Transcript

SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

From Stuff You Should Know · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 40 min · 7,800 words · 252 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW", an episode of Stuff You Should Know published December 14, 2025 (40 min, about 7,800 words). It mentions 87 people, works and ideas, including hula hoop, hoop dancing, Kill the Hoop, performance art, polyethylene.

What this episode is about

This piece explores the history and cultural impact of hula hoops, detailing how they became a popular toy and social phenomenon in the 20th century. It combines humor and personal anecdotes to illustrate the joy and challenges of hula hooping, emphasizing the toy's significance in play and performance art.

Key takeaways

  • Hula hooping predates most world religions—it's ancient fun with a modern twist.
  • A stick and hoop was early gaming—challenging friction and physics far before video games.
  • Egypt's kids rocked grapevines for hoops—no plastic toys, yet just as fun.
  • Ancient Greeks upped hooping with bells—a historical nod to playful excess.
  • Hooping's fitness secret: it exhausts you like real exercise, so grab a beer instead!

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: hula hoop, bubble gum, Chuck Bryant, Craig Johnson
  2. – 10:00: hula hoop, ancient Greece, Ganymede, Kill the Hoop
  3. – 15:00: hoop dancing, hula hoop, interpretive dance, Tony Whitecloud
  4. – 20:00: hula hoop, Aaron Hibbs, Great Britain, Keith Gordon
  5. – 25:00: hula hoop, torque, angular momentum, friction
  6. – 30:00: hula hoop, ankle skipping, Belgium, Belgium skipping
  7. – 35:00: hula hoop, Barbed Hula, barbed wire hula hoop, burlesque
  8. – 39:59: eating disorder, hula hoop, binge eating, headphones

Notable quotes from "SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"

  • Century. So get your time machine leather helmet and goggles on and let's go back to the hula hoop.
    about hula hoop · at
  • Yeah. If you go onto the web and type in hoop dancing, it's going to bring up some pretty impressive videos.
    about hoop dancing · at
  • Have good dreams because of Yeah. I don't even see if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop, Uhhuh.
    about polyethylene · at
  • Hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well and Rome. they decorated them with bells and things and toys. fifth century BC there's you ever heard of.
    about hoop rolling · at
  • It is tough. what else? The ancient Britons, they had a game called a battle game called Kill the Hoop.
    about Kill the Hoop · at
  • Move your hips around, when you rotate your hips, you're applying what's called torque.
    about torque · at
  • Yes. Her name is Siglet Landau and in 2003 she did a performance art /political statement piece where she did it was called barbed hula and she was naked and hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop.
    about performance art · at
  • 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…
    about eating disorder · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ganymede — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    And things and toys. fifth century BC there's you ever heard of Ganymede?
  • Chuck Bryant — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. and this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. How's it going? It's fine.
  • Craig Johnson — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played Space Knife.
  • Robert Lamb — Person · 1 mention · first at
    For example, Chuck, did as Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote this article from Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
  • Tony Whitecloud — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And apparently it was in 1930 a guy named Tony Whitecloud who was a Yez PBLO down in New Mexico did like a hoop dance in public and basically brought it back.
  • Thornton Melon — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Keith Gordon — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. His son Keith Gordon, who became a great movie director.
  • Aaron Hibbs — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Or just a guy named Aaron Hibbs. He hula hooped. Just hula hooped for 74 hours and 54 minutes.
  • Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. There's a guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair who set the record in 2009 with 132 hoops at the same time.
  • Sideshow Bob — Person · 1 mention · first at
    We called him Sideshow Blake because of Sideshow Bob.
  • Jim Robbins — Person · 1 mention · first at
    But I enjoyed it quite a bit. Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Lee and Paul Newman in a fictitious tale of the invention of the hula hoop. it is not the true biopic of the invention of the hula hoop, but they co-opted it for.
  • Arthur "Spud" Melin — Person · 1 mention
  • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze — Person · 1 mention
  • Ethan Coen — Person · 1 mention
  • Jennifer Jason Leigh — Person · 1 mention
  • Joel Coen — Person · 1 mention
  • Kim Coberly — Person · 1 mention
  • Marisa Tomei — Person · 1 mention
  • Richard Knerr — Person · 1 mention
  • Sigalit Landau — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

  • hula hoop — Product · 30 mentions · first at
  • polyethylene — Product · 2 mentions · first at
  • goggles — Product · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • leather helmet — Product · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • bubble gum — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Like a fork. 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…
  • tractor tire — Product · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • weighted hoops — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. And they were weighted hoops, too, by the way. Mhm.
  • LED hula hoops — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Well, what's neat is LED hula hoops in particular are really displaying like the physics of hula hoops. Pretty neat through like what's that type of photography?
  • barbed wire hula hoop — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Did it was called barbed hula and she was naked and hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop that just tore her abdomen up.
  • headphones — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Day treatment for almost a year. After leaving treatment for the day, I religiously put on my headphones and turn on stuff you should know. the podcast was really helpful on…
  • Stuff You Should Know shirts — Product · 1 mention · first at
    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.

Concepts & topics

  • hoop dancing — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • Kill the Hoop — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • performance art — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • friction — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    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.
  • hoop rolling — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • torque — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • eating disorder — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • interpretive dance — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    It was a big deal. So, urethymics used hoops for basically physical fitness but also interpretive dance, that kind of stuff. It was a combination of it was like dance training…
  • patent — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. And they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run.
  • The Hula Hoop Song — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    There were also like a tremendous amount of music like musical singles released called The Hula Hoop Song.
  • angular momentum — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    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, you twisted it around yourself, right?
  • inertia — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • Belgium skipping — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping.
  • ankle skipping — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping.
  • hoop jumping — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    All right, that makes sense. that's sort of like hoop jumping, but not quite.
  • return the hoop — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    If you haven't heard of those before, return the hoop. This is the only one I was ever good at. That's when you hold it vertically.
  • Hoop your environment — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I like this one. Hoop your environment.
  • medical myths — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • drinking eight glasses of water a day — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Is this fact? They would be No, no, actually it's not. Like drinking eight glasses of water a day.
  • burlesque — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Modern hooping. burlesque uses hoops. If you go to any music festival these days, you're going to see the ladies like I was talking about or they might have them decked out with.
  • restrictive anorexia — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    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.…
  • binge eating — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. Like typically binge eating is like a huge thing.
  • axis — Concept · 1 mention
  • biomechanics of hula hooping (hips, knees, ankles) — Concept · 1 mention
  • centrifugal force — Concept · 1 mention
  • centripetal force — Concept · 1 mention
  • chunkey — Concept · 1 mention
  • core strength — Concept · 1 mention
  • Eurhythmics — Concept · 1 mention
  • hula dance — Concept · 1 mention
  • Hula Hoop (trademark) — Concept · 1 mention
  • long exposure photography — Concept · 1 mention
  • physical education (PE) class — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • ancient Greece — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    Hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well and Rome. they decorated them with bells and things and toys. fifth century BC there's you ever heard of Ganymede?
  • East Atlanta — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. But, I did see at a, the East Atlanta Strut Festivals, one of Atlanta's many great neighborhood festivals. I believe the Strut to me is known for having the better music of most of the festivals.
  • Great Britain — Place · 1 mention · first at
    It directly led to the American craze potentially because urythmics spread from Switzerland to Great Britain.
  • Georgia Bar — Place · 1 mention · first at
    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.
  • Belgium — Place · 1 mention · first at
    All right. What it was invented apparently in Belgium.
  • Cahokia — Place · 1 mention
  • Mesoamerica — Place · 1 mention
  • White House lawn — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

Okay, it's Joshy 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 where 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. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how stuffuffs.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. Uh, and this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. How's it going? It's fine.

Great. How's it going with you? Good. Jerry's distracting me a little bit cuz all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing her new uh hoola fire dance routine.

It's pretty dangerous. It's dangerous, but it's um it's interesting to see out of the corner of one's eye.

It really is. Yes. Performance art. Performance hoola art. Uh can you hula hoop?

I cannot, sir. I'm too self-conscious to to to even try it. Yeah, it's it's a grown man, 44 year old man hula hooping. Plus, when I do it, like as I rotate my hips, it makes the sound

rotate my hips. Yeah. 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.

Yeah. But, um, I did see at a, uh, the East Atlanta Strut Festivals, 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.

Okay. Okay. And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played Space Knife. Not Space Knife. Okay. 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.

That guy is always coming up with new stuff. You can never pin him down. Um he's too good.

You should check out Space Knife though, people on the web. You can find it. It's good.

It was in our TV show, too. Yeah, that's his alter ego. Uh but anyway, Craig's band was playing and this I was pretty hoola naive. Hoop naive.

Okay. At this point. And uh few years ago and um there was this lady doing uh a hoola routine to his band playing and I videoed it. It was so awesome.

So she was hoop dancing. Hoop dancing. Yeah. Like Yes. The neck, the arms, the legs moving around with it like supremely talented uh hooper.

Yeah. If you go onto the web and and type in hoop dancing, it's going to bring up some pretty impressive videos.

Yeah. And it's quite a workout. I could tell. We'll get to that. But just watching her, I got tired

and so I drank another beer and just listened to music. Yeah. And pretended you were hula hooping in your head.

You're like, I'm so good at this in my head. But I I was like, man, that's a thing again. I had no idea. But it it's a big thing.

Yeah. Hula hooping. Yeah. But it's been around for a while. Yes, it has. For example, Chuck, did you know, as Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote this article from uh Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

Oh, yeah. And he says that the hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions. Wow. That's really saying something. That is saying something. So, let's get in the wayback machine. Oh, we're going way back, aren't we? Yeah. Let's go back to 100 BC, my friend. We're in Egypt. And they're little children, Egyptian children, with dried up grape vines they've made into hoops and they're playing with them.

And there's some Egyptian who's like, "Get off of my patch of sand, kids." Yeah.

You know, instead of a lawn. Sure, I get it. That was good. It was all right. Um, so they uh they're they no doubt use them in similar ways that we did today, but they what one thing they did which was a big sporting thing to do

Mhm. for a long time, which I don't get personally. The fun value that is is uh using a stick to push a hula hoop down the road.

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?

Yeah. It wants to fall. It wants to fall over. Sure. Right. So, if you can keep it um 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

Yeah. I don't even see if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop,

Uhhuh. I don't see how a stick like how you would even push it. Uh you would want a stick with maybe um

like a fork. No, probably something like a stick with a big wad of um 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.

Yes. Around the waist that is well in any in this case as well when the stick makes contact with the hoop you're using friction to push it along.

Yeah, good point. So, I see your point like if you're going to use a stick on a like a a plastic hula hoop, it's going to slide off or it's going to want to.

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.

Maybe at first, but Chuck, you would have to hang in there and stick with it. Yeah.

And um pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an Egyptian kid. Yeah. Like an ancient Egyptian child.

Yeah. 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 BC there's uh you ever heard of uh Ganymede?

Of course. Ganymede. Ganymede. Ganymede. He was a handsome hero. Oh, he was. He held

a handsomest supposedly. There's an old fifth century BC ern of him. Um where he's holding a rooster that was apparently a gift from Zeus,

I think. Yeah. 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 ern but it is

okay 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 ern this picture of Ganymede with a hoop um they wondered

was it a sport an Olympic sport 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.

I would imagine a hula hoop an Olympic hula hooper would be sort of like the you know the uh what's the sport the curler of today

kind of like in ancient Greece like hey what do you um I throw the hammer. What do you do? I'm a hula hooper.

Although I would guess it' probably be more akin to the hula hoopers of today. Yeah, the hoop roller is what the sport would have been. Not

that'd be more like curling, right? Hula hooping. That's tough, man. It is tough. Uh, what else? The ancient Britons, um, they had a game called a battle game called Kill the Hoop.

Yeah, I like this one. And they would roll the hoop and throw try to throw a spear through it.

Yep. Pretty neat. Yeah. And dangerous. Uh, and apparently they also used it in the hoola method and it would people would get injured.

Yeah. It's there was a 15th 14th or 15th century 14th. Was it the 1400s or the 14th century?

14th century hula hoop craze. Yeah. In Britain. Isn't that bizarre? That is weird.

And and yeah, people were getting injured. They There was a proclamation by the early physicians. They would pull up their like crows mask, their plague mask just long enough to be like, "Stay away from hula hoops. Steer clear of those things."

Yeah. The warning was hoops kill was I guess what was posted on the church door.

And this is like in addition to being in the way of a spear that was being thrown at a rolling hoop.

Yeah. Like this is just from hula hooping. I would stay away from the hoops altogether. If I was an ancient Briton.

Yeah. Because really if you're like an ancient Briton Uhhuh. you're going from like 0 to 60 as far as like physical fitness goes.

Sure. Once you're hula hooping. Oh yeah. you know, just because you're not just sitting around eating uh

like a lamb's brains, right? Yeah. Drinking meat. Uh what else? The Native Americans um have a long culture of using the hoop.

Yeah. Um in New Mexico, the tal uh PBlo people um they use them in ritual dances, uh private healing ceremonies.

Yeah. And uh did you look up this chunky thing? No. Did you find the chunky reference? I did the uh Cahokian Native Americans. Uh

that was an unusual way to pronounce that. Well, how would you say it? Cahokian.

I think in Native American would be Cahokian. Okay, that's fine. Uh near St. Louis apparently is where they they played this game chunky, which I just had to look it up cuz a game called Chunky.

Yeah. Uh with an ey. And um from what I saw it was more of a a small stone disc than like a hula hoop.

Okay. Looking thing. And you would it was like kill the hoop though in Britain, right?

Yeah. They would throw a stick. Apparently it looked like a combination of like um botchi and and kill the hoop.

Weird cuz I think they would try and throw the spear where the the disc would eventually land and the closest to the disc one. Oh, so like they're predicting where this where the hoop would fall.

I guess this makes sense. Although that's not really like botchi at all. I mean, I get

there's a proximity element that's botchy-esque. Yes. Yeah. Well put. 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.

Yeah. Because it's like a small donut. Uh that's a hoop of sorts, I guess. So, it's a stretch if you ask me, but it was a big spectator sport. Like 50 acre stadiums of people would watch this.

Wow. Would go to chunky games and so chunky matches. So, there was chunky matches in Cokia.

Yeah. Uh and the PBLO 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 Meso America I believe

um that used hoops uh for dancing. Yeah. And apparently it was in 1930 a guy named Tony Whitecloud who was a Yez PBLO down in New Mexico um did like a hoop dance in public and basically brought it back.

Oh yeah. Like it had been virtually lost to the ages at least as far as uh the average American was concerned. Yeah,

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 1991, there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico. Um, and they're a big deal still to this day.

Yeah. Uh, of course, I think Did he kick off the American craze? Yes. No, he didn't.

He was strictly Native American hoop dancing. Gotcha. Not hula hooping. Okay. So, let's go to Well, let's take a break actually because this is this is the big revelation here. That's right. All right, Josh. We're at that point where mainstream America goes hoop crazy.

But to get to that point, we actually have to go backward again in time for a second.

Back in the wayback machine. So, let's go. Let's go to, I don't know, Fiji or Tahiti or Polynesia. Yeah. And uh it's the 18th century.

Yeah. See all these British sailors? Can we drink some rum? Oh man. Okay. Yeah. In addition to the rum we've already drank today.

All right. Good. Uh so the British sailors that you see here um are noticing a hoola dance, right? And they're filing it away in their mental catalog. And uh now when they reach Britton again.

Yeah. Why have we been saying it like that? I don't know. Uh they notice that it bears a striking resemblance to what people do with the hula hoop.

You gyate every time you say that. By the way, in your seat can't not do it. Okay.

So, the the term hula became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyate.

Sure. To rotate them. Yes. when you rotate your hips uh with the hoop. Uh these British sailors ended up applying the word hoola to it and it stuck. That's where it came from was Polynesia.

Right. Even though there was no hoop involved in Polynesia, correct? Yes. They just uh kind of uh ganked that word.

Yes, they did. For their own purposes. It is 1997 all over again. That was a big 90s term, wasn't it?

Ganked. Yeah. Let's go watch some X Files. Um, let's actually Yeah, the movie's coming out soon, right?

Oh, yeah. They're doing another one, aren't they? Yeah. That thing will never die.

I don't think it should. No, keep doing movies. That's what I say. Um, so we mentioned that the uh Greeks, I believe, used it for physical fitness, right?

Uh, I don't think we said that. I think I said it. Okay. Um, the uh the Swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons, too. in the 19th century and early 20th century.

Yeah. Someone named uh Emil Jacques uh Delro. Man, that was great. That's tough. Um had a uh program called Your Rhythmics, which of course I started singing Sweet Dreams this morning,

of course. 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.

It was a big deal. So, urethymics 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 urythmics spread from Switzerland to um Great Britain.

Yeah. And it was brought in as part of like PE class. Yeah. In Australia. And it was in Australia that the founders of Whamo were inspired to create the modern hula hoop that we think of today.

Boom. So, it's possible they watched a UriMix class or heard about a UriMix class in 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."

They said, "Sweet dreams were made of these." Yeah. Uh, and this was Richard uh, Nurr and Arthur Spud Melon. Mel Meline. Melon sounds like M L O N.

Like Thornton Melon. Uhhuh. Don't tease me with that movie. The Great Back to School. I saw a bit of that recently.

Yeah. And and the only thought through my head was like, man, why couldn't I have caught this from the beginning?

Yeah. Because I wanted to see it all. That and man, his son is pasty. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought you were saying that was a line from the movie.

It should have been. Yeah. His son Keith Gordon, who became a great movie director.

Oh, really? Yeah. The guy from Christine and Back to School. Yeah. Yeah. 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.

I thought Keith Gordon co-starred in They Live. I don't know. Maybe. H I'll have to check that. Uh so where were we? Oh yes, the two founders um of Whammo, they said, "You know what? Let's take these wooden hoops. Let's make them out of polyethylene. Let's make them 40 in uh and let's charge $1.98 for them and make them all kinds of fun colors."

Yeah. And boom. Uh the hula hoop craze in 1958 was born. Like it was the definition of a flash in the pan craze.

Yeah. Lot of money in a very short span of time. Like a summer basically pretty much.

In 1958, Whamo released it and by the end of 1958 these things were rotting in the warehouse.

But in the meantime, they sold globally. Globally from the summer to the end of 1958 100 million hula hoops. Yeah. More than that, I think. Man, my brain.

Yeah, you forgot what we were talking about. I almost said frisbes. Did we do one on the Frisbee?

No. I thought we had, but we haven't, have we? No, we did one on the boomerang.

Oh, right. Which is like a Frisbee, but not. It's like a dangerous Frisbee. Uh, so they sell all these hula hoops. They make a ton of money. um 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 an injection of cash like that is great for any business.

Yeah. Then they moved on to the Frisbee and made even more money. Yeah. And uh they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run.

Well, they couldn't because it was so demonstrabably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it.

Nope. But they trademarked it. 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. Yeah. It just became the name.

We should probably put the title with a R in a circle for this. Oh, yeah. We should do that. Like Barbie.

Yeah. Uh, it was named the number 35 toy of all time. Um, by Time magazine. And they know toys.

They know their toys. And then, uh, from 1968 to 1981, there were national hula hoop contests uh held. And I guess in the early 80s, people were finished with it.

There were also like a tremendous amount of um music like musical singles released called The Hula Hoop Song.

Oh, really? Different people recorded different songs about hula hooping. Doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, it was a craze big time. Yeah. And you say that they were done with it by the 80s. Not true.

The national competitions there was So if you look at hula hooping records Yeah.

the most recent hula hoop records from 2009. Well, but was that part of a national competition?

Probably. Or just a guy named Aaron Hibbs. He uh hula hooped. Just hula hooped for 74 hours and 54 minutes.

Wow. He broke the record of I couldn't even stand up for that long. He broke the record of a girl named Kim Cobberly. Um she held the the record twice in 1978 with 54 hours and in 1984 for 72 hours.

Wow. Which is pretty impressive. Yeah. people that do like hundreds of them at once.

Yeah. There's a guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair who set the record in 2009 with 132 hoops at the same time.

Wow, that's impressive. Mhm. He's basically probably just like like the Michelin man made of hula hoops.

Yeah. Did I ever tell you about the uh surface area man costume in Athens? No. That was out on Halloween um in Athens in college and there was a dude I know the guy's name is Blake. He has uh you may have seen him. He had big red dreadlocks. Kind of a short guy. Just a ubiquitous Athens dude.

No, he lives kind of in my neighborhood now. I still see him every once in a while. We called him Sideshow Blake because of Sideshow Bob.

Sure. 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 4t 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 ft 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.

Was he dressed like that? No, but I was like surface. He wouldn't fit down the grocery aisle.

Does he uh have dreads still? Yeah. Does he really? Still rocking the the red dreads.

Oh, he's dedicated. He looks exactly the same actually. But we weren't friends. I could actually next time I see him

him actually I'm gonna just walk by him and go surface area man you should I'm gonna do it.

All right let's talk about the Huducker proxy for a quick moment and then we'll take another break.

Okay. Did you ever see that one? Uh I don't think I made it through that one. The Cohen brothers.

Yeah. Uh not all of their movies are great. I disagree. I love the Cohen brothers but some of their movies stink.

Oh boy. that they're part of my 100% club where every movie they've made has been great.

That is wrong. What which other ones don't you like? The man who wasn't there. Loved it.

Uh Bob Robertson. They didn't. That wasn't there. So Well, it was terrible. Okay.

Uh well, the Huducker proxy, too. All right. I liked it. I would put it at at lesser Cohen's for sure.

You would have to. But um I I enjoyed it quite a bit. uh Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Lee and Paul Newman uh in a fictitious tale of the invention of the hula hoop. Um 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.

Okay, but that's just me. Okay. All right. So, go ahead. Well, no, that was it. I just

Oh, that was I just wanted to shout it out. Fine. Uh well, then let's take a break because we're about to get into physics.

Yeah. And hoop games. Yep. after this. No Country for Old Men. Terrible. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Oh, you like that I love that one. That's maybe the best. Raising Arizona is probably the best.

Uh 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.

Yeah. Yeah. I would say this through your typer first. Did we just come back from the break just segueing right back into the comments?

I don't know. All right, let's do it. We'll see how Jerry edits this. Um so let's It wouldn't be a Stuff You Should Know podcast if we didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly uh unscientific. Well, hula hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, you know.

Not super complex. Super complex. There's just a few things. We are not in agreement on stuff today, are we?

I don't know what's going on. 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. Sure. It's making contact with your body

that you're starting in the traditional way then. Sure. And you whip it around. Yeah.

To one side. And as you do, you start rotating your hips. You're gyating, right?

I'm rotating my hips, Chuck. 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, you twisted it around yourself, right?

That's right. You are the axis. You Yes, you are the axis. And when you move your hips around, when you when you uh rotate your hips, you're applying uh what's called torque.

Yeah. Cuz all this hoop wants to do is fall down around on the ground and make you look foolish.

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.

Yeah. But ironically, that same friction is keeping it from doing that. Who is the fool now? Hoop.

The hula hoop. Yep. Fool. All right. Did you talk about the torque? I did talk about torque. Can torque is a twisting force where you're twisting your hips

and you're thrusting the hula hoop around in a circle and what you're doing there is contributing to the centrial force.

That's right. Not centrifugal. No, centripol two different things. 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.

Shut up. Really? Yeah. For like 70 seconds, a 54lb tire. How big was a person? Oh, I'm sure was ginormous.

All right. Um I think he was from like Barus or something, you know. Oh, yeah. They do that on a daily basis, too.

Yeah. So, uh with the centrial force, since it's going at a right angle to the direction that you're thrusting your hips,

Yeah. It's constantly going to move around a circle on the axis and that is centrial force.

Boom. Uh or centrial motion, I should say. Yes. And when this hoop wants to fall, of course, we're talking about gravity. Uh gravity wants to win that fight, but um if you keep that pulsing girration going,

then you're going to keep that hoop just a little ahead of the curve. Yeah, that's apparently the key. And Robert puts this in here as a kind of like a throwaway thing. But I think that's the key of hula hooping is you want your hip

to move just before that that I guess wave that comes in contact with your body again comes in contact like

it's almost like a catch and release in a way. Okay. Yeah. Like you're catching it on your hip and then slinging it back around. Now I'm gating.

Yeah, you are. Wow. There's a lot of gyrating going on in this room right now. There is.

It's crazy. Um, so there's a few different uh parts of the body at work. Um, 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 the hip hula hoop,

not hands and neck and legs and all that, of course. Yeah. Just the standard hooping, right?

Yeah. And so another study, I think uh four years later in the journal of human movement science,

I don't know why they needed that one either. Well, they 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.

Depends on the motion of your ocean. 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.

Yeah. I bet certain body types are better at this than others, too. Yeah. Slim.

Yeah. Yeah, probably. So, I the one in front of Craig's band, she was pretty slim, I guess.

Sure. She's working that thing, man. It was like it was pretty amazing. Hula hoop.

So, that's hoop dancing. Uh when we'll finish up here with some other games. Well, we didn't talk about hoop dancing. We were just talking about hula hooping.

No, we talked about hoop dancing at the beginning with that lady. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So, that's hoop dancing. Okay. 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.

It's pretty impressive. Um, your standard hula hooping of course, which we've covered. Uh, speed, endurance, depends on what you're after.

Sure. Like I want to do this for 20 minutes or I want to do it 74 hours. Really fast for 5 minutes.

Okay. Hoop rolling. That's one of my favorites. Hoop tundling. Yeah. Like you're a little ancient Egyptian kid.

Yeah. I I'd like to see you do that. Hoop rolling. Sure. Let's do it. Let's do a video for that.

Okay. We could do a Periscope of it. Oh yeah, let's do that. Are we going to start doing that?

We could do at least one of me hoop rolling. I think people we're going to get emails. Yeah, they they'll turn out in droves to see that.

Sure. Hundreds of people will show up for that. There's one not on this list that I want to give a shout out to.

All right. What it was invented apparently in Belgium. They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping.

It's where you put the hula hoop on one foot around one ankle and you use it to hula hoop. You make the hula hoop motion with that one and as it comes around you jump through the hoop with the other one.

Yeah. I can't believe it wasn't on this list. Yeah, that's a solid hoop endeavor. But apparently it's a pretty recent invention from like the 60s.

Oh, really? All right, that makes sense. Um, that's sort of like hoop jumping, but not quite.

No, hoop jumping is more like jump roping with a hula hoop. Yeah, but that kind of reminds me of that too.

Okay. 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.

Okay. Um like you have nothing better to do in life, right? Like you can't find a jump rope. If you haven't heard of those before,

uh, return the hoop. This is the only one I was ever good at. That's when you you hold it vertically.

Mhm. And you fling it out as hard as you can backwards and it sort of spins in place and comes back to you,

right? And if you're not expecting it, you're going to turn and run because it is startling.

We've already talked about kill the hoop. We don't recommend you use spears to do that.

Or just make sure nobody's in the vicinity of where the hoop is. Yeah, good point. You don't want to combine hoop trundling and kill the hoop because you'll kill the hoop trundler.

No. And I'm not even going to cover this last one. I dare you to though. I like this one. Hoop your environment.

Yeah. Go ahead. 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.

Okay. What's wrong with that? I don't know. Too childish. No, I'm very childish. But I don't know. I just didn't

There's a You're childlike, not childish. Oh, gotcha. Big difference, man. Uh, well, we talked about exercise. It is um legitimate exercise. Our hula hoop classes now um apparently Marissa Toé, 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

very famously hoop worked out. Yeah. hoop hooped the lawn of the White House to say, "Hey kids, get active."

And at the US Open, Yeah. you can still have fun by doing this. Yeah. Um and they even did another study to see what kind of calories you could burn.

Lots of hoop studies. Um too many. Um they took women between 16 and 59 and said, "Uh, go crazy and hoop." And they

half an hour. Yeah. And they were weighted hoops, too, by the way. Mhm. Um, which is not to say they were super heavy. They're generally still pretty lightweight.

Yeah. But strangely, a weighted hoop is easier to keep going. Yes. Which makes sense, I think. Uh, and they average 151 uh, beats per minute. Uh BPM.

Heartbeat. Yeah. Heartbeats. Oh, their heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tribe Called Quest would be proud. You're

right. Uh, and that is burning seven calories a minute or 210 calories uh during a half hour of hooping. So that's good exercise people.

That's like um weightlifting type calorie burn. Yeah. 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.

Sure. 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." Like drinking eight glasses of water a day. Yeah. Totally made up.

I know you're gonna say that one. Like I I think we should do one on medical myths sometime. What do you think?

We should have we not? No. Like part of me wants to say we have, but I think it 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 Yeah.

will really really work out your core. Yeah. Like you need a hula hoop. No, you can just sit in your chair and do what I'm doing now.

Yeah. Like I'm getting I'm sweating. Yeah. Right now. You totally are. My lip up lip is broken out in perspiration.

Uh modern hooping. Um burlesque uses hoops. If you go to any uh music festival these days, you're going to see the ladies like I was talking about or they might have them decked out with LEDs or even fire.

Well, what's neat is um LED hula hoops in particular are really displaying like the physics of hula hoops. Pretty neat

through like um what's that type of photography? LSD. No, no. Uh what's the uh what's that photography where like you just keep the shutter open so it like high exposure or long exposure?

Yeah. 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.

Yeah. But there are photos out there of LED um hula hoops that 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.

It's pretty cool. Um what about this lady uh the Israeli sculptor? Did you watch that?

Uh I saw a couple pictures of it. Yes. Her name is uh Siglet Landau and in 2003 she did a performance art um/political statement piece where she did it was called barbed hula

and she was naked and uh hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop that just tore her abdomen up.

Yeah. It's really rough. 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.

Well, she's an artist. That's what they do. Um I got a couple of last things. Let's hear it.

In the that hula hoop craze of the 50s in America. Yes. Yeah. Not the not the 14th century Bratton one. Okay.

Um there it was uh in Japan it was banned. And the hula hoop was banned because they were worried it was going to lead to actual stuff things happening.

Yeah. Gyrating hips. Yeah. Um and apparently the Soviets said that it was a it was evidence of the emptiness of American culture. The hula hoop crates.

Really? 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.

Yeah. And they were like, you know, the average Russian was like a good person here.

Yeah. And the average Russian was a lot like the average American. Yeah. Drunk on vodka.

I'm going to 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 housestepworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

Uh, I'm going to call this um anorexia. Did you read this one? No. Good. I don't see how I missed that one.

Hey guys, I'm a huge fan and want to let you know how you uh has 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 in August.

That's pretty cool. August 9th. Stuff You Should Know has played a part in the young adult I've become. Uh at 12, I was diagnosed with uh 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 turn on stuff you should know. Uh the podcast was really helpful on bad days, especially if I had uh just had an argument with my parents or a difficult meal. Your humor was um especially helpful. I remember laughing out loud many times in the car, which was quite a rare occurrence. Uh, I'm pretty solid in recovery now, but your podcast also helped me gain a better relationship with my sibling. Uh, 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. Stuff you know quickly became a part of uh her commute to university

class. We occasionally would discuss the podcast topics. Nice. Uh, we now have a tradition, and I love this part, too. We now have a tradition of listening to the Christmas extravaganza together while on winter break, which is what we want people to do.

Yeah, man. To gather the family and make this a thing. Uh, eat some plump pudding.

Even though I don't know what we're we're going to get pretty slim on Christmas topics.

I've got at least one great um topic already. Yeah, we need to start looking now though. You're right.

Yeah. Um, we've even gifted each other matching stuff you should know shirts one year. Uh, more recently, I received a very urgent text letting me know in all caps that you guys were coming to Minneapolis this fall.

That's right. 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,

yeah, the triomeate. That's right. Uh, 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. Uh, 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."

Awesome, Emily. Thank you for telling us all that. Like, that really means the world to us.

Yes. And best of luck in your continued recovery. That is tough stuff. And Yeah. And congratulations, too.

Yeah. We'll we'll we should do an eating disorder podcast at some point. That one's been hanging out there.

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

of some kind. Yeah. Like typically binge eating is like a huge thing. Um yeah, we should definitely do that.

Yeah. Um thank you very much Emily and hello sister and Megan. We appreciate uh you guys listening and hopefully we'll see you guys in Minneapolis when we come in October.

Yeah. And you know what? Actually write me back. We'll put you on the guest list.

Oh man, so nice. Free tickets for YouTube. Wow, that is something. Just for YouTube. No guess. Uh right. Just kidding.

Well, you need to lay it down. We should probably have a legal disclaimer added after this, too.

Yeah, we might hear from a lot of Emily and Megan's in Minnesota. Uh, if you want to get in touch with us, uh, you can tweet to us at syskodcast. You can join us on facebook.com/stuffyou should know. You can send us an email at stuffpodcast@houseworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyous.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

Questions about this episode

What is "SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW" about?

This piece explores the history and cultural impact of hula hoops, detailing how they became a popular toy and social phenomenon in the 20th century. It combines humor and personal anecdotes to illustrate the joy and challenges of hula hooping, emphasizing the toy's significance in play and performance art.

What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?

87 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including hula hoop, hoop dancing, Kill the Hoop, performance art, polyethylene, friction. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

The episode runs 40 min; the transcript is about 7,800 words in 252 timestamped sections.

More from Stuff You Should Know

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated December 15, 2025.