do tricks that completely disconnect the yo yo from your
body and the actual yo yo from the string. You
can pop it off and then roll it back on.
(36:46):
There's all kinds of really really really magic, cool tricks
that you can do with this free hand style of
yo yoing. I would just really encourage anyone out there
to just google or do some YouTube searches of some
of the top yoyos across the country and around the world,
because there's some stuff that's going to blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, and we know this is still look, it's not
the halcyon Ds of the nineteen sixties, but the yo
yo is a cool idea. It's a lot of fun.
It's a popular toy. If you have kids and you
want them to have something kinetic to play with that's
not going to hurt too many people, then forego the
(37:26):
nunchucks and get the yo yo.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Get them a yo yo. Competitive yo yos today can
spend at up to eight thousand revolutions per minute. They're
typically made of aluminum, titanium, or steel, and they are
produced with extremely exacting machining standards.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I want, you know what, I want a comic book
adaptation of a superhero that uses a yo yo, Like
you know, the way Daredevil uses the sticks or the
way Batman uses the rings. It'd be cool to have
a yo yo superhero.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I completely agree, Ben, And there's no doubt that that
yoyo superhero would be able to do most of, if
not all, of, some of the modern tricks that we're
just gonna rattle off for you real quick as we
wrap up this episode. Not no longer the Humble, Walk
the Dog, or Rock the Baby, Rock the Cradle, whatever
you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
We're talking about things like the Elevator, the brain Twister.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
These all sound like roller coasters, the mock five personal
favorite here, the Poppin Fresh.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I've got some firstal favorites as well. I love that
there is a potential for combos in these moves Trapeze
trapeze and brother trapeze and Brother slack rther that of
course double or nothing. Oh, of course we.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Got the zipper, the split bottom mounts, the Revolution and
the reverse to your previous list Ben Slack Trapeze. Why
is that what in all caps? I don't know, man,
it just seems really extra. It's very intense. I had
to get the win across. We've got the we got
various whips, Ben, the jade, the iron, the plastic, the rejection.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
The Kamakase mount is uh interesting, and then there's whipped
to Kama case. And then there's the Houdini mount, but
not spelled the way you think.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It's not spelled the way you think it could be
a typo in this thing, but it might not as well.
I think the mount is when you like it's just
one of those ones where I think that the yoyo
disconnects on the string and then you pop it back on.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I've seen some videos where the titles of the tricks
were listening underneath it and it's ringing a Bellhiste's the
cold Fusion, the spiritual successor to walk the dog skin.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
The gerbil, Now, come on, that's egregious. It is do
you hate no? I like gerbils. They're cute. I got
no problem with trolls. I didn't invent the name.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Uh the gyroscopic flop, which sounds like a bad trip
to the doc.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Now that's that's an endoscopic flop. That's different. Hey, the
ping pong mm hmm yeah. Check out our earlier episode
on the evolution of table tennis or ping pong. We
have so many other names, tricks, hooks, all kinds of sides.
We got a gunslinger, we got a grind. I don't
(40:22):
know what the one point five Eli Hopp is now,
but I hope it's named after a guy I do too.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
And a lot of these start to take on names
very closely resembling skateboard tricks, and it really is at
that level of cool to it to a certain degree now,
like where people are making really cool videos of doing
yoyo tricks. Also, like another thing that I enjoy is
something called krdistry, where people are manipulating and doing crazy
(40:49):
tricks with playing cards, not magic tricks, but just manipulating
them and you know, doing crazy riffle shaking roll like water,
making them roll like water. And this is another kind
of spiritual successor to that. And there's tons of content
out there if you want to check it out. So
that's it for Yo Yo's man, So don't get out
there and try yourself for Yoyo dope schmo Yo.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Wonderful title, wonderful story. This makes me want to grab
yo yo myself. We can't wait to hear your stories. No,
we're probably going to get some feedback on this one
from people who send us cool clips of them doing
yo yo tricks. Big thanks to our super producer, mister
Max Williams. Big thanks to our research associate for this episode,
(41:37):
none other than mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Oh, thank you kindly, Ben, Thanks to Alex Williams who
composed our theme, Christopher Rosiotis and Eve's Jeff Coates here
in spirit.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And thanks to our heist colleagues Ridiculous Crime. If you
dig us, you'll love them. Big thanks of course to
aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance and Polite.
How do you do? To Jonathan Strickland to aka the Quist?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Fine? How do you do? Indeed, do you sir. We'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Yo Yo Yo Yo.
(00:28):
Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
for the Man, the Myth, the Legend. I'm gonna pull
a random one here, Noel h Max Plastic Whip Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Whoa the Man, the Myth, the Mystery, Max Shmo Yo
Yo Yo Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Now, that is none other than the legendary Noel Brown.
They called me Ben Bullen in this neck of the woods.
We tease this episode. A few weeks back. We were
talking about pong, which led us to exploring ping pong analog.
Right right, right, right right, And now Noel, you are
(01:14):
our research associate for this episode, and thank you so much. Man.
It turns out we're both pretty into yo yo's. Did
you have that phase as a child.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I was never any good at it, always fascinated by it.
Definitely have owned a yo yo or two in my day,
but I never really could master any of the tricks.
And it was kind of similar to my fascination with
stage magic. You know, it's a I don't know, I.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Like a trick, Ben, I like a trick that's very
hip hop of you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, your intro is very hip hop, and let's just
think we're talking about hip hop.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Though yo yo ing has become cool again, it would seem.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And there's some very zeitgeiste figures that are into yo
yo's that are in these days and they're bringing it back.
But that's not really anything new because the history of
the humble yo yo is littered riddled. Dare I say
to take a page out of the stuff they don't
want you to know intro with celebrity endorsements and you know,
(02:17):
very spectacular displays of yo yo prowess. So whether you
yourself cut your teeth walking the dog in the yo
yo parlance or rocking the baby also in the yo
yo parlance, I might be getting that a little bit
mixed up.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's the one where you hold it up and you
have the streams swing, yes, trying like a pendulum.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You could also maybe rock the dog or walk the baby,
depending or you might even have then correctly learned that
the yo yo was used as an ancient hunting weapon
for like clubbing seals or something. The humble yo yo
has likely crossed your radar in one fashion or another.
But the history of the ooyo, as we often come
(03:02):
around to in topics we discuss on ridiculous history and
stuff they don't want you to know, is the story
of genius marketing as much as it is one of
invention and some pretty rad tricks. So today we bring
you the ridiculous history of the yo yo or don't
be a shmo yo, Try a yo yo?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Before we go on. I really like the title of this,
and I'm a fan of giving people flowers while they're
still around to get the flowers. This title is awesome.
Can you see it one more time? Oh, don't be
a shmo yo, Try a yo yo.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Got a comma in there, just to make sure shmo
yo isn't one where I Also, I've been rewatching a
lot of curb lately, and he loves he calls people
a shmo yo sometimes, if I'm not mistaken LD.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So let's just jump right into the origin of the
yo yo. We're not quite sure.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Historians differ, and there's a lot of miss info out
there that may also itself be the product of some
marketing spin. Not quite sure how far the yo yo
dates back. What we do know is that there were
as far back as four hundred and five hundred PC
Greece images depicted in various you know, frescoes and the like,
(04:24):
depicting the use of something resembling the yo yo.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, so we're looking at carving's right, not written descriptions.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Were carving frescoes, you know, not cave paintings, but the
visual visual depictions.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, So a circle and a line.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Something along those lines, that's right, something along both circles
and lines. Yoyo's do exist in the Metropolitan Museum of
Arts Fletcher Fund collection from this period. But a lot
of countries have claimed to have invented this thing, and there,
as we often see in history, seems to be a
lot of parallel thinking around a little circular thing with
(05:04):
an axle in the middle and a string attached to
it that you can fling around in various ways. Some
historians argue about multiple sites of origin, like I was
just saying currently. However, the most accepted theory as that
it originated in Asia around one thousand BCE. Although there
aren't any records of the yo yo in Asia during
(05:26):
this period. The yoyo as we know it today, there
is something called the diabolo, the Chinese yo yo as
it is known in English, and you're our Chinese expert here, Ben,
maybe you can help with these pronunciations. It goes by
two different names.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I am definitely not an expert. This is definitely Chinese.
We can confirm that the two different names would be
a sell lib and omu go my man.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Both of these terms refer to the same object and
can be interchangeable depending on the region. So it literally
does translate to pulling bell or pulling ring, which is
very descriptive of the action of pulling the string to
make this object spin.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So this is maybe a little more Ben.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You've probably seen these like a top where you sort
of wind it up and rip the cord and then
the thing spins on its end. I'm thinking that's rings
about theolo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Okay, yeah, yeah, for the pulley bell or the shit.
That's that seems accurate. It reminds me a little bit
of those toys that may have been before your time,
the ring fighter things. I can't remember the name, but
you you pulled the string or you pulled like a
plastic tab and they rolled around in a little arena. Yeah,
(06:47):
that's right. I think those are.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Gosh, hold on a second, there's something Matt like Matt's
Kid like those, or there was a more modern version.
It was like, I think, out of Japan, and it
had a lot of trading cards associated with it and
a lot of culture. Now I'm totally spacing on the name,
and I know people out there are screaming their podcast device.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's okay, you're don't have to scream, folks, We'll figure
it out. We also know the second meaning that you
alluded to for dia bolo is hung shot, which is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Empty bamboo, empty bamboo, which likely refers to the hollow nature.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Of the objects.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And this is coming to us from a really great
blog post by Lingo Ace all about Chinese yoyo tradition's
history and tricks. And so when we see folks demonstrating
what the da bolo would have been, it typically is
more like two sticks with strings attached to it, looped
around a large item which has got the rounded shape
(07:48):
on either side that tapers in the middle, and then
you kind of use it to make the thing dance
across the stro.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
This is like a rave, it's a little it is
a still devil. Sticks coded I'm not gonna hacky sack.
Well yeah, well hackey sack of Jason.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think the yo yo, we can all argue, definitely
falls squarely into that camp. But during the l parallel
parallel thinking, to be sure, Ben, But during the late
eighteenth century we start to see examples of this popping
up in France. Of course, as they do in France,
they had to fancify it, so these versions were made
out of glass or ivory and were called the de Normandy.
(08:28):
We've got some citations from Britannica on that one, and
Duncan Toys you may know as kind of the king
of the yo yo, or at least the popularizer of
the yo yo. And they've definitely come back into their
own as far as the modern types and spin no
pun intended on.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
The yo yo.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
But they have a great section on their website talking
about the history of the yo yo, and they talk about.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
A picture of King Louis the XVIII. What's that one, Ben?
Is that thirteenth twelfth, fourteenth? You know me and them Roman.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Nomes things I appreciate. So he wasn't the son king,
he was a couple kings. Later shows him playing with
a yo yo as a child. We also have historical
documents showing the yoyo was popular to pass the time
during the French Revolution, like they needed something to do
to pass the time. I guess in between stormings, right.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Right, Well, not everybody can own a full working guillotine,
so you gotta you gotta have something to do with
your hands, right, God has something to do you with
your hands while you still got him.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You did start to see the depictions of this and
paintings into the eighteen hundreds. And I believe our buddy
who was scared of rabbits, Napoleon was tossed it around
a yo yo before the Battle of water I guess
he wasn't scared of rabbits.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
He was just sort of mobbed by rabbits. He was unprepared.
He was unprepared historically on many levels. But also he
wasn't a dumb guy. And what a flex to walk
around before you go into Waterloo. I know you just
have a yo yo. No, that's that's an intimidation.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I think it's a bit of a power move ben
In England, according to Britannica, it was referred to as
the bandalore or I love this one because it just
kind of makes like an automatopoia a quiz.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Okay, so you would say, oh, let me have my quiz.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I love that it's so English, and I think Jonathan
strictly aka the Quizzer would approve an illustration depicted the
Prince of Wales. Later, George the Fourth got that one
right playing with his yo yo, and so it became
a hit with the jet seestying. I guess they didn't
have jests, but you know what I mean, fashionistas of
the time. Uh, the popularity of the toy a lot
(10:49):
like I guess lawn tennis, which preceded table tennis or
ping pong, started to enter the ranks of the nobility,
leading to a lot of references during this period, a
lot of them in political cartoons.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Showing this as a bit of a pastime of the swells. Now,
in your research yournal, you've included some drawings of the time,
some political cartoons, and I think we love to describe them.
What are the first is? I love it is a
(11:25):
unfortunate situation with an older school marmed type and she's
been a sailed two boys, she's been menaced sailed by
two boys. Children throwing yo yo's, and it's called The
caption reads.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
The sensation boll wow, the laziest pleasantry in the public streets.
Yo yo as the rage in the sixties, rude boys perhaps.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Doing around the world.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I think that's an eighteen pretty basic that's right, the eighteens,
pretty basic trick A lot of people might be familiar with,
where you take the thing, you fling it out and
then you pull it and you kind of do a
loopy loop with it, and then you pull it back
into your hand. We would be remiss if we did
not point out that the reason all of this works
is because of centripetal force and gravity.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Ah yes, gravity, our old nemesis, and energy which can
neither be created nor destroyed.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And it's it's basically, if I'm not mistaken, then it's
kind of preserved in the motion of the of the
yo yo and when you kind of yank it, that
energy allows it to travel back up the string.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Nailed it hold of one, just so, I mean, if
we walk the dog out here, though, I've got a
question for you, Noel. It sounds like parallel thinking teaches
us that the Mediterranean and parts of East Asia discover
the yo yo discovered that centrepetal force on their own,
(12:57):
and that it became popularized in Europe. But how did
it get to the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, it's a good question, Ben, And we do have
a couple other fun images kind of showing these very
bougie French folks playing with their toys.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The article that I referenced earlier are actually let me
reference this one specifically. I haven't yet doc Lucky's History
of the yo yo Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, who wrote a
book called Lucky's Collector's Guide to twentieth century Yoyo's histories
and Values. He's also the former chairman of the American
Yoyo Association's History and Collecting Committee, so he knows a
(13:34):
thing or two about the yo yo. And he points
out that a lot of these images from the period
that we're talking about here in Europe depicted adults playing
with this, and it sort of trickled down to the kids,
because you mentioned the one with the young whipper snappers
or the rude boys messing around with this older lady.
But most of the images did show old folks, older folks,
(13:55):
adults playing with these as a sign of kind of
like this was a pastime of the well to do
who were able to exercise their leisure time in this way.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Now you're too worried about the war, my friend, you
should do what I do. Take us slow constitutional in
the afternoon, go to the Angerrarium and witness your rented
pineapple and dangle quiz Tangle your quiz perfect.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
We got there, so you asked about how it kind
of got to what we know today. November of eighteen
sixty six, we've got James el Haven and Charles Hittrick
of Cincinnati, Ohio, who get the first patent for a
yo yo in the United States, and it was described
It described the patent a yo yo as coupled together
(14:42):
or as being coupled together at their centers by means
of a clutch. It was also the first time a
method called rim waiting was mentioned in the patent, and
it specifically said, it will be observed that the marginals
swell sea. The sea is being the exhibit in the patent.
Magery exercises the function of a flywheel. Flywheel being kind
(15:04):
of like a Pulley system of ropes and gears that
you would use to maybe operate scenes in a scenery
in a play, or you know, part curtains and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Right, And so what we're saying here, folks, is that
for thousands of years, various civilizations came up with something
like this, but the rubber hits the road, right, or
the stream hits the yo When we talk about the
idea of patenting.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Design and the Yo Yo Museum as a piece titled
the Brief History A Brief History of the yo Yo
and got some really fun info from that one as well.
They point out that the real importance of the patent
is that it suggests the very first use of patents
to protect design improvements from what we know more as
(15:54):
the historical version of the yoyo in the manufacturing of
a yo yo. So that's pretty neat. We start to
see the aforementioned haven and hetrick really entering into the
business of mass producing yoyos.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
So for thousands of years, different civilizations figured out something
like a yo yo, and then later it gets patented
and enters mass manufacture. I think a lot of us
listening tonight are going to be wondering if the yo
yos of the past were like the fidget spinners or
the rosaries of today.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
We've also often asked the question about how come there's
not one person credited.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
With like the fidget spinner.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We do know that patents can't expire as well and
get entered into the public domain as well as you know, trademarks.
It's a question for another day, but I think you're
getting at something. We also tease this idea of was
this thing used as a hunting implement?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Right, That's that's something he alluded to at the top.
I say we dive in because no, I don't know
much about this. I remember vaguely hearing stuff about Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's right, the Philippines in particular, a famous This is
a really I'm gonna pull a lot from this, or
we're gonna pull a lot from Lucky's the history of
the yo yo. Because this guy really is, I would argue,
probably the pre eminent yo yo scholar.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
He's on the committee.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
He's on the committee, and he also points out that
he himself is responsible for spreading some of the misinformation
that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
He owns up to that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I would go ahead and just find this whole article
and read Lucky Meisenheimer MD's piece where He goes into
a lot of these various conflicting histories of the yo
yo and the way he himself may have contributed to
some of that. But he points out that the claim
that the yo yo I'm just going to quote directly
from his writing was used as a weapon in the
(17:58):
Philippines isn't new. This has been the subject of much
debate over the last several decades. The Duncan Yo Yo
Company also used the weapon narrative as a promotional gimmick,
but behind the scenes they themselves recognized that this was
likely not true. We're going to get into Duncan in
a little bit, but I just thought we'd get this
part out of the way because it's a lot of fun.
(18:20):
One early yo yo demonstrator for the Duncan Company claimed
that he was the one who made up the story
in the first place. However, there is good evidence to
support that the yo yo was a weapon in the Philippines,
however not necessarily used in the way you might think so.
(18:43):
The story, as it goes the idea of this being
a century's old Filipino hunting device, describes a hunter, you know,
finding a refuge or a secret spot in a tree,
fortifying himself as so he can like kind of hide
from his target, holding a heavy, oversized yo yo, waiting
for his prey to pass below, and at the critical moment,
(19:05):
the yoyo would be flung, hurled, and balk the animal
right on the head, presumably killing it or knocking it out,
and then allowing it to return to the hunter, especially
if he missed and needed a second.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Shot, a boomerang on a string a bit of that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
However, Meisenheimer points out that the physics of the yoyo
make this pretty improbable that that would work. However, there
is no question that something like a yoyo existed in
the Philippines for quite a long time. There isn't any
documented evidence that it was used as a hunting tool
in this exact way. There is, however, evidence that the
Duncan Company popularized this themselves as a bit of a
(19:44):
gimmick in promoting the yo yo, it would seem Meisenheimer
says that the hunting origin is pure fantasy. It was
a memorable story and helped to sell yo yo's. The
hunting origin of the toy was printed so often, as
is often the case, that it has become an urban legend. However,
he also points out that it is there is evidence
that it was used as a weapon in some fashion,
(20:05):
though not the way we might think or the way
that was just described, Ben, think of think of it
as a way to like hide a string like a garrot.
Remember those where you like you got the creepy assassin
coming up behind you and strangling you with piano wire
after like.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Hey, might be a great guy. You know, true that
all assassins are creepy. No, it's true, just getting situations
and not all creeps are assassins. Max, what you got
to jump in here?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I'm not sure if you can get a yo yo.
But in the hit Man series, the video game where
you you know, play as an assassin, Oh, I love
that one, you can get very You can get a
garat obviously it comes like pretty standard. But you can
get like you know, like ear bud cables and stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
You can use for that. I don't know if you
can get a yoyo though. Okay, all right, well we
have some notes for you creators of hit Man. We
also know again it goes back to what you're saying
about parallel thinking, right, and about corporations wanting to sell stuff.
When I'm hearing this myth perpetrated by Duncan, which, as
(21:09):
you said, we'll get into in a moment, it reminds
me of those back pages of old school comic books
and you know, boy Scout type magazines where they would say,
we'll sell you a pair of nun Chucks and will
train you in the agent art. And right next to that,
I sound elderly now, but right next to that sometimes
(21:31):
there would be an ad for the Filipino art of
the yo yo.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Sure well, speaking of that man or to that point,
I'd mentioned that our expert here pointed out that there
is written evidence that it was used as some kind
of weapon, and that comes from an eighteen eighty eight
letter by doctor Jose Rizol, a Filipino national hero, who
wrote of his transatlantic voyage from America to England. Quote,
(21:59):
I am barked for your aboard the city of Rome,
said to be the second largest steamer on earth. At
the end of the voyage, a periodical is printed on board.
I met many people here, and as I had with
me a yo Yo, the Europeans and Americans were astonished
to see how I used it as a weapon of attack.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I think he's being cute.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I think he may well be ben but it is
it is evidence we can point to. Meisenheimer goes on.
So unless you want to dispute one of the most
famous Filipino historical figures writing, the question becomes not was
the yoyo used as a weapon in the Philippines, but
how was it used? So this is a point of
much speculation. I think we pointed out one possible use.
Another would be the thick leather cord of a particular
(22:39):
design of yo yo, perhaps used like a sarong in
martial arts, which is sort of that garat kind of situation,
and the suggestion that this mechanism allowed it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
To be concealed.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And there also appears to be a kind of startorial
version of this, where the thick leather cord of a
particular design of yoyo might have been used to like
wrap a or you know, sort of a stand in
for like underwear of some kind. Doctor Rissol had training
in martial arts, and it suggested that this is the
(23:10):
mechanism he used the yoyo as a weapon. It's basically
a concealed weapon.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Okay. I also think Risol, who is a national hero
of the Philippines. I also think he was being a
bit diplomatic when he was on this transatlantic voyage, and
maybe he was conversationally disarming people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I think you're right, Ben, I do think you're right,
but I did think it was worth mentioning. So now
as we've already teased Ben, we've got mister Duncan entering
the chat.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Which is I think a name inextricably linked for all
time to the yo Yo. Yes, yeah, if you had
a yo yo in the United States, you probably had
one from Donald F. Duncan, Chicago businessman who read into
his first yo Yo on a business trip to San
(24:05):
Francisco in nineteen twenty eight, and the person he saw
using the yo yo was a guy named Pedro Flores,
recently arrived from the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
For sure, he had already begun selling a toy labeled
with the name yo Yo, meaning come come in the
native language of the Philippines, which I guess that that
that's Trigallas. I think that's right, Ben, I'm not one
hundred percent sure. I do have another source from the
Smithsonian and they just refer to the native language of
(24:39):
the Philippines. So there may well be more than one,
but tone languages for sure. For sure, yoyo does what
I know of tagalag that does kind of track.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So it's
nineteen twenty nine. We're in the early days of that
year and Floory's has, as you said, he's created this
company Yo Yo Come Come. He gets his financing, he
gets his investors, his backers, and he makes correct me yournal.
(25:13):
He makes more than one hundred thousand of these toys yep.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Carved out of wood. He trademarks the name yo Yo,
and then he realizes a real kicker that this definitely
becomes part of the Duncan model. I think we all
know this. It is not something that is intuitively easy
to do well right, playing with the yo Yo. It's tricky.
You got to kind of know what you're doing. You
gotta have practice, and you first of all have to
(25:39):
be shown how to do it. So he assembles a
crack team of yo Yo masters to demonstrate some basic
tricks and get people on board with this toy.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You too can walk the dog. And this is where
our buddy Duncan comes into play. All right, So we've
seen this out on the West Coast. He is a marketer,
he is an entrepreneur, and get this, he is already
a manufacturer of wooden novelty items and toys, so he
has the infrastructure to make this happen.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, it just reminds me of the movie The Hudsucker
Proxy about the sort of like fanciful version of the
introduction of the hula hoop, and they keep saying, you know,
for kids, but they have a real hard time in
the movie figuring out how.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
To sell the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
It's basically just a hoop, and it takes this one
kid on the street picking it up and starting to
shimmy it around his hips before all the other kids
see him do it, and then they got to do
it too.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
They got to figure out how to do it. They
got to get one. That's what kicks off the craze.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So demonstration is key here and he Duncan raises five
thousand bucks, which a lot of money at that time. Gosh,
we should probably do an inflation calculator and a dude
a boop five thousand In nineteen thirty two money is
(27:06):
around one hundred and eighteen thousand, seven hundred and five
dollars and eleven cents roughly today.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
And with this windfall, Duncan, as we have it here
in the notes, secures Flores's remaining assets. He also acquires
that trademark Yo Yo. The trademark will not expire until
decades and decades later in nineteen sixty five, and competing
(27:34):
plastic yo yos begin to outsell the wooden ones. That's
what happens in the mid nineteen sixties. But for decades
Duncan was the monopoly man of yo yo's, and they
were mostly wooden, and they mostly came from this one
guy's company, yep.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And he took Flores's lead and did the very same
thing in terms of assembling these demonstration crews. Who would
go to school, who would you know, hang out in
Times not Times Square, but like you know, public parks
and maybe Times Square, various places in New York City
as well street as well as on the West Coast
exactly been. But the real marketing genius comes when he
(28:13):
approaches a guy you might have heard of, mister William
Randolph Hurst, the owner of the country's largest chain of newspapers,
and he decides that to offer kind of a trade
sort of put his money where his mouth is in
a way, or at the very least say I've got
an idea for you, mister Hurst, how we can do
(28:35):
some in we can help each other out. He comes
up with the idea to launch the yo yo and
feature them in newspaper ads advertising yo yo competitions. He
proposed to mister Hurst that if Hurst gave him free
advertising space, he could help increase the papers circulations through
(28:55):
these advertisements because he had the genius idea of it
be a caveat of entering. A prerequisite for entering the
contest that kids had to sell two to three subscriptions
to the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Amazing, amazing, and we also have to shout out. It
just hit me now reading through research here, it just
hit me. That's why yo yo's became such a trope
in later political cartoons. Absolutely because you would have a
yo yo competition entirely tied in with the empire of
(29:32):
William Randolph Hurst. Oh that's brilliant. Oh I feel so cold,
It's pretty Yeah, it's chilly for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Hurst is a little bit on the fence about this,
so he decides to test it in a little bit
of a pilot experiment just using his Chicago newspaper, and
in six weeks, the popularity of the Yo Yo and
these competitions sold him fifty thousand new subscriptions, which gave
him the confidence he needed to give Duncan free ad
(30:07):
space and his papers all around the nation.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And then we see some more tremendous marketing by mister Duncan.
The patriarch of the Yo Yo now sends a bunch
of street teams out professional Yo Yo demonstrators city the
city schoolyard near your own. It's kind of like the
brilliant thing that Oscar Meyer would later do bymobiles. Yeah,
(30:34):
so they basically, they said, the Yo Yo version of
wienermobiles across the United States, across the land, and they
promote these local contests. Kids learn tricks, they get very invested,
they create their own grassroots independent communities. And now Duncan
is like the Willie Wonka of yoyo's.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And there's actually a name that they're using for these demonstrators.
They called them Duncan Professionals, and a lot of these
folks actually went on to start some companies that would
give Duncan a run for their money. Once that trademark
ran out, we'll get a little more into that. But
what Duncan also was really good at was tapping into
(31:19):
name recognition and celebrities. We had folks like Douglas Fairbanks,
Mary Pickford. These are names that maybe won't ring as
much of a bell to a modern ear. Baseball Hall
of Famer Luke Garrig you probably have heard of Hack Wilson.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All of these folks were photographed.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Using their Yo yo's and would participate in paid promotions
with movie icons like what is it our gang?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Isn't it the Little Rascals? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. And
they were promoting specific brands of Yo Yo's at different times,
all owned by Duncan, by the way, things like Gold
Seal and Oh Boy yo Yo's. If a town did
not have a visible local celebrity, then you just got
(32:05):
the police commissioner or the mayor or another high ranking
public official to be in a photograph holding a Yo yo.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And I just got to read this directly from our
expert Lucky Meisenheimer, MD, because he puts it so beautifully,
this idea that Duncan may have ruined themselves in their
own effective marketing because their success with promoting the toy
over four decades made the word yoyo a household name,
almost more than the association with.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Duncan in some ways.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Once the pat or the trademark ran out, you started
to see challenges to Duncan's soul right to use that name,
made by folks like Joe Radavan of the Royal Yo
Yo Company. And to our previous point, Radavan was one
of those early Duncan professionals who himself was from the Philippines,
so it's very full circle. In nineteen thirty seven he
(33:01):
left Duncan and formed his own company, and in nineteen
sixty five, after a lengthy court battle, Duncan was stripped
of that trademark protection by the courts, which determined that
the word yo yo had at this point ben become generic.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yes, yeah, now, because you can't own the word paper, right,
you can't own the concept of wind or hats or
what's another one, shoe feet no wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
However, though, that's not the case in other countries, because,
as Meisenheimer points out, there are other countries like Canada
where the word yoyo is still under trademark protection. The
sixties saw a little bit of a wane in the
popularity of yo yo's as new toys and you know,
gadgets and things made it start to feel a little
(33:52):
bit you know, old hat, a little bit antiquated. But
in the eighties the yoyo experienced a massives with a
new modern design. The new yoyos were made of plastic
and had a ball bearing axle that made them a
lot zippier allowed them to perform even longer sleeps or
(34:15):
spin times right where you hold it at the bottom.
It's called making it sleep, and even more complex tricks.
That's when we see the American Yo Yo Association clocking
the world sleep record for a fixed axle yo yo
in nineteen ninety one by Dale Oliver at fifty one seconds.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And as recently as two thousand and one we see
that that record has been dwarfed. The American Yoyo Association's
world record in twenty twenty one for sleep was thirteen
minutes and five seconds, set by the legendary Rick Wyatt.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
One hundred percent. Ben I wouldn't be surprised if it's
been further dwarfed by now, because yo yo ing is
is you know, you could a it's niche. It's not
like an Olympic sport or anything. It doesn't quite have
the same cachet as say X games type sports, but
is getting there because there's a lot of like pretty
cool people that are into yo yoing, like our very
own Fay Webster, who is a fantastic musician from here
(35:15):
in Atlanta who has a lot of connections to the
hip hop community here, started off her career as a photographer,
you know, hanging out with folks like Lil YACHTI and
various other rappers from the scene. Her music isn't really
in that vein at all. It's much more kind of awesome, crooney,
very delightful, Billie holiday asque kind of music, vocal music
(35:38):
because I sound like a grandpa myself. But she actually
is a huge yoyo officionado, and I believe she's doing
Yo Yo Invitational right here in Atlanta, So it's really
cool to see that connection right here in our in
our hometown. The modern National Yo Yo Championships were first
held in Chico, California in nineteen ninety three recent pretty
(36:00):
recent under the direction of a guy named Bob Maloney,
who later became the director of the National Yoyo Museum
in Chico. And this is again coming from Lucky Weisenheimer MD.
They changed, though, however, drastically in nineteen ninety six, just
the landscape of competitive yo yoing when a guy named
Alex Garcia won the very first freestyle competition. Now that's
(36:24):
what we're talking about, and what makes it freestyle is
the type of yo yo where the yoyo is no
longer attached to your finger, but it's attached to a
counterweight that's held in your hand, which allows you to
do tricks that completely disconnect the yo yo from your
body and the actual yo yo from the string. You
can pop it off and then roll it back on.
(36:46):
There's all kinds of really really really magic, cool tricks
that you can do with this free hand style of
yo yoing. I would just really encourage anyone out there
to just google or do some YouTube searches of some
of the top yoyos across the country and around the world,
because there's some stuff that's going to blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, and we know this is still look, it's not
the halcyon Ds of the nineteen sixties, but the yo
yo is a cool idea. It's a lot of fun.
It's a popular toy. If you have kids and you
want them to have something kinetic to play with that's
not going to hurt too many people, then forego the
(37:26):
nunchucks and get the yo yo.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Get them a yo yo. Competitive yo yos today can
spend at up to eight thousand revolutions per minute. They're
typically made of aluminum, titanium, or steel, and they are
produced with extremely exacting machining standards.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I want, you know what, I want a comic book
adaptation of a superhero that uses a yo yo, Like
you know, the way Daredevil uses the sticks or the
way Batman uses the rings. It'd be cool to have
a yo yo superhero.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I completely agree, Ben, And there's no doubt that that
yoyo superhero would be able to do most of, if
not all, of, some of the modern tricks that we're
just gonna rattle off for you real quick as we
wrap up this episode. Not no longer the Humble, Walk
the Dog, or Rock the Baby, Rock the Cradle, whatever
you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
We're talking about things like the Elevator, the brain Twister.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
These all sound like roller coasters, the mock five personal
favorite here, the Poppin Fresh.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I've got some firstal favorites as well. I love that
there is a potential for combos in these moves Trapeze
trapeze and brother trapeze and Brother slack rther that of
course double or nothing. Oh, of course we.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Got the zipper, the split bottom mounts, the Revolution and
the reverse to your previous list Ben Slack Trapeze. Why
is that what in all caps? I don't know, man,
it just seems really extra. It's very intense. I had
to get the win across. We've got the we got
various whips, Ben, the jade, the iron, the plastic, the rejection.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
The Kamakase mount is uh interesting, and then there's whipped
to Kama case. And then there's the Houdini mount, but
not spelled the way you think.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It's not spelled the way you think it could be
a typo in this thing, but it might not as well.
I think the mount is when you like it's just
one of those ones where I think that the yoyo
disconnects on the string and then you pop it back on.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I've seen some videos where the titles of the tricks
were listening underneath it and it's ringing a Bellhiste's the
cold Fusion, the spiritual successor to walk the dog skin.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
The gerbil, Now, come on, that's egregious. It is do
you hate no? I like gerbils. They're cute. I got
no problem with trolls. I didn't invent the name.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Uh the gyroscopic flop, which sounds like a bad trip
to the doc.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Now that's that's an endoscopic flop. That's different. Hey, the
ping pong mm hmm yeah. Check out our earlier episode
on the evolution of table tennis or ping pong. We
have so many other names, tricks, hooks, all kinds of sides.
We got a gunslinger, we got a grind. I don't
(40:22):
know what the one point five Eli Hopp is now,
but I hope it's named after a guy I do too.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
And a lot of these start to take on names
very closely resembling skateboard tricks, and it really is at
that level of cool to it to a certain degree now,
like where people are making really cool videos of doing
yoyo tricks. Also, like another thing that I enjoy is
something called krdistry, where people are manipulating and doing crazy
(40:49):
tricks with playing cards, not magic tricks, but just manipulating
them and you know, doing crazy riffle shaking roll like water,
making them roll like water. And this is another kind
of spiritual successor to that. And there's tons of content
out there if you want to check it out. So
that's it for Yo Yo's man, So don't get out
there and try yourself for Yoyo dope schmo Yo.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Wonderful title, wonderful story. This makes me want to grab
yo yo myself. We can't wait to hear your stories. No,
we're probably going to get some feedback on this one
from people who send us cool clips of them doing
yo yo tricks. Big thanks to our super producer, mister
Max Williams. Big thanks to our research associate for this episode,
(41:37):
none other than mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Oh, thank you kindly, Ben, Thanks to Alex Williams who
composed our theme, Christopher Rosiotis and Eve's Jeff Coates here
in spirit.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And thanks to our heist colleagues Ridiculous Crime. If you
dig us, you'll love them. Big thanks of course to
aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance and Polite.
How do you do? To Jonathan Strickland to aka the Quist?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Fine? How do you do? Indeed, do you sir. We'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe
When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice. In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred. Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!