RIP Richard Knerr

Message

themanintheseersuckersuit · #1 Post by **themanintheseersuckersuit** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:28 am

Inventor of the Hula Hoop, Co-Founder of Wham-O

Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O Inc., which unleashed the granddaddy of American fads, the Hula Hoop, on the world half a century ago along with another enduring leisure icon, the Frisbee, has died. He was 82.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/ ... obituaries

AnnieCamaro · #2 Post by **AnnieCamaro** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:38 am

This is big news for dogs. If I ran a dog newspaper, I would put it at the top of page 1 in type bigger than my paw.

I will need to console my sister Irish, who thinks that Frisbees were invented just for her.

Bob Juch · #3 Post by **Bob Juch** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:42 am

There is no truth to the rumor that his ashes will be molded into a Frisbee and flung out to sea.

AnnieCamaro · #4 Post by **AnnieCamaro** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:46 am

Bob Juch wrote:There is no truth to the rumor that his ashes will be molded into a Frisbee and flung out to sea.

There is a religion called Frisbeeism that says when you die you turn into a Frisbee and get thrown up on the neighbor's roof.

mrkelley23 · #5 Post by **mrkelley23** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:47 am

AnnieCamaro wrote:
Bob Juch wrote:There is no truth to the rumor that his ashes will be molded into a Frisbee and flung out to sea.
There is a religion called Frisbeeism that says when you die you turn into a Frisbee and get thrown up on the neighbor's roof.

For those of us old enough to remember an artifact called "taglines, the religion was then called "Frisbeeterianism"

AnnieCamaro · #6 Post by **AnnieCamaro** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:50 am

mrkelley23 wrote:

For those of us old enough to remember an artifact called "taglines, the religion was then called "Frisbeeterianism"

Thank you for correcting me, Mr. mrkelley. I didn't know that, because the people from that religion don't come to my door and say nice things to me through the glass the way the Jehovah's Witnesses do.

gsabc · #7 Post by **gsabc** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:47 am

Frisbieterianism was kin to Casperism, the religion with the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Friendly Ghost.

AnnieCamaro · #8 Post by **AnnieCamaro** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:00 pm

gsabc wrote:Frisbieterianism was kin to Casperism, the religion with the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Friendly Ghost.

My mom told me that Casperism was the worship of women who grew up in Central Wyoming.

More people should practice that faith.

/:P\

Cary_The_Label_Guy · #9 Post by **Cary_The_Label_Guy** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:33 pm

My mom told me that Casperism was the worship of women who grew up in Central Wyoming.

Now, that's funny right there!! I don't care who you are.

ne1410s · #10 Post by **ne1410s** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:21 pm

Inventor of the Hula Hoop, Co-Founder of Wham-O

I bring this forward because I think he also invented the Super Ball which led Lamar Hunt to suggest the name Super Bowl for the AFL-NFL Championship game.

themanintheseersuckersuit · #11 Post by **themanintheseersuckersuit** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:53 pm

ne1410s wrote:
Inventor of the Hula Hoop, Co-Founder of Wham-O
I bring this forward because I think he also invented the Super Ball which led Lamar Hunt to suggest the name Super Bowl for the AFL-NFL Championship game.

# But what few folks may know is the fact that the Super Ball ended up becoming the idea for the term "Super Bowl." The first two contests between the NFL and the AFL were labeled the "World Championship Game." After the second such contest, the owners were sitting around trying to come up with a snappier name when Lamar Hunt, the guiding light of the American Football League, and the owner of the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, remembered watching his daughter play with a high-bouncing Super Ball a few days earlier and 'ball' morphed into 'bowl. 'Voila...Super Bowl!

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inven ... erball.htm

Wham-O Manufacturing Co., the miracle-working maker of the Hula Hoop ® and Frisbee ® disc, bounced back into the news in 1965 with an explosive knob of rubber called Super Ball.® Dropped from shoulder level, a high potency Super Ball ® snapped nearly all the way back; thrown down, it could leap over a three-story building; flung into a wall with spin, it kicked back with remarkable reverse English. The supercharged sphere, about the size and color of a plum, was America's most popular plaything in the summer and fall of 1965. By Christmas, just six months after it was introduced by Wham-O ®, seven million balls had been sold at ninety-eight cents apiece.

Proud father of the bouncing baby ball was a California chemist named Norman Stingley. In his spare time, he compressed a synthetic rubber material under 3,500 pounds of pressure per square inch and created a ball with unprecedented resilience.