Life as Performance Art: Joan Anderson
G C Stoppel
Joan Anderson died on the 14th of July this year at the age of 101. I suspect her name is hardly familiar anymore, but she was perhaps the greatest social influencer in the western world in the late 1950s and well beyond.
Mrs. Anderson was a native of Australia, and at Christmastime in 1956, she flew home to visit the Olds and friends. She was amused at watching the fun children were having with a simple bamboo hoop. It took just a few minutes to learn how to position it in the right area on their torso, and then jiggle their hips to make it twirl, and it appeared to be a fun form of exercise. Although there were no set rules, the longer a person could make it twirl, the better. Simple as that, and from there they made up their own rules. Whole groups of youngsters were twirling the hoop on playgrounds and parks, and it was the proverbial hot ticket item for Christmas presents.
When Mrs. Anderson returned home to California, she told her family about The Hoop, and her husband suggest she ask her family back home to send her one or two. Let us just say that when it arrived, the local letter carrier was not amused, and thought it was a waste of good money to have it shipped. This being the mid-1950s, he added it might even be some sort of communist plot to take over America. This was the era when people feared there were commies hiding under every bid, and suspicious of anything ‘furren.’
The Andersons thought otherwise, as did their four children. The children spent hours perfecting the twirl and sometimes allowed a friend to play with it. Then, one day, someone said the gyrations looked like Hawaiian hula dancers, thus the name, the Hula Hoop.
As luck would have it, father Wayne had a good friend, Spud Melin, who was the co-owner of a toy company called Wham-O. The previous year they had brought out the must have Christmas present of 1955 – the Frisbee. Now they were looking for a new item. The Andersons demonstrated the hoop to Melin, and he liked it. A gentleman’s agreement, sealed with nothing more than a handshake, cemented the business deal. Wham-O would manufacture and market the toy, with the Andersons sharing in the royalties.
The timing could not have been better. Only a few weeks earlier Elvis Presley had been a guest on the highly popular Ed Sullivan Show, but the executives were horrified at how he gyrated his hips at his stage shows. Nor did they like his nickname, “Elvis the Pelvis.” They thought it was salacious, suggestive, and not fit for prime-time audiences. The camera angle was set so as to not show his famous move. Young people, objecting to the network censorship, bought so many Hula Hoops that Wham-O was working overtime to keep up with production.
Within six months, some 30 million Hula Hoops had been sold, retailing at $1.98, each, What kept the sales surging upward was that people learned if twirling one hoop was a good idea, twirling more at the same time was even better. Spuds hinted that using a Hula Hoop was part of a youthful rebellion against the olds, right along with rock and roll music, comic books, biker gangs, and slang. That made it even more popular.
During the afternoon game shows and soap operas, Spuds advertised the hoop to the housewife audience, touting how it would burn calories and create a more enticing “silhouette”.
All was not pure happiness. It seems that Spuds and Wham-O stiffed the Andersons. They smelled a rat when they were not allowed to see any of the company’s financial records, and Spuds became distant. The couple were more or less written out of the story and did not seem the promised checks. Melin took all the credit for discovering the hoop, development, and marketing. The Andersons sued, and when the judge rapped his gavel and all the legal fees were paid, they received about $6000. Not surprisingly, the Andersons never spoke to their former friend again.
Their big mistake was trusting a close friend when money was involved. Mr. Anderson said later that they should have committed everything on paper and had retained rights to the patent. That is a good lesson for all of us: even with friends, get it in writing. And family – more so!
Fortunately, neither of the Andersons were bitter about it, and the experience did not dictate the rest of their life. Believing that happiness is success is the best revenge, the Andersons ‘stuck it’ to their former friend who was not enjoying much happiness despite all of his money.
As for Spud Melin and Wham-O, they went on to invent, develop and market a number of very successful low-priced toys that were popular with children. They continued bring out new items over the next couple of decades until the company was bought out by Mattel, and it was sold by a succession of companies over the years. It is now owned by a Chinese conglomerate.
Mr. Anderson died at age 87, and one day his daughter was talking with a friend about her family and the true story of Hula Hoop. A woman sitting at a nearby table, Lois Hill, was eavesdropping on their conversation and went over to introduce herself. She said that she made independent films, and instinctively knew there was a story in the family saga. The saga became a ten-minute short documentary, Hula Girl, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. If you would like to see the film, it can be found on You Tube.
Fortunately, Joan Anderson, then 97 years old, was able and willing to attend the premier. She spoke about the early days of the Hula Hoop and brought along her original bamboo toy. To the delight of the crowd, she demonstrated her skills and earned a standing ovation.
As the late Paul Harvey would say on his radio program, “And now you know the rest of the story.”
Your day has been enriched by this bit of trivia. For however long it took you to read these thousand words, you were not thinking about the economy, politics, or anything else that was unpleasant.
You can thank me later.
