November 20, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, from its roots in African musical craftsmanship to its home in the American South, the kazoo instrument has traveled farther than most people realize. It even shapes the familiar kazoo sound behind every animal in Minecraft. Sarah Barnwell of the Kazoobie Kazoo Factory shares how this small, uniquely American-made instrument became a piece of musical history and why it still matters today.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. And we love tracking down museums,
quirky ones, good ones, fun ones, curious ones. In Beaufort,
South Carolina, there's a place called the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory
and Museum. That's right, Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Today
(00:33):
we have Sarah Barnwell telling us the story of the
factory and giving us a little kazoo history. Here's Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We do have a vintage gold kazoo. It's played it
in twenty four carat Gold. I love this little one mostly.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Because it has, like it to me, a jazzier sound
to it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I guess so, but it's kind of my favorite. Rick
Hupboard was an entertainer and you know, he would go
and perform and you know, he plays many instruments and
things like that, and I think he just liked the kazoo.
(01:13):
He had a kazoo that he kind of held on
to for a long time that he had as a kid,
and it just basically was something that I think, you know,
as an entertainer and things like that he saw, you know, Gosh,
I'd really like to I wish there was more kazoos.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Where can get a hold of these, There's.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Not like everywhere, and so it really just started as
something a small kind of project that he did, and
then it just grew from there. So it's it's you
know those kind of stories where it starts off very
small and surprising and then it turns into you know,
a kazoobi kazoo factory. We've been around for about twenty years.
(01:52):
We manufacture about a million kazoos a year, and we
average about five thousand a day. Our kazoos our dishwasher safe.
One time use plastic kazoos, you hand let them hand dry.
They're good as new. Our kazoos have you know, gone
to Hong Kong for a marathon, done DreamWorks animation for
movie premieres, Lots of things Trader Joe's, things that people
(02:15):
are familiar with and down to people using them as
business cards or a gift or circi for weddings, and
they're really popular for birthdays, but the most common birthday
age we get is actually eighty years old. We have
done kazoos for all kinds of things, Burning Man, some
(02:38):
celebrity weddings, lots of fun things because the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Kazoos is meant to be fun.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We've also done kazoos though for more somber times, funerals
and things like that. So it's kind of an odd
mix of where our kazoos are going. What separates us
from all of these kazoo manufacturers that we find around
the world, there's there's really not there's like three of us.
Is we imprint on ours. So if you you know,
(03:03):
want your face on a kazoo, that's where we come in.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's kind of what we do.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But the kazoo is it's pretty cool instrument. It's one
of the few American made instruments. It came out of
the mid eighteen hundreds in the South about the same time,
I believe, is like the banjo. Kind of similar stories
where we think they derived from slaves that were making
these instruments and you know, kind of bringing some of
(03:30):
their culture over to here, and that's what we think
the kazoo was based from. In Africa, they would have
a merlertone drum sort of thing, or they would take
bone and gourd and hallow it out.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Sometimes they would use leather.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
My favorite is they would use the eggsac of spiders
as their membrane that resonator to make it vibrate, and
they would just kind of stretch that over that object
that had the hole.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
In it and they would kind of hum into it.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So we think that's where the kazoo kind of originated.
There is a legend that it is just a legend.
We can't say for sure if it's true or not.
The story is is that a German clockmaker named Thaddy's
on Clegg and he freed slaved named Alabama vest got
together in the eighteen forties.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
They came up with the modern design of the kazoo.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
They debuted in eighteen fifty two at the Georgia's State
Theory and Macon and it took off from there. We're
not really sure where the word kazoo came about. We
know the gentleman that first patented it, but as far
as where he got that word, we're really not sure.
But it has changed shape, size, and sounds over the
years and different materials and kind of taken on a
(04:46):
life of its own. So we are actually mostly a
factory as far as assembling and shipping our kazoos all
over the world and putting those pictures and company logos
on them, but we do have a gift shop and
a museum, and we do give kazoo tours here, so
we have factory tours.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
They come in, we.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Watch a couple of videos there is everyone's favorite video
is the second one, and that's the History of the Kazoo,
a favorite from all just because we literally have little
kazoos like dressed up like little people telling you the story.
So it's cute and funny and people love it. We
start in the mid eighteen hundreds when we first see
the legend appear of Alabama Vest and Thatti as Son
(05:29):
kleg and we start seeing patents and blueprints of different
designs of the kazoo. And each time you change the
design and the material, it's gonna change the sound a
little bit. So then you kind of get and we
kind of go through times in decades. You get into
the turn of the century. These are some of my
favorite kazoos actually are in the ones between, like the
(05:51):
nineteen hundreds nineteen thirties, start seeing them kind of geared
more towards kids, so they're adding really pretty colors on them.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know, there's been books about kazoos.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I love looking for kazoo artwork so some of those
things we've put in our museum that we found. Then
I think kazoos take a little silly turn, which is
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
As we get further along.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We do actually have the Partridge Family kazoo in there,
one of the original kazoos from the Partridge Family. But
when you start to get like seventies, eighties and today,
I kind of love the kazoos that come in those
eras only because they get a little more fun and exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So one of them is the fish Caller.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You can look this up. They are little novelty vintage
items you can find now. But someone had the idea
of putting a kazoo and it's attached to a rubber
hose and then a funnel, and so you're supposed to
put the funnel in the water and then like yell
into the kazoo and call the fish. I always tell
people not to suck in because they're going to take
in some water. And we have like a sas Squatch
kazoo where they you know, it sounds very it's a kazoo,
(06:52):
but it kind of makes more sasquatch sounds the eighties,
you know, it's the kazoo kid Brett, the famous kazoo kid,
and then you know, we get to advertise. The kazoos
started being used as advertisements as well, so we have
some older kazoos that you know, we first start seeing
in the forties where they're using them for toothpaste advertisements,
things like that. In today's time, when they first made
(07:14):
the first few versions of Minecraft, all the animals in
Minecraft and the game their noises are made from kazoos,
so we are little places they end up. I think
it's the instrument for everyone. I think there are a
lot of us that you know, would love to pick
up an instrument and be able to play, maybe as
easily as some others.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, some just can catch on a little bit quicker.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
But this is an instrument that you don't have to
spend years developing a skill. You can just kind of
pick it up and immediately have fun and start to
connect with other people. You know.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It's a way of.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Being silly and kind of drawing yourself out, and I
think it kind of breaks the ice in a lot
of ways, and it just, you know, kind.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Of brings people together.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It's always fun to have together with kazoos, especially adults.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I sometimes think adults have more fun with kazoos than kids.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I also love seeing the change and we get people
come in with teenagers or kids that are grouchy, or
older people that are with a group, and they don't
necessarily want to be here, but the other parts of
the family do. And by the end, you know, you
can't help but smile and chuckle when you're sitting there
humming and making noise and singing into a kazoo. It's
(08:26):
kind of one of those that instantly kind of puts
a smile.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
On your face.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The our kazoos you can't accessorize. We kind of went
Doctor Seussana a little bit, so we have our kazoo,
you know. But then we accessorized. We wanted to make
sure there was more air coming out the wazoo, so
we put a horn on our kazoo.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So now it's a wazoo. Now we took a bugleball trumpet.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
End.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Now we have a wazoogle, and they take your horn off,
and now.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You have the kazoogle. We have the kazobo as well.
The kazobo has been.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Around for over one hundred years and it's basically just
a larger kazoo. It's got double resonators and a longer horn,
and we're the only place in the world that makes
a plastic version of the kazobo. So if you want
to get the loudest kazoo out there, the kazobo is.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
The instrument that you want to get. So it's a
little bit loud.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
We've got accessories for our kazoo and our kizobo, and
we have all kinds of little instruments and you know, literally.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Bells and whistles.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
We always tell people it's the perfect place to buy
gifts for someone else other than your kids. You know.
We even have one that has the instructions on it.
This one maybe it's for older people.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Be funny, but it says hum, don't blow because you've
that's the most important thing with the kazoo is you
have to hum.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
A lot of times.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
People will want to blow air into it. That's not
going to give you that vibration. So it's really important
that you make noise so you can get that resonator
that membrane to vibrate around and give you that sound.
So lots of fun things come from the kazoo. Plus
it's always fun to try and explain someone when you're like,
I work at a kazoo factory and they're like, no,
you don't, and I'm like no, really, that's a thing.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And thanks to Sarah, what a delight, what fun the
story of the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Here on
our American Stories
This is our American stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. And we love tracking down museums,
quirky ones, good ones, fun ones, curious ones. In Beaufort,
South Carolina, there's a place called the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory
and Museum. That's right, Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Today
(00:33):
we have Sarah Barnwell telling us the story of the
factory and giving us a little kazoo history. Here's Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We do have a vintage gold kazoo. It's played it
in twenty four carat Gold. I love this little one mostly.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Because it has, like it to me, a jazzier sound
to it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I guess so, but it's kind of my favorite. Rick
Hupboard was an entertainer and you know, he would go
and perform and you know, he plays many instruments and
things like that, and I think he just liked the kazoo.
(01:13):
He had a kazoo that he kind of held on
to for a long time that he had as a kid,
and it just basically was something that I think, you know,
as an entertainer and things like that he saw, you know, Gosh,
I'd really like to I wish there was more kazoos.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Where can get a hold of these, There's.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Not like everywhere, and so it really just started as
something a small kind of project that he did, and
then it just grew from there. So it's it's you
know those kind of stories where it starts off very
small and surprising and then it turns into you know,
a kazoobi kazoo factory. We've been around for about twenty years.
(01:52):
We manufacture about a million kazoos a year, and we
average about five thousand a day. Our kazoos our dishwasher safe.
One time use plastic kazoos, you hand let them hand dry.
They're good as new. Our kazoos have you know, gone
to Hong Kong for a marathon, done DreamWorks animation for
movie premieres, Lots of things Trader Joe's, things that people
(02:15):
are familiar with and down to people using them as
business cards or a gift or circi for weddings, and
they're really popular for birthdays, but the most common birthday
age we get is actually eighty years old. We have
done kazoos for all kinds of things, Burning Man, some
(02:38):
celebrity weddings, lots of fun things because the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Kazoos is meant to be fun.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We've also done kazoos though for more somber times, funerals
and things like that. So it's kind of an odd
mix of where our kazoos are going. What separates us
from all of these kazoo manufacturers that we find around
the world, there's there's really not there's like three of us.
Is we imprint on ours. So if you you know,
(03:03):
want your face on a kazoo, that's where we come in.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's kind of what we do.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But the kazoo is it's pretty cool instrument. It's one
of the few American made instruments. It came out of
the mid eighteen hundreds in the South about the same time,
I believe, is like the banjo. Kind of similar stories
where we think they derived from slaves that were making
these instruments and you know, kind of bringing some of
(03:30):
their culture over to here, and that's what we think
the kazoo was based from. In Africa, they would have
a merlertone drum sort of thing, or they would take
bone and gourd and hallow it out.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Sometimes they would use leather.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
My favorite is they would use the eggsac of spiders
as their membrane that resonator to make it vibrate, and
they would just kind of stretch that over that object
that had the hole.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
In it and they would kind of hum into it.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So we think that's where the kazoo kind of originated.
There is a legend that it is just a legend.
We can't say for sure if it's true or not.
The story is is that a German clockmaker named Thaddy's
on Clegg and he freed slaved named Alabama vest got
together in the eighteen forties.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
They came up with the modern design of the kazoo.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
They debuted in eighteen fifty two at the Georgia's State
Theory and Macon and it took off from there. We're
not really sure where the word kazoo came about. We
know the gentleman that first patented it, but as far
as where he got that word, we're really not sure.
But it has changed shape, size, and sounds over the
years and different materials and kind of taken on a
(04:46):
life of its own. So we are actually mostly a
factory as far as assembling and shipping our kazoos all
over the world and putting those pictures and company logos
on them, but we do have a gift shop and
a museum, and we do give kazoo tours here, so
we have factory tours.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
They come in, we.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Watch a couple of videos there is everyone's favorite video
is the second one, and that's the History of the Kazoo,
a favorite from all just because we literally have little
kazoos like dressed up like little people telling you the story.
So it's cute and funny and people love it. We
start in the mid eighteen hundreds when we first see
the legend appear of Alabama Vest and Thatti as Son
(05:29):
kleg and we start seeing patents and blueprints of different
designs of the kazoo. And each time you change the
design and the material, it's gonna change the sound a
little bit. So then you kind of get and we
kind of go through times in decades. You get into
the turn of the century. These are some of my
favorite kazoos actually are in the ones between, like the
(05:51):
nineteen hundreds nineteen thirties, start seeing them kind of geared
more towards kids, so they're adding really pretty colors on them.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know, there's been books about kazoos.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I love looking for kazoo artwork so some of those
things we've put in our museum that we found. Then
I think kazoos take a little silly turn, which is
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
As we get further along.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We do actually have the Partridge Family kazoo in there,
one of the original kazoos from the Partridge Family. But
when you start to get like seventies, eighties and today,
I kind of love the kazoos that come in those
eras only because they get a little more fun and exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So one of them is the fish Caller.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You can look this up. They are little novelty vintage
items you can find now. But someone had the idea
of putting a kazoo and it's attached to a rubber
hose and then a funnel, and so you're supposed to
put the funnel in the water and then like yell
into the kazoo and call the fish. I always tell
people not to suck in because they're going to take
in some water. And we have like a sas Squatch
kazoo where they you know, it sounds very it's a kazoo,
(06:52):
but it kind of makes more sasquatch sounds the eighties,
you know, it's the kazoo kid Brett, the famous kazoo kid,
and then you know, we get to advertise. The kazoos
started being used as advertisements as well, so we have
some older kazoos that you know, we first start seeing
in the forties where they're using them for toothpaste advertisements,
things like that. In today's time, when they first made
(07:14):
the first few versions of Minecraft, all the animals in
Minecraft and the game their noises are made from kazoos,
so we are little places they end up. I think
it's the instrument for everyone. I think there are a
lot of us that you know, would love to pick
up an instrument and be able to play, maybe as
easily as some others.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, some just can catch on a little bit quicker.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
But this is an instrument that you don't have to
spend years developing a skill. You can just kind of
pick it up and immediately have fun and start to
connect with other people. You know.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It's a way of.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Being silly and kind of drawing yourself out, and I
think it kind of breaks the ice in a lot
of ways, and it just, you know, kind.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Of brings people together.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It's always fun to have together with kazoos, especially adults.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I sometimes think adults have more fun with kazoos than kids.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I also love seeing the change and we get people
come in with teenagers or kids that are grouchy, or
older people that are with a group, and they don't
necessarily want to be here, but the other parts of
the family do. And by the end, you know, you
can't help but smile and chuckle when you're sitting there
humming and making noise and singing into a kazoo. It's
(08:26):
kind of one of those that instantly kind of puts
a smile.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
On your face.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The our kazoos you can't accessorize. We kind of went
Doctor Seussana a little bit, so we have our kazoo,
you know. But then we accessorized. We wanted to make
sure there was more air coming out the wazoo, so
we put a horn on our kazoo.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So now it's a wazoo. Now we took a bugleball trumpet.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
End.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Now we have a wazoogle, and they take your horn off,
and now.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You have the kazoogle. We have the kazobo as well.
The kazobo has been.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Around for over one hundred years and it's basically just
a larger kazoo. It's got double resonators and a longer horn,
and we're the only place in the world that makes
a plastic version of the kazobo. So if you want
to get the loudest kazoo out there, the kazobo is.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
The instrument that you want to get. So it's a
little bit loud.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
We've got accessories for our kazoo and our kizobo, and
we have all kinds of little instruments and you know, literally.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Bells and whistles.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
We always tell people it's the perfect place to buy
gifts for someone else other than your kids. You know.
We even have one that has the instructions on it.
This one maybe it's for older people.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Be funny, but it says hum, don't blow because you've
that's the most important thing with the kazoo is you
have to hum.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
A lot of times.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
People will want to blow air into it. That's not
going to give you that vibration. So it's really important
that you make noise so you can get that resonator
that membrane to vibrate around and give you that sound.
So lots of fun things come from the kazoo. Plus
it's always fun to try and explain someone when you're like,
I work at a kazoo factory and they're like, no,
you don't, and I'm like no, really, that's a thing.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And thanks to Sarah, what a delight, what fun the
story of the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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.