November 20, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, from African musical craftsmanship to the American South - and to the sounds of every animal in Minecraft - the story of the Kazoo will amaze you. Sarah Barnwell from the Kazoobie Kazoo Factory shares the story behind the kazoo, one of the few American-made instruments.
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 sometimes we like to
just get a little silly and we love tracking down museums,
quirky ones, good ones, fun ones, serious ones. In Beaufort,
South Carolina, there's a place called the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory
(00:31):
and Museum. That's right, Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Today
we have Sarah Barnwell telling us the story of the
factory and giving us a little kazoo history. Here's Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We do have a vintage gold kazoo. It's played in
twenty four care Gold. I love this little one mostly
because it has, like it to me, a jazzier sound
to it. I guess so, but it's kind of my favorite.
(01:08):
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. 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
(01:29):
wish there was more kazoos where you can get a
hold of these. There's 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 KAZOOI kazoo factory. We've been
(01:54):
around for about twenty years. We manufacture about a million
kazoos a year, and we average at five thousand a day.
Our kazoos, our dishwashers safe, They're not 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,
(02:16):
lots of things Trader Joe's, things that people 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
(02:38):
for all kinds of things, Burning Man, some celebrity weddings,
lots of fun things, because the kazoos is meant to
be fun. 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
(02:59):
around world world, there's really not there's like three of us.
Is we imprint on ours. So if you you know,
want your face on a kazoo, that's where we come in.
That's kind of what we do. 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
(03:21):
in the South about the same time. I believe, as
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 their culture over
to here, and that's what we think the kazoo was
based from. In Africa, they would have a merlertone drum
(03:43):
sort of thing, or they would take bone and gourd
and hallow it out. Sometimes they would use leather. 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 that had
the hole in it, and they would kind of hum
into it. So we think that's where the kazoo kind
(04:04):
of originated. There is a legend that it is just
a legend. We can't say for sure if it's true
or not, but the story is is that a German
clockmaker named Thaddius on Clegg and a freed slaved named
Alabama vest got together in the eighteen forties and they
came up with the modern design of the kazoo. They
(04:29):
debuted it 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
(04:50):
life of its own. So we are actually mostly a
factory as far as assembling and shipping our kazoos. All
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 they come in. We watched a couple of
(05:12):
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 Thattius Son kleg and we
(05:35):
start seeing patents and blueprints of different designs of the kazoo.
And each time you change the design and the material,
it's going to 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 nineteen hundred and
(05:55):
nineteen thirties, start seeing them kind of geared more towards kids,
so they're adding really pretty colors on them. You know,
there's been books about kazoos. 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. As we get further along,
(06:17):
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.
So one of them is the Fish Caller. You can
look this up. They are little novelty vintage items you
can find now. But someone had the idea of putting
(06:38):
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, but it
kind of makes more sasquatch sounds the eighties, you know,
(06:59):
it's the kazoo kid, Brett, the famous kazoo kid. And
then we get to advertisements. 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 the first few
versions of Minecraft, all the animals in Minecraft and the
(07:22):
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 it's easily as some others.
You know, some just can catch on a little bit quicker.
But this is an instrument that you don't have to
(07:44):
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. It's a way of
being silly and kind of drawing yourself out, and I
think it kind of breaks the ice in a lot
of ways and just you know, kind of brings people together.
It's always fun to have people together with kazoos, especially adults.
(08:05):
I sometimes think adults have more fun with kazoos than kids.
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
(08:26):
humming and making noise and singing into a kazoo. It's
kind of one of those that instantly kind of puts
a smile on your face. 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
(08:47):
out the wazoo, so we put a horn on our kazoo.
So now it's a wazoo. Now we took a bugleball trumpet. End,
now we have a wazoogle, and they take your horn off,
and now you have the kazoogle. We have the kazobo
(09:10):
as well. The kazobo has been 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 the instrument that
you want to get. So it's a little bit loud.
(09:33):
We've got accessories for our kazoo and our kizobo, and
we have all kinds of little instruments and you know,
literally bells and whistles. 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.
(09:55):
It's supposed to 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. A lot of times
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.
(10:16):
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 (10:29):
And a great job on that faith 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 sometimes we like to
just get a little silly and we love tracking down museums,
quirky ones, good ones, fun ones, serious ones. In Beaufort,
South Carolina, there's a place called the Kazoobi Kazoo Factory
(00:31):
and Museum. That's right, Kazoobi Kazoo Factory and Museum. Today
we have Sarah Barnwell telling us the story of the
factory and giving us a little kazoo history. Here's Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We do have a vintage gold kazoo. It's played in
twenty four care Gold. I love this little one mostly
because it has, like it to me, a jazzier sound
to it. I guess so, but it's kind of my favorite.
(01:08):
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. 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
(01:29):
wish there was more kazoos where you can get a
hold of these. There's 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 KAZOOI kazoo factory. We've been
(01:54):
around for about twenty years. We manufacture about a million
kazoos a year, and we average at five thousand a day.
Our kazoos, our dishwashers safe, They're not 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,
(02:16):
lots of things Trader Joe's, things that people 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
(02:38):
for all kinds of things, Burning Man, some celebrity weddings,
lots of fun things, because the kazoos is meant to
be fun. 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
(02:59):
around world world, there's really not there's like three of us.
Is we imprint on ours. So if you you know,
want your face on a kazoo, that's where we come in.
That's kind of what we do. 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
(03:21):
in the South about the same time. I believe, as
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 their culture over
to here, and that's what we think the kazoo was
based from. In Africa, they would have a merlertone drum
(03:43):
sort of thing, or they would take bone and gourd
and hallow it out. Sometimes they would use leather. 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 that had
the hole in it, and they would kind of hum
into it. So we think that's where the kazoo kind
(04:04):
of originated. There is a legend that it is just
a legend. We can't say for sure if it's true
or not, but the story is is that a German
clockmaker named Thaddius on Clegg and a freed slaved named
Alabama vest got together in the eighteen forties and they
came up with the modern design of the kazoo. They
(04:29):
debuted it 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
(04:50):
life of its own. So we are actually mostly a
factory as far as assembling and shipping our kazoos. All
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 they come in. We watched a couple of
(05:12):
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 Thattius Son kleg and we
(05:35):
start seeing patents and blueprints of different designs of the kazoo.
And each time you change the design and the material,
it's going to 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 nineteen hundred and
(05:55):
nineteen thirties, start seeing them kind of geared more towards kids,
so they're adding really pretty colors on them. You know,
there's been books about kazoos. 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. As we get further along,
(06:17):
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.
So one of them is the Fish Caller. You can
look this up. They are little novelty vintage items you
can find now. But someone had the idea of putting
(06:38):
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, but it
kind of makes more sasquatch sounds the eighties, you know,
(06:59):
it's the kazoo kid, Brett, the famous kazoo kid. And
then we get to advertisements. 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 the first few
versions of Minecraft, all the animals in Minecraft and the
(07:22):
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 it's easily as some others.
You know, some just can catch on a little bit quicker.
But this is an instrument that you don't have to
(07:44):
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. It's a way of
being silly and kind of drawing yourself out, and I
think it kind of breaks the ice in a lot
of ways and just you know, kind of brings people together.
It's always fun to have people together with kazoos, especially adults.
(08:05):
I sometimes think adults have more fun with kazoos than kids.
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
(08:26):
humming and making noise and singing into a kazoo. It's
kind of one of those that instantly kind of puts
a smile on your face. 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
(08:47):
out the wazoo, so we put a horn on our kazoo.
So now it's a wazoo. Now we took a bugleball trumpet. End,
now we have a wazoogle, and they take your horn off,
and now you have the kazoogle. We have the kazobo
(09:10):
as well. The kazobo has been 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 the instrument that
you want to get. So it's a little bit loud.
(09:33):
We've got accessories for our kazoo and our kizobo, and
we have all kinds of little instruments and you know,
literally bells and whistles. 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.
(09:55):
It's supposed to 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. A lot of times
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.
(10:16):
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 (10:29):
And a great job on that faith 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
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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