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Metropolis Reality Forums Ť Co-Founder of Wham-O (think Frisbee) Passes Away ť

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   Co-Founder of Wham-O (think Frisbee) Passes Away

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Topic: Co-Founder of Wham-O (think Frisbee) Passes Away (Read 276 times)

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Co-Founder of Wham-O (think Frisbee) Passes Away
« on: Jul 7^th, 2002, 5:58am »

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I have been away from the 'net for the past week and I am just catching up on my science and technology news. I was surprised to read at http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/29/obit.melin.ap/index.html how the co-founder of the company WHAM-O recently passed away.

COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) -- Arthur "Spud" Melin, co-founder of the toy company that introduced the world to the Frisbee, Hula Hoop and other faddish gems of American pop culture, has died. He was 77 and had Alzheimer's disease.

Melin, who started toy giant Wham-O in 1948 with his boyhood friend Richard Knerr, died Friday.

"No sensation has ever swept the country like the Hula Hoop," author Richard Johnson wrote in his book "American Fads." "(It) remains the standard against which all national crazes are measured."

Melin and Knerr started with slingshots and named their mail-order company after the sound a slingshot made when its projectile struck a target.

The article goes on to say that the Hula Hoop concept was brought to WHAM-O by an Australian who brought a local rattan hoop to show how it works.

The Frisbee was originally called the Pluto Platter and it was invented by Merlin after watching Yale University students tossing tie pins to each other.

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