I Still Want A Hula Hoop

Added: 09/18/2007

Whether it is Alvin and the Chipmunks singing about them for Christmas or retro television shows that remind us of them, everybody still wants a hula hoop. What better way to completely frustrate yourself for 3 or 4 solid minutes or possibly even dislocate your hip? The hula hoop is a child of the 1950's that survives today with just as much popularity as it ever had even in its heyday.

Some ideas are genius just for their simplicity. Who would have ever thought that the idea of taking a large plastic hoop, putting something inside it to make noise as you rotate it around with your hip, and painting it all kinds of strange colors would wind up being a timeless hit for young and old alike? The hula hoop had been around in many forms for many years but in 1957 the Wham-O toy company put it into a form that everyone could use and soon it became a huge hit all over the world. You can swing a hula hoop with your waist, your neck, your arms, and even your legs. The hula hoop is usually associated with either the 1950’s of poodle skirts and leather jackets or the island people of Hawaii and other tropical islands. Very few toys throughout history have such a diverse identity and very few toys belong so much to so many different places in time and groups of people.

If you have ever tried to keep a hula hoop going by gyrating your waist then you know just how difficult it can be to keep it going without the threat of serious injury. People of all ages have used a hula hoop and usually the results are not so dependant on age as much as they are dependant on either how creative you are with the hula hoop or simply how fast you can move your hips. When you buy a hula hoop there are no instructions included with it and no suggestions at all on what to do with it. The common perception of how to use the hula hoop came from the television ads of the 1950’s and 1960’s and that image is what has persisted to this day. If you use a little creativity the hula hoop can be manipulated by much more than just your hip and if you become really creative it is possible for multiple people to keep the same hula hoop going and also possible for one person to keep multiple hula hoops going at the same time.

After its initial release in 1957 the hula hoop caused a craze all over the world but within a few years that craze seemed to have died down significantly. Sometime in the early to mid-1960’s Wham-O turned its attention to the Frisbee and soon the hula hoop was forgotten and packed away. Around 1968 Wham-O decided to re-release the hula hoop with the idea of a national hula hoop contest. Soon commercials on television were giving people the ideas they needed to become proficient in what would be called compulsory moves with names like Wrap The Mummy and Alley Oop. Soon the hula hoop became popular again and these national hula hoop competitions ran from 1968 until 1980 in the United States. Around 1983 Wham-O released the hula hoop in Europe again with hula hoop competitions and soon the hula hoop was seeing new life as one of Europe’s favorite toys.

The hula hoop’s most popular move, spinning it with your waist, is referred to as the hula hoop move and the hula hoop move has evolved and changed over the years. Today it is not uncommon to go to a circus and see someone spinning multiple hula hoops doing the hula hoop move at their waist but also as high up as the neck and as low as the ankles. The current world record for the longest consecutive hula hoop is held by Roxann Rose of the United States and her record is 90 hours set in 1987. Now that is a lot of hula hooping.

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