In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Koosh balls were a toy that many children enjoyed playing with. They were simple to catch and simple to throw, and when you were hit by one, it did not hurt nearly as much as it did when you were struck by a traditional ball. The strange and wondrous toy has many facets, some of which you may not be aware of. Here are a few of them.
1. The Children Of The Inventor Of The Koosh Ball Couldn't Get The Hang Of Playing Catch, So He Came Up With The Idea For The Ball
In 1986, engineer Scott Stillinger struggled to teach his two young children how to play catch. Both the balls and the bean bags were too heavy and had too much bounce. The man from California quickly came to the conclusion that he required a more suitable ball-one that was pliable, did not bounce, and could be held with relative ease.
Stillinger stated in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor in 1989 that he "intuitively knew that a rubber-filament ball would do the trick," so he set out to try to find a way to make one of those balls. He began with a box of rubber bands, then made modifications to the design of his energy-absorbing ball, and in the end, he decided to use natural rubber latex in colors that were safe for human consumption.
2. Scott Stillinger Had Such Faith In The Success Of The Koosh Ball That He Quit His Job To Focus On Developing The Product
Stillinger presented a prototype of the ball to his brother-in-law, Mark Button, who had worked in marketing at Mattel, toward the end of the year 1986. The men, along with their wives, had sufficient faith in the product to leave their jobs and launch a toy manufacturing business under the name OddzOn Products.
Stillinger referred to the early prototypes of the company as "crude" in a later interview. "When I look back at how crude they were compared to where we are today, we were crazy," he said. However, when they showed the ball to the proprietor of the store, she predicted that they would become millionaires. Stillinger constructed the machine that was used to make the balls, and he ran the business out of a barn that was located close to his home.
3. A Standard Koosh Ball Contains 2000 Rubber Filaments Inside Of It
When laid end to end, the filaments on each ball with a diameter of three inches stretch more than one hundred and fifty feet. Stillinger and Button originally referred to the filaments as "feelers," which is also a name for them.
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4. Although The Media And The Industry Made Fun Of Koosh Balls, Consumers Were Extremely Enthusiastic About Purchasing Them
"The media revealed its making fun of the soft ball," as stated in The Secret Life of Balls. Another reporter for Sports Illustrated referred to the Koosh as a "psychedelic sea urchin," while a writer for Sports Illustrated compared it to a Star Trek tribble.
Koosh balls were referred to as "The Pet Rock of the '80s'' at one point in time. Even worse, some people working in the industry simply did not comprehend the situation. Even one of the stores' employees thought the filaments were broken, so they started snipping them off.
But in the end, those responses didn't make much of a difference. The Koosh ball came out in 1987, and by 1988, it was a best-seller for Christmas. A PR person for OddzOn said the ball looked like "a cross between a porcupine and a bowl of Jell-O."
The next year, it was sold in 14,000 toy stores across the country and in 20 countries around the world. Stillinger and Button were making more versions of their popular ball, which would eventually come in three types: Regular, Fuzzy (which had twice as many filaments as Regular), and Mondo, which was the size of a grapefruit.
Stillinger said in 1990 that he and Button were "surprised by how well [Koosh] did" even though they didn't spend any money on advertising to consumers. Koosh balls did well because they were put next to registers, where customers couldn't help but pick them up, and because people talked about them.
Soon, it was being used in a physics class at a Kansas community college and in physical therapy. There was even a fan club that sent OddzOn ideas for Koosh products.
5. Koosh Balls Could Have Had More Than 200 Different Names
Stillinger told people in 1989, "We chose Koosh through a process of polls and reason."
The Secret History of Balls says that the two of them came up with more than 200 names and then asked kids and adults to choose their favorites from a list of finalists. People also say that the ball got its name from the sound it makes when caught.
