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How Slinky Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and this is the stuff you should know projecting from
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Studio one A. Just us. It's not us on stage
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in front of hundreds of the doring fans. Now I
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: feel all lift with We just got back from our
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tour and it's just us again. Yeah, there's a paper,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I kea lamp with a dimmer that makes it turn
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: into a strobe light even though it's not to post to.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's a toolbox over there. That's it. It's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun to do this on stage in
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: front of people, it turns out. I think we should
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: do it again because the West Coast tour was pretty fun. Yeah,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: so keep your eyes peeled. Um, perhaps Philly, d C,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: New York in Boston, don't literally peel your eyes. Perhaps
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Chapel Hill. Oh, we can't announce anything yet, but we're
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: just teasing with those cities that will be in in June. Yeah,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: we're actually going to Providence. Are we just kidding? They
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: were like ten people in Providence going yeah. Oh man,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I got to go to Boston a game. Uh so,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: how are you doing? You still jet lagged? I have
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: recovered somewhat. Um. I have to say that the city
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of Seattle, there's a place I could live. It's beautiful
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: except for the weather. Like we had a good and
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it's easy to fall in love both a place if
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you're there for like a great weekend, because it was
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: beautiful when it was it was gorgeous. But I told
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Emily she was all fired up to um, it's like,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you know, nine months out of the year, it's pretty
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: depressing with the weather bleak, and I think you're just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: used to it. To feel about there, I guess you know,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: you're hearty. Everybody seemed to have their spirits up, though
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: maybe it was the weather. I assumed it was because
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we were in town, but now that I think about it,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it could have definitely been the weather. Well, Portland's fans
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: stood in line in the rain, and I felt all bad,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but that I was like, they stand in line for
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in the rain all the time, for everything, gas, donuts,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: what have you. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, thanks to everyone
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: who came out. It was so so fun. Yes, l
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: A San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, from both of us, from
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Jerry to Ye, from everybody, heartfelt, hearty, thank you. Jerry
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: was a regular hot shot, you know with ws so
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: uh chuck. Yes, did you ever have a slinky when
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you were a kid. Sure, I feel like I played
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: with them. I definitely played with them. I don't remember
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: actually owning a slinky at any point, least yours. It was.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: It was just kind of one of those things that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I was like, always around there was always a slinky.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: You could get your hands on a slinky. But you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: don't remember getting a slinky right and saying this is
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Mike slinky, or going to the toy store and saying like,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I want a slinky. But I did love slinkies whenever
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I played with them. Uh. It turns out I was
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: just one of many many children over the last sixty
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: seventy years that have loved slinky. I was frustrated by
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: my slinky a bit because I never I never had
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: stairs that it worked well on. You know, you gotta
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: thought never had stairs, Like, yeah, I'll bet you're frustrated
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: with slinky. No, I had stairs going up to my room.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But it was you know, if you don't have the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: right height and depth of stair. It just stopped and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: they still got to do it again. Were they for
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: like really long feet, were they wide stairs or were
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: they really taller? What was the deal? I don't know.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I felt like I felt like they were standard stairs. Um,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and then it just didn't like them. Well, it would
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: get all I had the metal ones, it would get
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: all uh you know how they would tend to get tangled. Yeah,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that was sort of the hallmark of the metal slinky.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And again, like people's hair would get caught in. And
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: now that I'm an adult looking back, I'm like, how
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: did anybody's hair get caught in the slinky? What was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the deal? But when it happened, it hurt. I've kids
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: would like wrap slinkys around each other. I remember using
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: slinky like as rope like handcuffs. Oh yeah, Like you'd
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: wrap it around your friend and then sort of just
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: latch it and you'd be like a slinky like attaching
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a knife to one end and like yeah, yeah, just
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: jamming it toward somebody that there's this guy on YouTube.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Well there's a YouTube video of a guy called slinky Master.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, and he is good. He's just like basically
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: like moving it from one hand to another, making it
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: do all this awesome stuff in the middle. And it's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a rainbow slinky and I think it might be like
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Glow in the Dark too. Holy cow, but he is
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a pretty good I say, go check it out. I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: gotta definitely want to check that out. Oh and actually,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we have a new thing on our website on our
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: podcast pages, so like the page where you can go
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: listen to any podcast on our site, there's now um
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: a like an additional links section where it has stuff
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that we talk about. It links out to articles that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: we use for extra research. They'll be on this Slinky
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: episode podcast page a link to that um Slinky Master.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: You don't even need to google that. You just basically
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: make step You should know your homepage and we can
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: take care of it for you. Yeah, and we're bringing
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: back transcriptions right yep, which we are super happy about
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: because we used to have transcriptions for our friends in
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the deaf and Heart of Hearing community and then we
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: didn't do it for a while and they were like
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: what gives Yeah, And so we've been working to get
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: those back and I think they're going to be back now.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So that's that's slinky good night. Oh wait, we didn't
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: start yet, so um, I had no idea while I
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: was watching people get their hair caught in slink ease
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: or playing with them in general that um, they had
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: a kind of a pretty neat history until I ran
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: across this article from Price in Nomics, written by a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: dude named Zachary Crockett. Yeah, big, thanks, This is a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: good article. It is um. It's called the Invention of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: is Slinky? And in it, uh, Crockett starts at a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: pretty reasonable place, the birth of the inventors Thanky, Richard Thompson, James,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Rick James, and then in this slinky, I don't think
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: he went by Rick. No, he went by Mr James,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: inventors slinky. Yes. He was born in nineteen fourteen in Delaware,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and uh apparently his brother Samuel said that he was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: always a pretty enterprising, mechanically oriented type of kid, because
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: he had this one story about when he was like
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a thirteen, he found an old car and literally like
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: fixed the car up well enough to sell it. Yeah,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I had like mice running around living in um and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: he sold it for twenty five bucks, which I went
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to West Egg and converted that thirty seven dollars in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen. Money not bad for a thirteen year old,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that's yeah. But it was a car. Whoever bought it
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: got a good deal, that's what she's saying. But I mean,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: he probably didn't get rid of the mice. He just
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: got the thing to run again. Plus it wasn't his
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: car anyway, he just took it, licks it up. Um,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it was the mice's car. So in the nineteen thirties
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: he went to Penn State and did study mechanical engineering. Yeah,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he was just a tinkerer, so it made a lot
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of sense. Yeah. Uh. I find that often when people
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: like you've researched the people who invented like a circuit
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: board for an amp or something. It seems like that
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: starts when you're very very young. Just interesting, that kind
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of thing. You don't get into mechanical engineering in your twenties,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like you ditch psychology for a mechanical engineering degree. Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: My brother went the other way. He was an aerospace
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: engineering major and he switched to psychology. Did he really?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, he wanted to be an astronaut.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, but not like a six year old. He
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: was like, I wanted to be an astronaut. He liked
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: to be a cowboy to cowboys, you grew up to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: actually be cowboys. Um So, anyway, he got a mechanical
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: engineering degree and then uh started work as a naval engineer. Yeah,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: because it makes sense. It was World War two, so
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that's what you did. Yeah, and to go fight Hitler.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So he did. He fought it from behind a desk
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: because they're like, you're a mechanical engineer, you just sit
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: here and figure out how you can make our weapons
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of war better. And he was actually working on something,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: um that you springs, something that basically kept some sort
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: of electronics on battleships. I think it had to do
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: with the measuring horsepower. Yeah, it was a horsepower meter
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: that I guess if you're in rough waves that would
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: mess with the meter. Yeah, and you didn't want it
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: rocking all over the place, that you would use springs
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: to keep it intact or keep it from moving around
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: too much. Right. Um So, while he was tinkering around
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: with one of this, he quite by accident knocked over
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: some stuff. I don't think it was in a fit
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of rage. It was accidental and one of the things
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: he knocked over included a spring, and he watched the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: spring fall off the shelf in a nice graceful arc
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: hit a book go over from the book onto the desk,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and then from the desk onto the floor in this
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: nice our arching manner exactly, and he said, let's try
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that again. Yeah, it's apparently captivated by it. It's pretty neat,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Like this is literally one of those toys you can
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: trace back to one of those silly fluke moments, like
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the microwave. Was that the same thing? He was, Yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it was. Oh man, I can't remember what the actual
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the actual thing that makes the microwave. The microwave was
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: discovered by accident that it was, Yeah, that it had
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: these properties that um like a guy had a chocolate
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: bar in his shirt because melted melt. He's like, wait
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a minute, So of course he logically brand and grabbed
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: some popcorn and saw that that happened, and then the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: microwave is born. Yeah, I think a slinky is actually
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the only place that's on our website is one of
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: those our top ten accidental inventions or something, And I'll
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: bet microwaves are in there too. I'm sure it is UM.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So basically, you're right. The lightbulb went off over his
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: head and he went home and told his lovely wife Betty, Betty, Betty,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think I got something here, and I just need
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to how to make it to
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: where it keeps doing this thing. I'm gonna try, because
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: you can't just get any spring and throw it on
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a step, No you can. There's all sorts of different
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: kinds of springs that turns out, you know, like there's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a tension spring that they use on mouse traps, and
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: then there's the slinky spring. But now the slinky spring
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is this super refined type of spring that was designed
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: over the course of a year through trial and error
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to have just the right tension, just the right shape,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: just the right size of the coils, just the right
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: everything so that it really accentuated that graceful flow, that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: arcing flow that it it has that makes it the slinky.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And it took him like a year of tinkering with
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: all these different tensions and um types of materials before
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: he finally hit upon it. Yeah, and I think he
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: settled on a point zero five seven in diameter high
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: carbon steel UM the original slinkys were black metal, which
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was kind a cool looking um by the time, like
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: we were kids. I think they just um they had
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the shiny silver ones, and then of course we'll get
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to the plastic that came along later too, but the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: first ones were black um and it demonstrates uh property
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and physics called So I ran across this like super
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: hardcore physics forum where somebody posted that they were talking
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: about the physics of slinky and somebody's like, it seems
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: like Hook's law is a good place to start, and
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they got piled off. They said that Hooks law has
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to do with the amount of force a spring exerts
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: on something it's attached to. So I think with Hook's law,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: if it does apply, what you're talking about is the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: force being transferred from one end of the slinky to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the other, and that as the as the momentum at
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the front of the slinky goes downward, that same amount
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: is transferred to the back and it's pulled forward and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it just keeps going end over end. So I don't
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: know if Hook's law does apply or not, but if
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it does, that's my understanding of how it would apply. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the one definition I saw was that. Um. It basically
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: means a spring will return to its original shape once
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the load is removed. So that makes sense, right, Um.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: But there's another thing, at least one other thing going
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: on with the slinky, and that is that it goes
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: along a longitudinal wave. So just like a sound wave,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: basically a slinky is a sound wave slowed down or
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the same type of wave as a as a sound wave,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and it slowed down and as the slinky is moving
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: on a molecular level molecule, the molecule is pushing the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: ones in front of it forward, and then the whole
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: thing starts over again once it reaches uh equilibrium. That
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: sounds like a great explanation to me. Yes, No, that's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: all right. It avoids equilibrium. Once it hits equilibrium, it stops.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: But the whole thing starts with the slinky just sitting
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: there at the top of the step, and what it
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: has there is potential energy. It's story. Yeah, you gotta
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: move it to get that kinetic energy going. When I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: was a kid, I just remember staring at it. It's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: like it's not doing nothing. This is where slinky and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: our ESP episodes collide. How's that you're just staring at slinky,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: willing it to move. All right, So he comes up
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: with this little slinky. It works like a charm, his
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: little prototype. Uh. He does the smart thing, which is
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: if you want to find out if kids actually will
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. He got the neighborhood together and uk to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: some kids and they went nuts. They were like, this
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: thing is amazing. Yeah, stop hitting that other kid with
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: those sticks and come over and play with this toy
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that I came up with. Let me know what you think.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And they wrapped up that kid in the spring, got
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: it caught in that kid's hair. So this is perfect.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: He's like, this is Gangbusters. And I mean like he
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: saw from that very early back of the envelope market
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: research that he did with the neighborhood kids, it made
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: him a believer. Yeah, Like he saw that kids really
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: were into this thing, and I got the impression that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it At no point was he like this thing is
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: is amazing, it's supernatural. He's like, this is a it's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: really cool. It's a spring. It's physics, but it just
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: looks really neat and it is somehow weirdly captivating. Yeah.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I think they say that one in a thousand toys
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: hits it big, yeah, something like that. Yeah. So, I
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: mean there are toy inventors that labor for their entire
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: lives and never hit on something like the slinky. I mean,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it's one of the top ten toys in history when
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: they go slinky. So Betty, his wife, wasn't super Um. Well,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: she was a little skeptical at first, which will learn
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: later is pretty ironic, very ironic. Um. And he actually
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: tasted her with naming it though. And she is the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: one that found the word slinky in the dictionary. Apparently
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: she spent like several weeks looking for just the right word. Well,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, what else was she doing? Kids? Right, exactly?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: She had a lot of downtime. So um, right after
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: this break, we will talk a little bit about how
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: it went from a just a garage neighborhood idea to
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest selling toys ever. All right, so
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: he's got a slinky, he's got the prototype, he gets
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a five hundred dollar a loan to start from a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: friend to start James Spring and Wire Company LC. Yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: pretty good name. Yeah. Well, and you got the five
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: bucks apparently pretty easy from the friend by just showing
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: him the slinky. Yeah, and he was like, how much
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: do you need? I didn't look up how much five
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: bucks is, but uh, in but we can guess that
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it's uh about forty million. No, no, no, because I
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: think it's about let's see, it was about I think
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: bucks probably roughly today, which I mean that's substantial. They
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: give a friend and it was enough to get things going.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I think he really, I mean he had the prototype,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: he just needed an official company banner basically. So he
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: has his machine shop and he has his prototype, and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: he gets a bunch of wire and he makes a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of slinkies. Well, he goes through his local machine
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: shop first, right, So he's at his local machine shop
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and he and he makes four slinkies. Uh there were
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: two and a half inches tall, contained eighty feet of wire,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: which that's pretty impressive. I didn't know it was nearly
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that much. But it makes sense, I guess because I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: think every kid's tried to uncoil theirs fully, you know. Yeah,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And apparently slinky starts out as like normal round wire,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: but then they smush it to make it flat. Yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: because it's got to be flat to perform and sit
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: on itself. Yeah. I didn't I didn't realize though that
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it makes sense, but he didn't realize
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: it started out as like a round, like diameter type wire. Yeah,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: but what kind of what kind of metal did he
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: started out? Um, Swedish steel, high grade blue black Swedish steel.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Guess that was the wire of the day. Um. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it was in ninety eight coils and at first they
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: just wrapped it in parchment paper. Um. Later on I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: think they packaged it in just a box like it's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: in today, right, Actually today, I think it's in that
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: awful plastic stuff that you can't open. Oh is it now? Well,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: they have a throwback you can get yeah that it's
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: still like modeled after the original box, which is kind
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of neat. Yeah, So I don't see why he wouldn't
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: get that one personally. So with the original metal slinky
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and the whole history from the time he walked into
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that metal shop the first time, once he had the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: prototype figured out h throughout today, there was only one
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: design change in the whole time, and that was to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: crimp the ends that after it was produced to keep
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: it from tangling. Is easy and um for safety. So
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: it didn't like cut some kid's eye out right. So
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: after a bunch of kid's eyes were cut out, they Acrymthian.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they had four sight or if
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't response to eyes being gouged out, but
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and I mean still today I went on Amazon to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: double check and the slinky is still two and a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: half inches tall. It didn't say how many coils it
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was because they didn't get that descriptive, but that it's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the same thing as it was back in five. Yeah,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised they didn't have like, uh, you know the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Mega X streamlink that like um powered by Mountain Dew
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: or something like that. You know, they probably do have that. Actually,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I love that though the original slinky is still like
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: it exact same Yeah, the original metal ones. Yeah, why
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: change something that's perfect? Right? Right? And and so the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the the James has knew that this thing was perfect,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: had a great name, worked really well. The neighborhood kids
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: loved it. So of course this thing's gonna become like
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a hit right out of the gate, right. Nope, No,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you're being coy. My friend uh he took it to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: uh toy stores and the there was one storekeeper said,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: this is the atomic age it's want big, bright, fancy
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: things with lots of colors and lights. We couldn't give
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the thing away if it played God Bless America and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: picked up the Daily Double as it walked down the steps.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: That's very cynical. It is very cynical. He used exclamation
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: points and stuff. Um, but James, Rick James was like,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I'm Rick James, and you don't tell me what to
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: do with my toys. And he got in such a Gimbals,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: who is very famous as the Macy's competitor from le
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: thirty fourth Street, the only reason most of us have
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: ever heard of Gimbals. Um and Gimbals in Philadelphia apparently
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: said do you know what I like you? I like
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the way you smell. I'm going to put your toys
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: in our Christmas display and we'll just see where it
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: goes from there. Yeah, he was local at that, living
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: outside of Philly, right. I wonder if that so he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: eventually moved outside of Philly, but I'm not sure exactly
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: where they were at this point. It would make sense,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: although it's entirely possible he was hustling hard enough that
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: he was just hitting department stores all over the Northeast.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Well and Delawares not too far anyway, so yeah, they
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: may have still been in Delaware, but they m they
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: did talk the Philadelphia Gimbals into putting this on their
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Christmas display. So in Christmas November, the slinky debuts to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: public and it immediately takes off like a rocket. Right.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: No again that was double koy. Uh no it it
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: for weeks just sat there because of course it's just
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: this thing that kids had never seen before, the spring
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and parchment paper sitting between like really awesome toys. Yeah,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: it's just like all it's nothing but potential energy at
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that point, there's like a spring sitting between those atomic
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: aged toys that that one shopkeeper was using exclamation points about,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: right yeah, I mean if there if there was ever
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a toy that needed a demonstration um to delight in amaze,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it was the slinky. So very frustrated with this um,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Richard James apparently said to his wife, like, I'm going
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: down to Gimbals and I'm going to deal with this
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: head on and um. He said, meet me there in
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: like ninety minutes or something like that. So he went
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: down there. He took a couple of slinkies out of
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: their parchment paper and started looking dummies. Yeah, you stupid kids,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: keep your hair away, but check this out. And um
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: he started playing with them, and apparently by the time
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Betty got down there, ninety minutes later, he had sold
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: all four hundred slinkies and there was apparently a line
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: around the block asking for more. Yeah, that sounds like
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: such a trumped up story, but you know, I love
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it though. It was like, within ninety minutes, It's great.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The world was slinky crazy. Yeah, the Santa f a
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: miracle on thirty fourth Street comes through and does like
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a little twirl and goes out of frame again. But
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: he did sell those four hundred units that day, supposedly,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and by Christmas, uh, they had sold twenty and so
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it really did take off super pass once kids understood
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: what the heck it was, and that was that's a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: significant amount of money, Chuck, I used west Egg this
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: time one dollar. They sold him for a dollar a piece.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So he sold four hundred units and twenty thousand by
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the end of Christmas. That translates to like thirteen dollars
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in today's money. So imagine being a parent today and
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: being like, you want me to pay thirteen dollars for
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a spring. Are you crazy? But they still managed to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: capture the public imagination just right, and the thing just
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: spread like wildfire, not just in Christmas of nineteen by
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Christmas of nineteen forty seven, there was a New York
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Times article and like the fashion section talking about how
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the must have adornment of the year was a slinky
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: dipped in gold with glitter. It sounds like something Edward
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Burne's might have cooked up, right, Yeah, I think so. Um.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I think that Another cool thing is they remained a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: dollar for a lot of their life. And um it
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: said in this article here that in the mid nineties
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: are only a dollar eighty nine. Um, now they're like
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: four or five bucks. It looks like I saw again
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: on Amazon, Amazon, Amazon dot com Amazon, Uh, it was
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: like two nine. It was the lowest I saw. Hey,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that's a good deal for a slinky. But even still, Yeah,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: if you want a great deal on anything, go to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Amazon dot com. I saw others that, other nameless online
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: toy store retailers that were supposed to do four or
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: five bucks. No Amazon, I could see that though. Four
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: or five bucks that makes sense. But the point is is,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: for a very long time, still pretty cheap. Yeah, it
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: stayed the same even as the cost of living increased,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: so it's relative price went down tremendously. And they did
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that on purpose. Well, and that was yeah, exactly. That
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: was one of the things that as we'll see here shortly,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Betty's one of her favorite things. What is it, uh
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that kids could have a cheap toy, and she wanted
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: even poor kids to be able to buy something. And uh,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: here's my spring, here's the sink. Just give me a dollar.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: So the James is and by this time they were
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: they were pretty pretty much partnership from what I understand,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: at the very least, um, Betty was playing some sort
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of supporting role, at least as an advisor possibly um.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: But again they had like six kids and she was
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: raising them. Uh so it was really mostly Richard running
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the company. But they took the Slinky to the the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Toy Fair, the American Toy Fair in New York, which
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: is the same one that Barbie debuted at in the fifties.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I think Barbarie registered trademark um and they took Slinky
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: there and they did it all themselves. They pitched the thing,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and they had people from toy stores and department stores
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: from around the country just signing up and slinky was
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: he you. Apparently they made the equivalent of a billion
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: dollars in the first two years. Yeah, he sold more
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: than a hundred million in the first two years of production.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. A hundred million. A hundred million, and this
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: is the population of you know, the mid forties. It's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: not like you know nowadays, that would be a little
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: more believable. I think so well, no, think about it,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I we I wish I would have thought of that. Like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: there probably weren't too terribly more, much more than a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: hundred million people in the US at the time, So
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that's like a slinky for every person in the US,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: slinky in every pot. Right, So things were going so well,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: he realized that my my machine shop here in uh Delaware, Delaware,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: suburban Pennsylvania, which whichever it was, is not up to snuff,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and I need to set up my own shop. So
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: he did that in Albany, New York. And it was like,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a I'm an inventor. I'm just gonna make my
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: own machine that can make our own slinkies at a
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: rate of uh five seconds a pop. Yeah, the old
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: machine shop was making them in a couple of minutes
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: per slinking, which was fast for back then, I think.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so Richard James said, I'm going to make
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: my own machine. That's that's really cool. Absolutely, I think
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. And not only did he make his
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: own machine, he made a machine that can do one
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: in five seconds. Like you said, so it took it,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: took the round wire, smushed it and then coiled it
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in that second crimp the ends. I guess that's crazy. Yeah,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and then bam, you got a slinky. You got a
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: dollar in your pocket right there. This is when um,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: this is when it came in the black box and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: they ditched the parchment. It was labeled Slinky Colin, the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: famous walking spring toy, and it was gangbusters, man, it
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: was again. They sold a hundred million in the first
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: two years. To put that in perspective, I did find
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: out how many people there were in America in nineteen seven.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: There was a hundred and forty four million people in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the US and he sold a hundred million slinky. So
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for every one point four people there was, one of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: them had a slinky. So that means adults were buying
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: slinky sto. Yeah, you know, yeah. Uh. So in the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties they started to do what all great inventors do.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: They started to span the line a bit. They came
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: up with um, courtesy of a woman named Helen Mall said,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: came up with the slinky dog and the slinky train.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Um because she was a fan that they would like
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: solicit ideas, and she wrote them in and said, Hey,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I think it would be pretty neat if you made
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: like a dog that walked but the middle of him
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: was a slinky and like in toy story exactly, which
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: they got some nice kickback money on that. There was
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: also the yeah oh yes, so then they didn't steal
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: people's ideas either. No, that was waiting for that to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: read that. When I was reading this, I was all
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: nervous that and penniless or no. She actually was a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: ended up creating twenty six toys and games in her career. Um,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the slinky Dog and Slinky train were her big biggest successes.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But they basically paid her uh sixty five grand a
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: year for seventeen years on that royalty, which is a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: ton of money. Yeah, so, um, hats off to you,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Helen Moll said, there, did you get the idea of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: whether she was already a toy inventor or that this
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: kind of gave her the boost she needed to become
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a toy inventor for a career. I think she was.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I read her New York Times oh bit, and I
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: talked about some other games that she had tried to create.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think she had like burst onto the scene
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: there or anything, but um, that's a pretty comfortable living
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: back then. Um. So they also had this Susie the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Slinky worm. Um, then Slinky Crazy guys. Yeah you know those,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Remember those glasses that have like the slinkies attached to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the big bloodshot eyeballs. Those are Slinky brand hysterical and Um.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: It turns out that it wasn't just toys. The slinky
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: patent that Richard James originally got back in the forties
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: was also licensed out for other stuff, Like it was
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: used in Antenna's. It ended up being used on battleships
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: or other kinds of ships. Is a stabilizing thing like
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: he was originally after, Um, gutter protectors. I saw that
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to light fixtures, total sense. So they also made a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: ton of cash sub licensing this whole um that, like
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the Slinky patent out for other uses besides just the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: toys and the slinky hippo and all that stuff. Yeah,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and they gave soldiers in Vietnam slinkies. UM didn't license it,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: like just straight up gave them slinkys to use in
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the field as UH antennas. So they would throw the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: slinky like over a tree branch and then pull it
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: down and connect it to their radio to boost their
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: antenna signal. That is pretty smart, pretty neat. You know
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: it's being used today in space. They're they're using the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: same UM I think, the same patent originally to deploy
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: solar sales in space. Yeah, pretty cool. I wonder if
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: they're licensing that the actual they I mean, NASA was
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: using the slinky name all over the article I was reading.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: And there's another one too. Um there's a paper slinky
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that has it's coated with a metal on one side,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and so the UM when you make a go springy
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to non springy, I think is the physics terms that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I'm searching for. It creates static electricity, and it creates
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: enough that that can be captured and used to generate power. Yeah. Way,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and it's people at Georgia Tech who are doing it well,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Um, all right, So where are we?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: He is um sold a hundred million of these. He's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: expanding the line. And right after this break, we are
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: going to talk about a very interesting turn in this story.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Uh that has to do with well, you'll see. So
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: we're back Chuck. Slinky is doing well. It's the fifties.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: There's a ton of just different slinky stuff, slinky eyeballs.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Everybody's freaking out their teachers and things are going great
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: for the James is right. I think teacher's death drawers
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: are loaded with sleepy products and chattering teeth. Uh, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: rotten apples. I wonder where that came from. Giving the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: teacher an apple. Yeah, I don't know, but I'll bet
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: somebody out there will let us know. Um. All right,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So it's the mid nineteen fifties. They are loaded at
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: this point, loaded making tons of money. At this point
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: they had moved to um, a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: with a thirty one bedroom estate on twelve acres. Rich,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: super rich people. Yes, good for them. They're in Bryn Marr,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: which is like the wealthiest suburbs. I bet it still
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: is Bryn Mar. It doesn't sound like a place that's
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: going down the tubes, you know. So that Welsh brin
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: looks pretty well. V R y n m A w R.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: It's definitely something uk. I'm gonna say Welsh. All right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: So Betty Um, things were going well with the business,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: but within the family things weren't so great because Betty
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: found out that Rick James was stepping out. He was
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a super freak and he was fooling around on her
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: quite a bit from the sounds of it, all right,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: And she was like, okay, let's see, am I gonna
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: ditch this zero and go find a hero or what
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: am I gonna do? And she said, well, I have
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: six kids and I'm gonna stick with this dude for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the benefit of the kids. And she did. But apparently
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: things were never the same after that, and as a result,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Richard James started going to church a lot more and
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: it really got to him. He really spoke to him
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: a lot going to church and became something of a
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I guess I took it, although he didn't say he
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: became something of a born again. Yeah, that's exactly what
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: he became. Yeah. But he started out obviously as a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Catholic because he used to go to confession all the time,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: which seems like, Okay, well that guy really bad about
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: things and he wanted to get stuff off of his chest.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Not so, says Betty, his ex wife. UM. Betty said
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that he liked the attention that he would get from
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: confessing in confession. Yeah, like he he was sort of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a hot shot, and I think he liked to just,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: um be revered maybe I don't know, or just for
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: people listen to him or who knows. That's just a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that's a weird thing. That's a weird little thing to do,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: is go to confession to get attention. I thought it
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: was very strange. So, um, as he's going to confession,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: as he's going to church more and more and more,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: he's um also his family, he's even though yeah he's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: still at home and he's living with his family, he's
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: becoming isolated, not just from society at large, it's becoming
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: pretty isolated from his family as well. He got the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: impression that they didn't go down the church path quite
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the same degree he did, and so that was causing
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: him to feel more and more isolated, causing him to
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: withdraw more and more. And um, there was at some
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: point a moment where he revealed that they didn't have
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: much money anymore, not only that they were in debt
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: until like seven figure debt, about a million dollars in debt,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: because he started funneling all their millions to um dogmatic
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: evangelical religious groups, donating all their money. Not only donating, yeah, exactly,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: he was like not paying creditors for the LLC that
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: owns slinky. He was diverting that revenue um from the
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: business to religious groups that he was a member of.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And this article said straight up like if you bought
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a slinky before nineteen sixty, your money went exactly there.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: So it was kind of a big deal. This is
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a big revelation that was you know, started in the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: mid fifties and really things just got weird in the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: James family from the mid fifties till nineteen sixty. Then
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden nineteen sixty, Richard James said, Um,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: have you guys ever heard of Bolivia? No, Well, it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: too bad, because I just bought it one way ticket
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: there and I'm going now, don't ask me why. I'm
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: just going to join a religious group in the wilds
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of Bolivia. Yeah, And I've seen it characterize as a cult. Um,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that is not quite the deal. Um. They were called
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the Wye Cliffe Bible Translators and they're still around. But
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: it was basically their mission is to translate the Bible
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: into as many languages and getting into as many hands
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: around the world as possible. And he felt that call
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: and straight up left. His family said smile you later,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: and never got back in touch with him again. That
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: was February of nineteen sixty. And I think it was
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Betty who called it a cult, an evangelical Christian culture. Yeah,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: which you know, she was upset, you know, and she
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: read up about him and said, this seems really weird
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: to me. But yeah, it wasn't quite a cult. But
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I get that she was scorned. So that was February
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty that UM, Richard leaves for Bolivia. And before
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: he left, he sat Betty down and said, as you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: we're a million dollars in debt. I'm leaving. UM. You
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: have a choice here. We can either liquidate the company
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: or you can take over your choice. I really don't care.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Bolivia and I'm probably never coming back. Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised that she got that opportunity
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to decide at least what to do with her future. Yeah, Like,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I was glad to know that it was within her power, right. I.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It took me a couple of times of reading this
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: before I finally called onto that. At first I thought
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: he just laughed and she slid into that position. But yeah,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: he gave her the choice, like, you can liquid eight
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you're raising six kids. You'll probably make some money off
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of it after the creditors are paid off. So do
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you want to do that? She said, you know what, No,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try taking over the company. I'm going all
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: in on Linky. So she took over this company, Chuck,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that was in really dire straits. Yeah. I don't think
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: we even mentioned that Slinkys had started to wane in popularity,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: so not only were they in debt, but towards the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: end of the nineteen fifties, everyone had like the slinky
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: craze its sort of passed. Yeah, so we said that
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it sold a hundred million units in its first two years.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Since nineteen forty seven, they've sold three million total, so
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a full one third of all the slinky sold were
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: sold in the first two years. So yeah, it's star
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: crested and then started to fall. And so this lady
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: took over a company that was saddled with debt. Uh,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: it's star product was not so much of a star
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: any longer. And um, she had six kids. She had
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: six kids, and she decided, rather than the liquid at
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the company to say, no, I'm gonna see what I
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: can do with this. I'm gonna try to bring it back.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And she did. Yeah. I mean, reading this, she's truly
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: one of like the great women in American history. I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: think she's she's definitely the hero of this story too,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and revered by toy enthusiasts. But I don't think a
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: lot of people even know her name. You know, it's
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Betty James. So her first plan was, I have all
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: these creditors at least let me try and get this
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: deferred for now, and was somehow able to talk him
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: into deferring some of these payments, thank god. And Um.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Then in nineteen sixty two, she hired three dudes from Columbia,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. UM Johnny McCullough and Homer Fesperman wrote the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: music and Charles Weagley wrote the lyrics to what would
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: later become the longest running Dare I say most successful
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: commercial jingle of all time? Yes, I would say it's
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: possibly the most well known at least. So let's um,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: let's play a little bit of that right now, everyone's
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: heard it, and here it is walks to say with
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: advocate and makes the happiest that's been down to dawn,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that's gone to get over time. So I mean that
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: surely sounds familiar. Apparently there was a survey that was
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: conducted that found that eighty nine point eight percent of
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Americans either know what a slinky is or are familiar
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: with that jingle. So that's definitely it's got to be
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the most successful jingle of all time. Like, what else
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: is there? I can't think of anything else to put
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: up against it? Have a cocamout smile whatever. I don't
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: even know how that goes. No, I think that was
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: just a slogan that wasn't a song. Oh yeah, no,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: you're totally right, um, And you and I of course
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: all day have been singing it's log it's And I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: was like, that was obviously based on the slinky jingle.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: And I went back and listen to it, was like, no,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: it is the slinky jingle. They just replaced the lyrics.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Well I didn't get the joke. Well rend and stimpy
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: fans obviously, UH know what I just did. But if
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: you were like, I don't get it, what is log
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: have to do anything? Just look up log I guess
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: log jingle maybe. So, Um, this was a huge hit
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and it's funny. I was looking on um the internet
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to see if I could find anything on these guys
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that wrote this thing, and um, Homer Fesperman has a
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Facebook page. It's got to be him. Wow. Yeah, I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: just clicked on it and the first thing I saw
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: was South Carolina Game Cox and I was like, well Columbia,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, and it looks like he's making um, like
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: a video scrapbooks for people. Well that's the Facebook page
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was wide opened, and I wanted to get in touch
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and say are you Are you the Homer? Maybe we
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: could just get a like a little quick interview or something,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know. So look him up. Homer Fesperman,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: he's on that, He's on the internet. Yeah, everybody friend him.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: He'll be like, what is going on. I've been stamped
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: by the friendliest people on Facebook who are fans. Most
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: of them. So Betty's got this jingle out there. This
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: was a master stroke. She also, um did some advertising.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: She really put a lot of money into advertising. But
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: apparently I get the impression that she had like some
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: she cut some good deals. It wasn't she she went
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: hemorrhaging money on advertising. It was all very smart UM
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and Slinky's stars started to rise once again. Well, she
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: moved the facility closer to Philadelphia to UM. I think
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: it saved some money and allowed her to be with
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: her kids more. UM. Although she did, you know, she
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: had a caretaker. So the kids, I think they said,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: like Sunday through Thursday, they had a lot of like
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: attention from nanny's and things. But I get the idea
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: she was a good mom. She was trying to do
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: right by her family, you know right, and not only
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: her family this uh. This article on Priceonomics points out
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that she was also helping out the families of I
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: think the hundred and twenty person team that she put together,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and it says they were a close knit UM, which
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: definitely kind of jibes with the impression that I've gotten
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of her. UM. So she's she's got this jingle down
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Slinky starting to come back a little bit. And also
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I think the tech that she's taking is it's a
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: it's an inexpensive toy that everybody can enjoy. Um, but
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: it's still I mean this, I don't know if all
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: of it would have been quite so possible had a
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: bit of serendipity not happened in the mid nineteen seventies.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Plastic plastic is that the thing. Yeah, there was a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: dude in Minnesota who was a plastic worker who figured
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: out basically a way to make a plastic slinky and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: went directly to Betty James and the um her company
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and said, what do you think about this? She said,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't steal ideas. I paid for
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: him him. How much do you want me to make
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the checkout for? Yeah, his name was Donald James Room,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: and he was um of master Mark Plastics, and he
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: was trying to make a garden hose that coiled like
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: they have now, like a plastic garden hose self coiled,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and um he failed. And his kids apparently were like,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that looks like a slinky and he was like, oh well,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: let me kids, I'm trying to concentrate trying to make
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: a garden hose. So um, like you said, they they
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: made a great deal and uh he he ended up
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: with tons of money too, and it made slinky super
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: popular again and it became the Slinky Rainbow, the Rainbow Slinky,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: And yeah, all of a sudden, not just original slinky.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Now you had this what they call the a less
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: tangle prone alternative to slinky, which is pretty bold because
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: you're saying your original product is tangle prone. Still worked.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I think maybe they just knew that everybody knew that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the slinky is tangle prone. And um, now they had
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: a couple of products again that were really salable, and
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: the the slinky star rose once more. Yeah, and like
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I said, the Toy Story, they did make a great
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: deal with Um, I guess it was Pixar. Yeah, and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: sold a ton more Slinkies when Toy Story came out
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: because of the dog right exactly. Uh. In in nineteen
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: seventy four, Betty heard received news that her husband Rick
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: James had passed away. Who she hadn't he lived within
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a few months of going to Bolivia, Like she hadn't
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: heard anything from him. That's just unbelievable. Um. But she
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: was doing fine and so she was probably like, thanks
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: for letting me know who cares who. It might have
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: been a little sad, I'm not gonna say that, but um.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: She then sold to poof Products in for what she
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: called a quote boatload of money and good for her. Yeah,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and she lived on for another ten years, to the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: right old age of ninety and I think before then
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: she was recognized by the Toy Industry Association's Hall of Fame.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I think Slinky was inducted in two thousand, so she
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: would have been alive for that. Pretty neat. Yeah, so
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: that's slinky. Yeah, you know what. The only other thing
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I had was you can make the Star Wars blaster
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: sound with a slinky? Yeah you Um, well you can
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: do with the microphone, or you can you put a cup,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: a paper cup and the end of the slinky and
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you hold that in the air just like the height
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: of your head, and the rest of the slinky falls
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to the ground and um then you just start. Uh. Basically,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: they're all kinds of noises you can make. But if
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you want to make that sound, you can pick up
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the bottom off the floor and then just let it
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: drop on the floor and catch it real quick, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it does that nice makes a neat sound. That's a
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: chuck tip right there. Yeah, you go to YouTube and
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: look up Star Wars slinky sound and there's a couple
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: of dudes. Of course it'll show you just how to
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: do it. Well, that's one of the reasons too, why
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Betty James chose the word slinky. It's not only because
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it was sleek and attractive, but also she thinks she
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: thought that that was a good description of what the
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: sound it made as it went downstairs. She would have
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: called it the blaster um. And there's one last thing
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: about slinky physics that are pretty amy easing. Let's hear it.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: So if you if you dangle a slinky out to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: where it's um completely stretched out as much as it's
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: going to without putting any pressure on, just letting the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: force of gravity stretch out the slinky until it reaches
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: equally okay, um, but without this bottom touching the ground
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: out a fourth story window. Awesome. And you actually, if
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it's like eighty something feeding and have to be higher
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: than that because it's slinky, would go right down to
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the ground. Man, Well, I mean you have to wait
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the bottom of it. Okay, So let's say four stories
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you're right then, um, and if you have it, you're
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: holding it's steady, it's not moving. And then you release
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the top, the top will start to fall, but if
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you pay close attention, the bottom stays where it is.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Slinky's actually have this amazing property of managing to levitate
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: momentarily when the top is released, and some very smart
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: scientists studied this and they measured it and they found yes, indeed,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the top is moving and the bottom is remaining. It's
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: floating in air. And they figured out that the reason
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: why is because the tension is still acting against the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: force of gravity, which has reached the equilibrium on the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: lower part of the coil. And basically, the information that
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: gravity is, that tension is released in gravity is about
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to win hasn't reached that bottom part yet. Each coil
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: stacks upon the next one, and the next one and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the next one. So as that's happening up top down below,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: it's all hunky dory. Still it's like you're still holding
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: onto me. It's literally floating in mid air. Wow. This
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's ceaselessly amazing. Basically, the slinky well, those are
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: two pretty boss slinky tricks, and what a great way
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: to finish, I think. So if you want to know
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: more about slink Eyes, you can go to the podcast
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: page on how Stuff you Should Know dot com and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: check out our slinky episode and there should be links
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: to this Prisonomics article and the YouTube Slinky Master all
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: that jam. Just go check that out. And I didn't
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: say search bar, but you can imagine that I would
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: have under normal circumstances, which means it's time for a
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this uh sage from Portland's
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Remember Sage. Yeah, we do a little Q and A
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: at the end of these live shows and where people
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: can get up and ask us questions and sages was great,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: so I told her to send it in. Um hey, guys,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: just got back from your live show in Portland, and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Chuck said to ride in to my amazing fact. I
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: was super nervous to go up there. We'll save you
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: did great. By the way, um my fact is that
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you can actually tell how old a humpback whale is
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: by looking at their ear wax because it forms rings
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: like a tree. Oh yeah, I remember that humpback whales
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: migrate from Alaska to Yi each year for mating. The
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: temperature shift of the ocean water causes the rings to form.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Researchers will examine the ear wax of deceased whales there
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: were beach to find out their age and a lot
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: of other facts about them. Gross and fascinating, just like
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: the actual ear wax podcast. Guys, I found doubt this
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: while uh snorkeling on a cruise in Hawaii last week
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: for spring break. Thanks for everything, and thanks for the
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: live show especially, it was totally awesome. With four exclamation
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: points four that's pretty good rating, man alive. I had
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: so much fun, and I think I got my mom
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: hooked on your show too, So thanks to Sage and
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: her mom for bringing her. And it was good to
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: meet you. You did a great job. You didn't seem
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: nervous at all. No, totally larger in charge like you
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: do audience QA stuff every night. That's right. Thanks to everybody,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: importantly you guys. I think Chuck. Every single person um
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: that we met before and after said welcome to Portland's
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: like we were literally welcomed by every single person. Yeah,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: it was really neat that they're proud of their city. Um. Yes,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us about
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: anything to do with whales or slinkies or live shows
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: or any of that jazz. You can tweet to us
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff podcast asked that
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and, as always, join us
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: at our luxurious home on the web, Stuff you Should
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com