11/28/2023 0 Comments Airattack factory slip n slide![]() "Their kids are using it and the parents know, for the next two hours, they have a little break," Huang said.Īnother in the works is the Slip ’N Slide that doesn't require water, in a nod to California's tendency to drought. Best of all, no parental involvement is required. He searches through shelves of toys for a prototype that will be released in the coming months: a line dubbed Fundamentals, including one that is part excavation toy and part puzzle, designed to present children with a mystery. It's planning a drought-friendly version that doesn't require water. Wham-O makes a variety of Slip 'N Slides. It's Huang's job to convince retailers that Wham-O has innovations on the way and isn't just pushing its legacy stuff. There's still a taste of experimentation and the be-wary-of-flying-objects feel, particularly in the office of product development chief David Huang, which looks like a combination of a design studio and cluttered toy store. "Man, there are some really lame things that didn't work, but the hits afforded them the luxury of trying to do other things." "They were constantly looking for the next big thing," Walsh said. ![]() How About You." It was a flop, maybe because folks just couldn't see trusting a toy company for their Armageddon protection. "Just a buck would get you a Super Ball, which was a big deal when I was a kid," said Walsh, whose book details some of the oddities Wham-O peddled over the years, including a $179 "patio style bomb fallout shelter cover" made of concrete and reinforced steel that came with the Cold War sales pitch: "40 Million May Die. Low prices were a big factor in the company's success, said toy designer Tim Walsh, who wrote "Super Book," about Wham-O's history. "They played with everything they made, and that was part of why they were good at it." My dad and his partner, Spud, really were still children themselves in many respects," Knerr said. Wham-O founders Arthur "Spud" Melin, left, and Rich Knerr during the company's Fun Factory days. Children were integral because they helped test products and sell them through word of mouth, he said. The place was part clubhouse, part serious science, and employees needed to stay alert, lest they get whacked by something flying across the aisles.Ĭhuck Knerr, his sisters and friends frequently visited the factory and even sat in on business meetings. The Wham-O factory wasn't run like a traditional business, said Chuck Knerr, Richard Knerr's son. It all began when boyhood friends and USC graduates Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin began making wooden slingshots in Knerr's parents' South Pasadena garage, naming the company after the sound the projectile made when it hit its target, according to the company's online "Fun Facts about Wham-O." For some, supermarket self-checkouts make it worse Read more: Americans face an epidemic of loneliness. We want to do that again," Richards said. ![]() "What was unique about Wham-O is that we made products that became toy categories of their own. And Wham-O is tapping into the lucrative pet market with items including a Super Ball that is more chew resistant and has ridges so that it bounces unpredictably. The company is working with artists to use Frisbees as canvas to increase the collectability quotient. operations, a fact that he sometimes still finds a bit hard to believe. Richards is president of the 75-year-old company's U.S. These days, Richards is still going to the Wham-O building, which is now in Carson, but he no longer has to sneak inside the place. Once in a while we'd see if we could sneak inside the building, and the security guys would be chasing us back outside." "Tubing that would stretch from one side of the parking lot to the other, toys that were maybe prototypes and we'd just try to piece them together. ![]() "We'd find all kinds of cool stuff," Richards said. There, he went on dumpster-dive treasure hunts. When school was out, Todd Richards and a friend would bike over to the Wham-O factory in Pasadena, which churned out those toys and a lot more. But for one 11-year-old boy, playing with these toys was not enough. The company sold balls that could bounce over houses, flying discs that looked like UFOs, flexible foam boards for beach acrobatics and a slippery water slide that somehow worked on lawns.
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