Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape About this episode We've covered our fair share of pop-culture icons and here is another - Hula-Hoops. They've been around since ancient time in some form or another, but made their name in during the Hoop Boom of the 1950s. Learn all about this popular fad and more.
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1:06 Josh Clark? Okay, it's Josh again, and up next on our playlist is our episode on hula hoops. This is a Stuff You Should Know classic. And hula hoops, for those of you who don't know, were this hoop that you kept going around your waist by making a hula motion. It's one of the more appropriately named toys of all time, and it was a huge craze back in the 20th century. So get your time machine, leather helmet, and goggles on, and let's go back to the hula hoop.
1:33 Speaker 03 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.
1:43 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W., Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast.
1:52 Speaker 04 How's it going?
1:53 Josh Clark? It's fine.
1:54 Speaker 04 Great.
1:56 Josh Clark? How's it going with you?
1:57 Speaker 04 Good. Jerry's distracting me a little bit because all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing her new hula fire dance routine.
2:04 Josh Clark? It's pretty dangerous.
2:06 Speaker 04 It's dangerous, but it's, um, it's interesting to see out of the corner of one's eye.
2:11 Josh Clark? It really is.
2:11 Speaker 04 Yes.
2:12 Josh Clark? Performance art.
2:13 Speaker 04 Performance hula art.
2:15 Josh Clark? Uh, can you hula hoop?
2:17 Speaker 04 I cannot, sir.
2:18 Josh Clark? I'm too self-conscious to.
2:20 Speaker 04 To even try it.
2:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
2:21 Speaker 04 It's, it's, uh, a grown man, forty-four-year-old man hula hooping.
2:26 Josh Clark? Plus, when I do it, like, as I rotate my hips, it makes the sound of like-
2:31 Speaker 04 Say gyrate.
2:32 Josh Clark? Rotate my hips.
2:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:35 Josh Clark? It makes the sound of like, almost congealed jello just slopping around in a bowl, you know what I mean? I don't want to make that sound.
2:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, but, um, I did see at a, uh, the East Atlanta Strut Festival, one of Atlanta's many great neighborhood festivals. Uh, I believe the Strut, to me, is known for having the better music of most of the festivals.
2:55 Josh Clark? Okay.
2:56 Speaker 04 And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played.
2:58 Josh Clark? Space Knife?
2:59 Speaker 04 Not Space Knife.
3:00 Josh Clark? Okay.
3:01 Speaker 04 This one was, uh, can't remember the name of this band, but that band is no longer. Now he's got a new band even.
3:06 Josh Clark? That guy is always coming up with new stuff. You can never pin him down. He's too good.
3:11 Speaker 04 You should check out Space Knife, though, people, on the web.
3:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
3:13 Speaker 04 You can find it. It's good.
3:14 Josh Clark? It was in our TV show, too.
3:15 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's his alter ego. Uh, but anyway, Craig's band was playing and this, I was pretty hula naive, hoop naive.
3:22 Josh Clark? Okay.
3:23 Speaker 04 At this point, and, uh, a few years ago, and, um, there was this lady doing, uh, a hula routine to his band playing, and I videoed it. It was so awesome.
3:35 Josh Clark? So she was hoop dancing?
3:37 Speaker 04 Hoop dancing, yeah. Like-
3:39 Josh Clark? Yes.
3:39 Speaker 04 The neck, the arms, the legs, moving around with it like supremely talented, uh, hooper.
3:46 Josh Clark? Yeah, if you go onto the web and, and type in hoop dancing, it's gonna bring up some pretty impressive videos.
3:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, and it's quite a workout, I could tell. And we'll get to that, but just watching her, I got tired.
3:56 Josh Clark? Right.
3:56 Speaker 04 And so I drank another beer and just listened to music.
3:58 Josh Clark? Yeah, and pretended you were hula hooping in your head.
4:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:02 Josh Clark? You're like, "I'm so good at this in my head."
4:04 Speaker 04 But I was like, "Man, that's a thing again?" I had no idea, but it, it's a big thing.
4:08 Josh Clark? Yeah, hula hooping.
4:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:09 Josh Clark? But it's been around for a while.
4:11 Speaker 04 Yes, it has.
4:13 Josh Clark? For example Chuck, did you know, as Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote this article from Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
4:19 Speaker 04 Oh yeah.
4:20 Josh Clark? And he says that the hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions.
4:27 Speaker 04 Wow.
4:28 Josh Clark? That's really saying something.
4:29 Speaker 04 That is saying something. So let's get in the wayback machine.
4:32 Josh Clark? Oh, we're going way back, aren't we?
4:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, let's go back to 1,000 B.C., my friend. We're in Egypt, and there are little children, Egyptian children, with dried up grapevines they've made into hoops. They're playing with them.
4:50 Josh Clark? And there's some Egyptian who's like, "Get off of my patch of sand, kids."
4:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:57 Josh Clark? You know, instead of a lawn?
4:58 Speaker 04 Sure, I get it. That was good.
5:00 Josh Clark? It was alright.
5:02 Speaker 04 So they, they no doubt used them in similar ways that we did today, but they, one thing they did, which was a big sporting thing to do for a long time, which I don't get personally, the fun value that is, is using a stick to push a hula hoop down the road.
5:21 Josh Clark? I think the fun in it is that the hula hoop, as it's traveling down the road, which does seem to be the oldest use of the hoop as a playtime activity, right?
5:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, it wants to fall.
5:32 Josh Clark? It wants to fall over.
5:33 Speaker 04 Sure.
5:33 Josh Clark? Right? So if you can keep it going, then there's probably a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction that you can carry all the way to bedtime with and maybe have good dreams because of.
5:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, I don't even see, if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop, I don't see how a stick, like, how you'd even push it.
5:53 Josh Clark? You would want a stick with maybe...
5:56 Speaker 04 Like a fork?
5:57 Josh Clark? No, probably something like a stick with a big wad of chewed bubble gum on it to like, just have some sort of point of contact. Because as we'll see when we talk about hula hoop physics, friction plays a big part in making hula hoops hula. Hoop.
6:13 Speaker 04 Yes, around the waist, that is.
6:16 Josh Clark? Well, in any, in this case as well, when the stick makes contact with the hoop, you're using friction to push it along.
6:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, good point.
6:22 Josh Clark? So I see your point, like if you're gonna use a stick on a, like a, a, a, plastic hula hoop, it's gonna slide off, or it's gonna want to.
6:29 Speaker 04 Maybe it scares me, that's why I think it's dumb. Maybe I, I would be made a fool of by the hoop. So I'm intimidated.
6:35 Josh Clark? Maybe at first, but Chuck, you would have to hang in there and stick with it.
6:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:39 Josh Clark? And, um, pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an Egyptian kid.
6:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, like an ancient Egyptian child.
6:45 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:46 Speaker 04 Uh, hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well, and Rome. Um, they decorated them with bells and things and toys. Uh, fifth century B.C. there's, uh, you ever heard of, uh, Ganymede?
6:58 Josh Clark? Of course.
6:59 Speaker 04 Ganymede?
7:00 Josh Clark? Ganymede.
7:00 Speaker 04 Ganymede? He was a handsome hero.
7:04 Josh Clark? Oh, he was.
7:05 Speaker 04 The handsomest supposedly.
7:06 Josh Clark? There's an old fifth century B.C. urn of him, um, where he's holding a rooster that was apparently a gift from Zeus.
7:13 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:14 Josh Clark? And a hoop, a hula hoop, clearly a hula hoop. And apparently this discovery, um, I'm not sure why it's called the Berlin Painter urn, but it is.
7:24 Speaker 04 Okay.
7:25 Josh Clark? Uh, again, no idea, but, um, apparently they, they said, well, I wonder if hoops played a role in the earliest Olympics. And I guess they've discredited that idea now, but for a while, because of this urn, this picture of Ganymede with a hoop, um, they wondered.
7:43 Speaker 04 Was it a sport?
7:44 Josh Clark? Yeah.
7:45 Speaker 04 An Olympic sport?
7:46 Josh Clark? But the Greeks supposedly did use hoops for physical fitness, as like a physical activity, in very much the same way it's become popular today.
7:55 Speaker 04 I would imagine a hula hoop, an Olympic hula hooper would be sort of like the, you know, the, uh, what was the sport, the curler of today?
8:05 Josh Clark? You kind of.
8:06 Speaker 04 Like in ancient Greece, like, hey, what do you, I'm gonna throw the hammer. What do you do? I'm a hula hooper.
8:10 Josh Clark? Although I would guess it'd probably be more akin to the hula hoopers of today.
8:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, the hoop roller is what the sport would have been.
8:17 Josh Clark? That'd be more like curling.
8:19 Speaker 04 Right.
8:20 Josh Clark? Hula hooping? That's tough, man.
8:23 Speaker 04 It is tough. Uh, what else? The ancient Britons, um, they had a game called, a battle game called Kill the Hoop.
8:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, I like this one.
8:30 Speaker 04 When they would roll the hoop and throw, try to throw a spear through it.
8:33 Josh Clark? Yep.
8:34 Speaker 04 Pretty neat.
8:34 Josh Clark? Yep.
8:35 Speaker 04 And dangerous. Uh, and apparently they also used it in the hula method and it would, people would get injured.
8:43 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's, there was a fifteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth century.
8:48 Speaker 04 Fourteenth.
8:49 Josh Clark? Was it the fourteen hundreds or the fourteenth century?
8:51 Speaker 04 Fourteenth century.
8:52 Josh Clark? Hula hoop craze.
8:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:54 Josh Clark? In Britain. Isn't that bizarre?
8:56 Speaker 04 It is weird.
8:57 Josh Clark? And, and yeah, people were getting injured. They, there was a proclamation by the early physicians. They would pull up their like crows masks, their plague masks, just long enough to be like, stay away from hula hoops, steer clear of those things.
9:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, the warning was, hoops kill, was I guess what was posted on the church door.
9:14 Josh Clark? And this was like in addition to being in the way of a spear that was being thrown at a rolling hoop.
9:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:20 Josh Clark? Like, this is just from hula hooping.
9:22 Speaker 04 I would stay away from the hoops altogether if I was an ancient Briton.
9:26 Josh Clark? Yeah, because really, if you're like an ancient Briton.
9:28 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
9:29 Josh Clark? You're going from like zero to sixty as far as like physical fitness goes.
9:33 Speaker 04 Sure.
9:34 Josh Clark? Once you're hula hooping.
9:35 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
9:36 Josh Clark? You know?
9:37 Speaker 04 Just because you're not just sitting around eating, uh.
9:39 Josh Clark? Like a.
9:39 Speaker 04 Lamb's brains.
9:40 Josh Clark? Right.
9:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, drinking mead. Uh, what else? The Native Americans, um, have a long culture of using the hoop.
9:49 Josh Clark? Yeah.
9:50 Speaker 04 Um, in New Mexico, the Taos, uh, pueblo people, um, they use them in ritual dances, uh, private healing ceremonies.
9:59 Josh Clark? Yeah.
10:00 Speaker 04 And, uh, did you look up this chunky thing?
10:02 Josh Clark? No. Did you find the chunky reference?
10:05 Speaker 04 I did. The, uh, Cahokian Native Americans.
10:09 Josh Clark? That was an unusual way to pronounce that.
10:12 Speaker 04 Well, how would you say it?
10:13 Josh Clark? Cahokian?
10:14 Speaker 04 I'm thinking Native American would be Cahokian.
10:17 Josh Clark? Okay.
10:19 Josh Clark? That's fine.
10:20 Speaker 04 Uh, near St. Louis, apparently, is where they, they played this game Chunky, which I just had to look it up, because it's a game called Chunky.
10:27 Josh Clark? Yeah.
10:28 Speaker 04 Uh, with an EY. And, um, from what I saw, it was more of a, a small stone disc than like a hula hoop.
10:35 Josh Clark? Okay.
10:36 Speaker 04 Looking thing.
10:37 Josh Clark? And you would, it was like, kill the hoop, though, in Britain, right?
10:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, they would throw a stick, apparently. It looked like a combination of like, um, bocce and, and kill the hoop.
10:50 Josh Clark? Weird.
10:50 Speaker 04 Because I think they would try and throw the spear where the, the disc would eventually land, and the closest to the disc won.
10:56 Josh Clark? Oh.
10:57 Speaker 04 That's how-
10:58 Josh Clark? So like, they're predicting where this, where the hoop would fall?
11:00 Speaker 04 I guess.
11:01 Josh Clark? This makes sense.
11:02 Speaker 04 Although, that's not really like bocce, at all.
11:07 Josh Clark? I mean, I get-
11:08 Speaker 04 There's a proximity element that's bocce-esque.
11:11 Josh Clark? Yes. Yeah, well put.
11:13 Speaker 04 Um, but I, I don't know, I don't know, like, once I saw that and saw pictures, I was like, I don't even know if this should be in this article.
11:19 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:19 Speaker 04 Because it's like a small donut.
11:21 Josh Clark? It's a hoop of sorts.
11:23 Speaker 04 I guess so. It's a stretch, if you ask me. But it was a big spectator sport, like fifty acre stadiums of people would watch this.
11:31 Josh Clark? Wow.
11:31 Speaker 04 Would go to Chunky games.
11:33 Josh Clark? And so-
11:34 Speaker 04 Chunky matches.
11:34 Josh Clark? So there was Chunky matches in Cahokia.
11:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:38 Josh Clark? Uh, and the pueblo used their, I think, as you said, they, they used hoops, and they weren't the only ones. Um, there were other, uh, tribes from all over North America. And Mesoamerica, I believe, um, that used hoops, uh, for dancing.
11:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:54 Josh Clark? And apparently, it was in nineteen thirty, a guy named Tony Whitecloud, who was a Yemez pueblo down in New Mexico, um, did like a hoop dance in public, and basically brought it back.
12:07 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah?
12:07 Josh Clark? Like, it had been virtually lost to the ages, at least as far as, uh, the average American was concerned.
12:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
12:14 Josh Clark? Most people didn't know this was a thing. Luckily, Tony Whitecloud was like, check this out. Did an awesome hoop dance, and then by nineteen ninety-one, there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico, um, and they're a big deal still to this day.
12:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, of course. I think, did he kick off the American craze?
12:34 Josh Clark? Yes. No.
12:35 Speaker 04 He didn't?
12:36 Josh Clark? He was strictly Native American hoop dancing.
12:39 Speaker 04 Gotcha.
12:40 Josh Clark? Not hula hooping.
12:42 Speaker 04 Okay, so let's go to, well, let's take a break, actually. Because this is, this is the big revelation here.
12:48 Josh Clark? That's right.
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14:29 Speaker 04 All right, Josh, we're at that point where mainstream America goes hoop crazy.
14:36 Josh Clark? But to get to that point, we actually have to go backward again in time for a second.
14:39 Speaker 04 Back in the Wayback Machine.
14:40 Josh Clark? So let's go-
14:41 Speaker 04 I left it running.
14:42 Josh Clark? Let's go to, I don't know, Fiji or Tahiti or Polynesia.
14:46 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
14:51 Josh Clark? And it's the 18th century.
14:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:54 Josh Clark? See all these British sailors?
14:55 Speaker 04 Can we drink some rum?
14:57 Josh Clark? Oh, man.
14:58 Speaker 04 Okay.
14:58 Josh Clark? Yeah. In addition to the rum we've already drank today.
15:01 Speaker 04 All right, good.
15:02 Josh Clark? So the British sailors that you see here are noticing a hula dance, right? And they're-
15:09 Speaker 04 Yes.
15:09 Josh Clark? -filing it away in their mental catalog. And now, when they reach Britain again-
15:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:18 Josh Clark? Why have we been saying it like that?
15:19 Speaker 04 I don't know.
15:20 Josh Clark? They notice that it bears a striking resemblance to what people do with the hula hoop.
15:26 Speaker 04 You gyrate every time you say that, by the way, in your seat.
15:30 Josh Clark? Can't not do it.
15:31 Speaker 04 Okay.
15:31 Josh Clark? So the term "hula" became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate-
15:37 Speaker 04 Sure.
15:38 Josh Clark? -to rotate them.
15:39 Speaker 04 Yes.
15:39 Josh Clark? When you rotate your hips with the hoop, these British sailors ended up applying the word "hula" to it, and it stuck. That's where it came from, was Polynesia.
15:50 Speaker 04 Right. Even though there was no hoop involved in Polynesia, correct?
15:53 Josh Clark? Yes.
15:54 Speaker 04 They just kind of ganked that word-
15:58 Josh Clark? Yes, they did.
15:59 Speaker 04 -for their own purposes.
16:00 Josh Clark? It is 1997 all over again.
16:03 Speaker 04 That was a big 90s term, wasn't it?
16:04 Josh Clark? Ganked, yeah. Let's go watch some X-Files.
16:10 Speaker 04 Let's, actually.
16:11 Josh Clark? Yeah, the movie's coming out soon, right?
16:13 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, they're doing another one, aren't they?
16:15 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:15 Speaker 04 That thing will never die.
16:17 Josh Clark? I don't think it should.
16:18 Speaker 04 No, keep doing movies, that's what I say.
16:21 Josh Clark? So we mentioned that the Greeks, I believe, used it for physical fitness, right?
16:28 Speaker 04 I don't think we said that.
16:29 Josh Clark? I think I said it.
16:30 Speaker 04 Okay.
16:31 Josh Clark? The Swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons, too, in the 19th century, in early 20th century.
16:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, someone named Emile Jacques Del Crozet-
16:45 Josh Clark? Man, that was great.
16:46 Speaker 04 That's tough. Had a program called Eurythmics.
16:51 Speaker 04 Of course, I started singing Sweet Dreams this morning.
16:54 Josh Clark? Of course.
16:55 Speaker 04 Uh, because of that, and I've been singing it all day as a result. So that was a special training program, and it was apparently a big deal.
17:02 Josh Clark? It was a big deal. So Eurythmics used hoops for, um, basically physical fitness, but also interpretive dance, that kind of stuff. It was a combination of, it was like dance training is, is what I can gather, and it used hoops. The reason that we're mentioning this when we're talking about the American craze is that it directly led to the American craze, potentially. Because Eurythmics spread from Switzerland to, um, Great Britain.
17:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:31 Josh Clark? And it was brought in as part of like PE class.
17:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:35 Josh Clark? In Australia, and it was in Australia that the founders of Wham-O were inspired to create the modern hula hoop that we think of today.
17:44 Speaker 04 Boom.
17:44 Josh Clark? So it's possible they watched the Eurythmics class, or heard about a Eurythmics class.
17:48 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
17:49 Josh Clark? And with Australian kids, and then said, well, this is a clearly something of Australian design, and let's bring it to the US and start a craze.
17:57 Speaker 04 They said Sweet Dreams were made of these.
17:59 Josh Clark? Yeah.
18:01 Speaker 04 Uh, and this was Richard, uh, Nurr and Arthur Spud Mellon, Mel- Meline.
18:09 Speaker 04 Mellon sounds like M-L-O-N.
18:11 Josh Clark? Like Thornton Mellon.
18:13 Speaker 04 Uh huh, don't tease me with that movie.
18:17 Speaker 04 The Great Back to School. I saw a bit of that recently.
18:20 Josh Clark? Yeah.
18:20 Speaker 04 And, and the only thought through my head was like, man, why couldn't I have caught this from the beginning?
18:25 Josh Clark? Yeah.
18:25 Speaker 04 Cause I wanted to see it all.
18:26 Josh Clark? That, and man, his son is pasty.
18:31 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were saying that was a line from the movie.
18:34 Josh Clark? It should have been.
18:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, his son Keith Gordon, who became a great movie director.
18:39 Josh Clark? Oh, really?
18:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, the guy from Christine and Back to School.
18:42 Josh Clark? Yeah, yeah.
18:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, he, he gave up acting and started directing movies and directed, uh, a bunch of good movies. One called Waking the Dead, you should see.
18:50 Josh Clark? I thought Keith Gordon co-starred in They Live.
18:54 Speaker 04 I don't know, maybe.
18:57 Speaker 04 I'll have to check that. Uh, so where were we? Oh, yes. The two founders of Wham-O. They said, you know what? Let's take these wooden hoops. Let's make them out of polyethylene. Let's make them 40 inches. And let's charge $1.98 for them and make them all kinds of fun colors.
19:17 Josh Clark? Yeah.
19:18 Speaker 04 And boom. Uh, the hula hoop craze in 1958 was born.
19:23 Josh Clark? Like, it was the definition of a flash in the pan craze.
19:27 Speaker 04 Yeah. Lot of money in a very short span of time.
19:29 Josh Clark? Like a summer, basically.
19:31 Speaker 04 Pretty much.
19:32 Josh Clark? In 1958, Wham-O released it. And by the end of 1958, these things were rotting in the warehouse.
19:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
19:38 Josh Clark? But in the meantime, they sold globally, globally, from the summer to the end of 1958. A hundred million hula hoops.
19:51 Speaker 04 Yeah. More than that, I think.
19:53 Josh Clark? Man, my brain.
19:54 Speaker 04 Yeah. You forgot what we were talking about.
19:56 Josh Clark? I almost said frisbees.
19:58 Speaker 04 Did we do one on the frisbee?
19:59 Josh Clark? No.
20:00 Speaker 04 I thought we had, but we haven't, have we?
20:02 Josh Clark? No, we did one on the boomerang.
20:03 Speaker 04 Oh, right. Which is like a frisbee, but not.
20:07 Josh Clark? It's like a dangerous frisbee.
20:08 Speaker 04 Uh, so they sell all these hula hoops. They make a ton of money. Like, you know, over $50 million in a short span of time. Which I'm sure they weren't happy with the, that it didn't last. But they were also probably like, uh, an injection of cash like that is great for any business.
20:25 Josh Clark? Yeah, then they moved on to the frisbee and made even more money.
20:27 Speaker 04 Yeah. And, uh, they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run.
20:31 Josh Clark? Well, they couldn't because it was so demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it.
20:37 Speaker 04 Nope.
20:38 Josh Clark? But they trademarked it.
20:39 Speaker 04 They did. They trademarked the name hula hoop in the United States. Uh, which is why, uh, we still call it hula hoop today, I guess.
20:46 Josh Clark? Yeah.
20:46 Speaker 04 It just became the name.
20:47 Josh Clark? We should probably put the title with a R in a circle for this.
20:52 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, we should do that, like Barbie.
20:53 Josh Clark? Yeah.
20:54 Speaker 04 Uh, it was named the number 35 toy of all time, um, by Time Magazine.
20:59 Josh Clark? And they know toys.
21:00 Speaker 04 They know their toys. And then, uh, from 1968 to 1981, there were national hula hoop contests, uh, held.
21:10 Speaker 04 And I guess in the early eighties, people were finished with it.
21:12 Josh Clark? There were also like a tremendous amount of music, like musical singles released called the hula hoop song.
21:20 Speaker 04 Oh, really?
21:21 Josh Clark? Different people recorded different songs about hula hooping.
21:24 Speaker 04 Doesn't surprise me.
21:24 Josh Clark? Yeah, it was a craze, big time.
21:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:27 Josh Clark? And you say that they were done with it by the eighties, not true.
21:31 Speaker 04 Oh, what, the national competitions?
21:32 Josh Clark? There was, so if you look at hula hooping records.
21:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:35 Josh Clark? The most recent hula hoop record is from 2009.
21:39 Speaker 04 Well, but was that part of a national competition?
21:42 Josh Clark? Probably.
21:42 Speaker 04 Or just a.
21:44 Josh Clark? A guy named Aaron Hibbs, he hula hooped, just hula hooped.
21:48 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
21:48 Josh Clark? For 74 hours and 54 minutes.
21:51 Speaker 04 Wow.
21:52 Josh Clark? He broke the record of.
21:53 Speaker 04 I couldn't even stand up for that long.
21:55 Josh Clark? He broke the record of a girl named Kim Cobberley. She held the record twice in 1978 with 54 hours and in 1984 for 72 hours.
22:05 Speaker 04 Wow.
22:06 Josh Clark? Which is pretty impressive.
22:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, have you ever seen the people that do like hundreds of them at once?
22:10 Josh Clark? Yeah, there's a guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair.
22:13 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
22:14 Josh Clark? Who set the record in 2009 with 132 hoops at the same time.
22:17 Speaker 04 Wow, that's impressive.
22:19 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm, he's basically probably just like, like the Michelin Man made of hula hoops.
22:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
22:25 Speaker 04 Did I ever tell you about the Surface Area Man costume in Athens?
22:29 Josh Clark? No.
22:29 Speaker 04 That was out on Halloween in Athens in college and there was a dude, I know the guy, his name was Blake. He has, you may have seen him, he had big red dreadlocks, kind of a short guy, just a ubiquitous Athens dude.
22:44 Josh Clark? No.
22:44 Speaker 04 He lives kind of in my neighborhood now, I still see him every once in a while, we call them Sideshow Blake. Because of Sideshow Bob.
22:49 Josh Clark? Sure.
22:50 Speaker 04 And he came in the bar, in the Georgia bar, and he had these foam discs around his arms, around his legs, around his waist and neck that were huge, like probably four feet across. And he was Surface Area Man and that was just his costume. Because when he moved around, he took up like, you know, probably 75 square feet of space. And he would just move through the bar and say, I'm Surface Area Man. And I'll always remember, every time I see Blake, I saw him at the grocery store the other day.
23:21 Josh Clark? Was he dressed like that?
23:22 Speaker 04 No, but I was like, he wouldn't fit down the grocery aisle.
23:25 Josh Clark? Does he have dreads still?
23:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
23:28 Josh Clark? Does he really?
23:29 Speaker 04 Still rocking the red dreads.
23:31 Josh Clark? Wow, he's dedicated.
23:32 Speaker 04 He looks exactly the same, actually. But we weren't friends. I could, actually, next time I see him.
23:37 Josh Clark? I hate him, actually.
23:37 Speaker 04 I'm gonna just walk by him and go, "Surface area, man."
23:40 Josh Clark? You should.
23:41 Speaker 04 I'm gonna do it. All right, let's talk about The Hudson Sucker Proxy for a quick moment, and then we'll take another break.
23:47 Josh Clark? Okay.
23:48 Speaker 04 Did you ever see that one?
23:49 Josh Clark? Uh, I don't think I made it through that one.
23:51 Speaker 04 The Coen Brothers?
23:52 Josh Clark? Yeah. Not all of their movies are great.
23:55 Speaker 04 I disagree.
23:56 Josh Clark? I love The Coen Brothers, but some of their movies stink.
23:59 Speaker 04 Oh, boy. They're part of my 100% club, where every movie they've made has been great.
24:05 Josh Clark? That is wrong.
24:06 Speaker 04 Which other ones don't you like?
24:08 Josh Clark? The Man Who Wasn't There?
24:09 Speaker 04 Loved it.
24:10 Josh Clark? Uh, Bob Robertson?
24:12 Speaker 04 They didn't, that wasn't theirs.
24:13 Josh Clark? Well, it was terrible.
24:14 Speaker 04 Okay.
24:15 Josh Clark? Uh, well, The Hudson Sucker Proxy, too.
24:18 Speaker 04 All right, I liked it. I would put it at lesser Coens, for sure.
24:22 Josh Clark? You'd have to.
24:23 Speaker 04 But, um, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Uh, Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason-Leigh and Paul Newman, uh, in a fictitious tale of the invention of the hula hoop. Uh, it is not the true biopic of the invention of the hula hoop, but they co-opted it for one of their movies, and it was, I think, pretty great.
24:41 Josh Clark? Okay.
24:41 Speaker 04 But that's just me.
24:42 Josh Clark? Okay.
24:43 Speaker 04 All right.
24:43 Josh Clark? So, go ahead.
24:45 Speaker 04 Well, no, that was it.
24:45 Josh Clark? Oh, that was all?
24:46 Speaker 04 I just wanted to shout it out.
24:48 Josh Clark? Fine. Well, then, let's take a break, because we're about to get into physics.
24:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, and hoop games.
24:54 Josh Clark? Yep. After this.
25:06 Speaker 02 This stress check, AKA friendly reminder that your hobbies matter, is brought to you by State Farm, because you deserve to lose yourself in the stuff that brings you joy. Here's mine.
25:17 Speaker 07 Painting my tabletop battle miniatures. Yeah, seriously. After a long day, I grab a brush, pop in some music and just get into it. And there's no wrong way to do it. It helps me clear my head, slow down and just breathe. But it works. Big stress, mini warriors, total reset. No pressure, just paint, creativity and a little reminder of what makes me happy. Some people bake, some people garden. Me, I paint warriors with interesting tech. And guess what? It works. You don't have to be good at your hobby. You just have to enjoy it. So carve out that time, tune out the noise and do something that's just for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Hello, hello.
25:59 Speaker 07 I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM.
26:03 Speaker 03 I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI. AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing and where. Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
26:42 Josh Clark? No country for old men? Terrible. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
26:46 Speaker 04 Do you like that one?
26:47 Josh Clark? I love that one. That's maybe the best. Raising Arizona is probably the best.
26:54 Speaker 04 It'd be tough for me to pick on any given day, but Fargo is the one I can watch over and over and over.
26:59 Josh Clark? Yeah. Yeah. I would say those three are type of first.
27:02 Speaker 04 Did we just come back from the break just segueing right back into the comments?
27:05 Josh Clark? I don't know.
27:05 Speaker 04 All right, let's do it.
27:06 Josh Clark? We'll see how Jerry edits this.
27:09 Speaker 04 So let's, it wouldn't be a Stuff You Should Know podcast if we didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly unscientific.
27:16 Josh Clark? Well, hula hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, you know?
27:20 Speaker 04 Not super complex.
27:21 Josh Clark? Super complex.
27:22 Speaker 04 There's just a few things.
27:23 Josh Clark? We are not in agreement on stuff today, are we?
27:25 Speaker 04 I don't know. What's going on?
27:26 Josh Clark? So let's say you have a hula hoop, right? And it's around your waist. And you take it and you throw it, you have it up against maybe one hip.
27:35 Speaker 04 Sure.
27:35 Josh Clark? It's making contact with your body.
27:37 Speaker 04 That you're starting in the traditional way then.
27:38 Josh Clark? Sure. And you whip it around.
27:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:41 Josh Clark? To one side.
27:42 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
27:42 Josh Clark? And as you do, you start rotating your hips.
27:45 Speaker 04 You're gyrating.
27:46 Josh Clark? Right?
27:46 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
27:46 Josh Clark? I'm rotating my hips, Chuck.
27:48 Speaker 04 Yes.
27:49 Josh Clark? Uh, and as you do that, when you rotate your hips, what you're doing is first of all, you're conserving the angular momentum you gave the hula hoop when you pushed it in a certain direction, twisted it around yourself, right?
28:00 Speaker 04 That's right. You are the axis.
28:02 Josh Clark? You, yes, you are the axis.
28:03 Speaker 04 Yes.
28:04 Josh Clark? And when you move your hips around, when you, when you rotate your hips, you're applying what's called torque.
28:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, cuz all this hoop wants to do is fall down around on the ground and make you look foolish.
28:15 Josh Clark? It wants to stop. Well, no, it doesn't want to stop because of inertia. It wants to keep going, but it can't because of friction. But it wants to fall down to the ground, like you said, and make you look foolish.
28:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
28:26 Josh Clark? But ironically, that same friction is keeping it from doing that.
28:31 Speaker 04 Who is the fool now, hoop?
28:32 Josh Clark? The hula hoop.
28:33 Speaker 04 Yep.
28:34 Josh Clark? Fool.
28:35 Speaker 04 All right. Did you talk about the torque?
28:37 Josh Clark? I did talk about torque. And torque is a twisting force where you're twisting your hips.
28:42 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
28:43 Josh Clark? And you're thrusting the hula hoop around in a circle.
28:46 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
28:46 Josh Clark? And what you're doing there is contributing to the centripetal force.
28:50 Speaker 04 That's right. Not centrifugal.
28:52 Josh Clark? No, centripetal.
28:53 Speaker 04 Two different things.
28:54 Josh Clark? Me, move, is a force that moves at a right angle to the motion of your body. So it keeps that thing, whatever it is, say hula hoop or tractor tire, which by the way, someone set a record, hula hooping with a tractor tire.
29:08 Speaker 04 Shut up. Really?
29:09 Josh Clark? Yeah, for like 70 seconds, a 54 pound tire.
29:12 Speaker 04 How big was a person?
29:13 Josh Clark? Oh, I'm sure he was ginormous.
29:14 Speaker 04 All right.
29:15 Josh Clark? Um, I think he was from like Belarus or something, you know?
29:18 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, they do that on a daily basis there.
29:21 Josh Clark? So with the centripetal force, this is going at a right angle to the direction that you're thrusting your hips.
29:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:28 Josh Clark? It's constantly going to move around a circle on the axis. That is centripetal force.
29:34 Speaker 04 Boom.
29:35 Josh Clark? Or centripetal motion, I should say.
29:37 Speaker 04 Yes, and when this hoop wants to fall, of course, we're talking about gravity. Gravity wants to win that fight, but if you keep that pulsing gyration going.
29:47 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
29:47 Speaker 04 Then you're going to keep that hoop just a little ahead of the curve.
29:50 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's apparently the key, and Robert puts this in here as a kind of like a throwaway thing.
29:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, that is the total key.
29:56 Josh Clark? But I think that's the key of hula hooping is you want your hip to move just before that, I guess, wave that comes in contact with your body again comes in contact, like comes back around.
30:10 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's almost like a catch and release, in a way.
30:12 Josh Clark? Okay, yeah.
30:13 Speaker 04 Like you're catching it on your hip and then slinging it back around. Now, I'm gyrating.
30:17 Josh Clark? Yeah, you are.
30:18 Speaker 04 Wow.
30:19 Josh Clark? There's a lot of gyrating going on in this room right now.
30:21 Speaker 04 There is.
30:22 Josh Clark? It's crazy.
30:23 Speaker 04 So there's a few different parts of the body at work. I don't know why, in 2004, they needed a 15-page study in the Journal of Biological Cybernetics to figure this out, because if you just look at somebody, you can tell that the hips, knees, and ankles are really what's at play keeping that thing going. And that's if you're just doing the hip hula hoop.
30:45 Josh Clark? Right, right, yeah, yeah.
30:46 Speaker 04 Not hands and neck and legs and all that, of course.
30:48 Josh Clark? Yeah, just the standard hooping, right?
30:50 Speaker 04 Yeah.
30:51 Josh Clark? And so another study, I think, four years later, in the Journal of Human Movement Science.
30:57 Speaker 04 I don't know why they needed that one either.
30:58 Josh Clark? Well, they built upon this 2004 study and said, okay, you use your hips, knees, and ankles. Everybody uses it, but depending on the individual, there'll be different contributions from the hips, knees, or ankle.
31:10 Speaker 04 Depends on the motion of your ocean.
31:12 Josh Clark? Exactly. So it's like the individual, everybody uses the same. The same parts, but they use them in different percentages to come up with the hula hooping motion.
31:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, I bet certain body types are better at this than others, too.
31:27 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's slim.
31:28 Speaker 04 Yeah?
31:29 Josh Clark? Yeah.
31:30 Speaker 04 Probably so. I mean, the one in front of Craig's band, she was pretty slim, I guess.
31:34 Josh Clark? Sure.
31:35 Speaker 04 She was working that thing, man. It was like, it was pretty amazing.
31:38 Josh Clark? Hula hoop.
31:39 Speaker 04 So that's hoop dancing. Uh, and we'll finish up here with some other games.
31:43 Josh Clark? Well, we didn't talk about hoop dancing. We were just talking about hula hooping.
31:46 Speaker 04 No, we talked about hoop dancing at the beginning with that lady.
31:49 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, okay.
31:50 Speaker 04 So that's hoop dancing.
31:51 Josh Clark? Okay.
31:52 Speaker 04 That's when you, you know, it's around the neck and then you work it down around your hips and then up one arm and then up the other arm.
31:58 Josh Clark? Right, right.
31:59 Speaker 04 It's pretty impressive. Um, your standard hula hooping, of course, which we've covered. Uh, speed, endurance, depends on what you're after.
32:07 Josh Clark? Sure.
32:08 Speaker 04 Like, I want to do this for 20 minutes, or I want to do it-
32:10 Josh Clark? 74 hours.
32:11 Speaker 04 Really fast for five minutes.
32:13 Josh Clark? Okay.
32:14 Speaker 04 Hoop rolling.
32:15 Josh Clark? That's one of my favorites.
32:16 Speaker 04 Hoop trundling.
32:17 Josh Clark? Yeah.
32:18 Speaker 04 Like you're a little ancient Egyptian kid.
32:20 Josh Clark? Yeah.
32:21 Speaker 04 I would, I'd like to see you do that.
32:23 Josh Clark? Hoop rolling?
32:24 Speaker 04 Hmm, sure.
32:24 Josh Clark? Let's do it.
32:25 Speaker 04 Let's do a video for that.
32:26 Josh Clark? Okay. We could do a periscope of it.
32:29 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah?
32:29 Josh Clark? Let's do that.
32:30 Speaker 04 Are we gonna start doing that?
32:31 Josh Clark? We could do at least one of me hoop rolling.
32:34 Speaker 04 I think people, well, we're gonna get emails on that.
32:36 Josh Clark? They'll turn out in droves to see that.
32:38 Speaker 04 Sure. Hundreds of people will show up for that.
32:41 Josh Clark? There's one not on this list that I want to give a shout out to.
32:43 Speaker 04 All right, what?
32:44 Josh Clark? It was invented, apparently, in Belgium. They call it Belgian skipping. It's called ankle skipping. It's where you put the hula hoop on one foot around one ankle.
32:54 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
32:54 Josh Clark? And you use it to hula hoop. You make the hula hoop motion with that one.
32:57 Speaker 04 Oh, and jump?
32:58 Josh Clark? And as it comes around, you jump through the hoop with the other one.
33:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:01 Josh Clark? I can't believe it wasn't on this list.
33:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's a solid hoop endeavor.
33:05 Josh Clark? But apparently it's a pretty recent invention from like the 60s.
33:08 Speaker 04 Oh, really?
33:09 Josh Clark? Uh huh.
33:10 Speaker 04 All right, that makes sense. Um, that's sort of like hoop jumping, but not quite.
33:14 Josh Clark? No, hoop jumping is more like jump roping with a hula hoop.
33:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, but that kind of reminds me of that, too.
33:18 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
33:21 Speaker 04 Hoop jumping is when you hold the hula hoop, uh, the top of it and then you swing it around your body and jump up and down.
33:28 Josh Clark? Okay.
33:29 Speaker 04 Um, like you have nothing better to do in life.
33:31 Josh Clark? Right, like you can't find a jump rope, you haven't heard of those before.
33:35 Speaker 04 Uh, return the hoop, this is the only one I was ever good at. That's when you, you hold it vertically and you fling it out as hard as you can backwards and it sort of spins in place and comes back to you.
33:46 Josh Clark? Right, and if you're not expecting it, you're gonna turn and run, cuz it is startling.
33:50 Speaker 04 We've already talked about kill the hoop, we don't recommend you use spears to do that.
33:56 Josh Clark? Or just make sure nobody's in the vicinity of where the hoop is.
34:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, good point.
34:01 Josh Clark? You don't wanna combine hoop trundling and kill the hoop, cuz you'll kill the hoop trundler.
34:08 Speaker 04 No, and I'm not even gonna cover this last one, I dare you to, though.
34:11 Josh Clark? I like this one, hoop your environment?
34:13 Speaker 04 Yeah, go ahead.
34:14 Josh Clark? So it's like you put hula hoops around and you jump from them, like they're, they're islands and there's lava in between.
34:21 Speaker 04 Okay.
34:22 Josh Clark? What's wrong with that?
34:23 Speaker 04 I don't know.
34:24 Josh Clark? Too childish?
34:25 Speaker 04 No, I'm very childish, but I don't know, I just didn't float my boat.
34:29 Josh Clark? You're childlike, not childish.
34:31 Speaker 04 Oh, gotcha.
34:32 Josh Clark? Big difference, man.
34:33 Speaker 04 Uh, well, we talked about exercise, it is, um, legitimate exercise, our hula hoop classes now, um, apparently Marisa Tomei, the actor, um, took hoop fitness classes to lose weight for, uh, or to get in shape for her movie The Wrestler in 2008, uh, first lady Michelle Obama has-
34:54 Josh Clark? Very famously hoop worked out.
34:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, hoop, hooped the lawn of the White House to say, "Hey, kids, get active."
35:00 Josh Clark? And at the US Open?
35:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, you can still have fun by doing this.
35:04 Josh Clark? Yeah.
35:05 Speaker 04 Um, and they even did another study to see what kind of calories you could burn.
35:09 Josh Clark? Lots of hoop studies.
35:10 Speaker 04 Um, too many, um, they took women between 16 and 59 and said, uh, "Go crazy and hoop", and they averaged-
35:20 Josh Clark? For half an hour.
35:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, and they were weighted hoops too, by the way, um, which is not to say they were super heavy, they're generally still pretty lightweight.
35:28 Josh Clark? Yeah, but strangely, a weighted hoop is easier to keep going.
35:32 Speaker 04 Yes, which makes sense, I think, uh, and they averaged 151, uh, beats per minute, uh, BPMs.
35:42 Josh Clark? Is it a beat?
35:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, heartbeats.
35:45 Josh Clark? Oh, their heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:46 Speaker 04 Yeah. Tribe Called Quest would be proud.
35:49 Josh Clark? Right.
35:49 Speaker 04 Uh, and that is burning seven calories a minute, or 210 calories during a half hour of hooping. So that's good exercise, people.
35:58 Josh Clark? That's like, um, weightlifting type calorie burn.
36:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:02 Josh Clark? Plus also, um, like, if you just break it down to calorie burn, first of all, Chuck, I want to do an episode, and I'm not quite sure how to frame it yet. It doesn't have a thesis, but there are so many, like, medical myths out there that are just taken as fact.
36:18 Speaker 04 Sure.
36:18 Josh Clark? Even by the medical establishment, even though, like, if you asked a doctor, like, is this fact? They would be like, "No, no, actually, it's not."
36:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:25 Josh Clark? Like, drinking eight glasses of water a day.
36:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:27 Josh Clark? Totally made up.
36:28 Speaker 04 I knew you were gonna say that one.
36:29 Josh Clark? Like, I, I think we should do one on medical myths sometime. What do you think?
36:33 Speaker 04 We should, have we not?
36:35 Josh Clark? No. Like, part of me wants to say we have, but I think things have just come up, like, here or there over, over the years. Anyway, um, if, even if you take the calories out of the equation, just hula hooping, the standard hip gyration hula hoop.
36:52 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:52 Josh Clark? Will really, really work out your core.
36:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:56 Josh Clark? Like, it's a-
36:56 Speaker 04 You didn't even need a hula hoop.
36:58 Josh Clark? No, you can just sit in your chair and do what I'm doing now.
37:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:00 Josh Clark? Like, I'm getting, I'm sweating.
37:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:02 Josh Clark? Right now.
37:03 Speaker 04 You totally are.
37:04 Josh Clark? My lip, my upper lip is broken out in perspiration.
37:08 Speaker 04 Uh, modern hooping, burlesque uses hoops. If you go to any, uh, music festival these days, you're gonna see the ladies, like I was talking about, or they might have them decked out with LEDs, or even fire.
37:20 Josh Clark? Well, what's neat is, um, LED hula hoops in particular are really displaying, like, the physics of hula hoops.
37:27 Speaker 04 Pretty neat.
37:27 Josh Clark? Through, like, um, what's that type of photography?
37:31 Speaker 04 LSD?
37:32 Josh Clark? No. No, uh, what's the, uh, what's that photography where you like, you just keep the shutter open so it, like, high exposure or long exposure?
37:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, you just said it, keeping that shutter open. It's like when you see the pictures of the cars on the freeway at night and it's just like a long trail of headlights.
37:49 Josh Clark? Yeah, but there are photos out there of LED, um, hula hoops there. It's just like you can see, they don't just keep like a, a flat path, they go all over the place in some way. It's really neat.
37:59 Speaker 04 It's pretty cool. Um, what about this lady, uh, the Israeli sculptor? Did you watch that?
38:05 Josh Clark? Uh, I saw a couple of pictures of it.
38:07 Speaker 04 Yes, her name is Sigalit Landau. And in 2003, she did a performance art, um, slash political statement piece where she did, it was called Barbed Hula. She was naked and, uh, hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop.
38:25 Josh Clark? That just tore her abdomen up.
38:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:28 Josh Clark? It's really rough.
38:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, it was pretty disturbing, but she said, um, she, uh, was on an Israeli beach that she defined as the only calm and natural border Israel has. So she was making a statement, my friend.
38:41 Josh Clark? Well, she's an artist.
38:42 Speaker 04 That's what they do.
38:43 Josh Clark? Um, I got a couple of last things.
38:46 Speaker 04 Let's hear it.
38:46 Josh Clark? In the, that hula hoop craze.
38:48 Speaker 04 Of the 50s in America?
38:50 Josh Clark? Yeah, yeah, not the, not the 14th century Breton one.
38:55 Speaker 04 Okay.
38:55 Josh Clark? Um, there, it was, uh, in Japan, it was banned, the hula hoop was banned because they were worried it was gonna lead to actual stuff, things happening.
39:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, gyrating hips.
39:05 Josh Clark? Yeah. Um, and apparently the Soviets said that it was a, it was evidence of the emptiness of American culture, the hula hoop craze.
39:15 Speaker 04 Really?
39:16 Josh Clark? Yeah. Leave it to the Soviets to be like, Americans, come on. They hated America. Do you remember when the Iron Curtain fell and you were like, oh, wait a minute, like, everything we were taught about the Soviet Union was basically made up?
39:31 Speaker 04 Yeah. And they were like, you know, the average Russian was like a good person.
39:35 Josh Clark? Yeah, and the average Russian was a lot like the average American and...
39:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, drunk on vodka.
39:39 Josh Clark? Right. "I'm gonna live forever." All right, that's it. If you want to know more about hula hoops, you can type that word into the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.
39:57 Speaker 04 I'm gonna call this anorexia. Did you read this one?
40:00 Josh Clark? No. I don't see how I missed that one.
40:03 Speaker 04 Hey guys, I'm a huge fan and want to let you know how Stuff You Should Know has helped me over the years. I began listening, I love these, began listening at the age of 12 and I'm now turning 18.
40:13 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's pretty cool.
40:14 Speaker 04 August 9th. Stuff You Should Know has played a part in the young adult I've become. At 12, I was diagnosed with restrictive anorexia, was hospitalized for about a month and did day treatment for almost a year. After leaving treatment for the day, I religiously put on my headphones and turned on Stuff You Should Know. The podcast was really helpful on bad days, especially if I had, just had an argument with my parents or a difficult meal. Your humor was especially helpful. I remember laughing out loud many times in the car, which was quite a rare occurrence. I'm pretty solid in recovery now, but your podcast also helped me gain a better relationship with my sibling. My eating disorder caused a lot of tension between my sibling and I for quite a few years, but one day, I invited her to listen to your podcast.
40:57 Speaker 04 Stuff You Should Know quickly became a part of her commute to university class and we occasionally would discuss the podcast topics.
41:05 Josh Clark? Nice.
41:06 Speaker 04 We now have a tradition, and I love this part too, we now have a tradition of listening to the Christmas extravaganza together while in winter break, which is what we want people to do.
41:15 Josh Clark? Yeah, man.
41:16 Speaker 04 To gather the family and make this a thing.
41:18 Josh Clark? Eat some plum pudding.
41:20 Speaker 04 Even though I don't know what we're, we're gonna get pretty slim on Christmas topics.
41:23 Josh Clark? I've got at least one great topic already.
41:26 Speaker 04 You do?
41:27 Josh Clark? Yeah, we need to start looking now, though, you're right.
41:29 Speaker 04 Yeah. We've even gifted each other matching Stuff You Should Know shirts one year. More recently, I received a very urgent text letting me know, in all caps, that you guys were coming to Minneapolis this fall.
41:40 Josh Clark? That's right.
41:41 Speaker 04 And another text to let me know that Chuck's daughter Ruby shares the same birthday as our father, and I want to point out again, and Josh.
41:48 Josh Clark? Yeah, the triumvirate.
41:49 Speaker 04 That's right. Your podcast gives us endless topics and inside jokes and I can't thank you enough for bringing us closer together. Thanks again for being such a big part of my formative years. My sister and I can't wait to see you guys in Minneapolis this fall. That is from Emily and she said, please shout out your sister Megan.
42:07 Josh Clark? Awesome. Emily, thank you for telling us all that. Like, that really means the world to us.
42:12 Speaker 04 Yes, and best of luck in your continued recovery. That is tough stuff.
42:15 Josh Clark? Yeah, and congratulations, too.
42:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, we should do an eating disorder podcast at some point. That one's been hanging out there.
42:21 Josh Clark? Yeah. Yeah, because you know, there's like a whole, there's like this new idea that like, almost everybody has an eating disorder in America these days.
42:29 Speaker 04 Of some kind?
42:30 Josh Clark? Yeah, like typically binge eating is like a huge thing.
42:33 Speaker 04 Sure.
42:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, we should definitely do that.
42:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:36 Josh Clark? Thank you very much, Emily, and hello, sister Megan.
42:40 Speaker 04 Yep.
42:40 Josh Clark? We appreciate you guys listening and hopefully we'll see you guys in Minneapolis when we come in October.
42:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, and you know what? Actually, write me back. We'll put you on the guest list.
42:48 Josh Clark? Oh, man.
42:49 Speaker 04 How about that?
42:50 Josh Clark? That's so nice.
42:50 Speaker 04 Free tickets for you two.
42:52 Josh Clark? Wow. That is something.
42:53 Speaker 04 Just for you two, no guests.
42:56 Josh Clark? Right.
42:56 Speaker 04 Just kidding.
42:57 Josh Clark? Well, you need to lay it down. We should probably have a legal disclaimer added after this, too.
43:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, we might hear from a lot of Emily and Megan's in Minnesota.
43:06 Josh Clark? If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S Y S K podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email at [email protected] . And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.
43:27 Speaker 03 For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.
43:38 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings. When it's time for your next Toyota, so get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
44:22 Speaker 00 Zolir 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one of more foods. While taking Zolir, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolir. Zolir may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolir should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolir is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolir.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolir.
45:06 Speaker 00 This is an advertisement for Zolir paid for by Genentech and Novartis. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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