In the up-and-down world of toy sales–where gadgets and gizmos live and die on kids’ constantly changing whims–perhaps nothing is spinning out of control these days quite like the popularity of the yo-yo.
An on-again, off-again pop culture phenomenon for decades, the colorful orbs can once again be seen looping and bobbing on schoolyards across the Chicago region. Nerds and jocks alike are practicing their rock-the-baby and around-the-world maneuvers.
Duncan Toy Co. officials say sales have nearly tripled over the last two years, and with big Christmas sales, the company could match its record for the most yo-yos ever sold in one year: 25 million in 1962.
“It’s insane. It’s almost reaching Beanie Baby proportions,” joked Joseph Ziemann, manager of Hill’s Hobby and Collector’s Shop in Park Ridge, adding that yo-yo sales at his store rocketed from about two dozen last year to more than 400 in the last few months.
But these are not your father’s yo-yos.
These modern marvels boast ball bearings, centrifugal clutches, brake pads and light-emitting diodes. They have triaxle systems, rubber power washers and injection molded sides. They’re crafted from aircraft aluminum and dipped in bronze and black electrolytic baths.
And they have price tags to match.
The typical modern yo-yo retails for about $10. But prices climb as quickly as a yo-yo up a string to $30, $40 and $50, until they spin out of control with the Silver Bullet-2, the ultimate high-performance yo-yo, which retails for about $90.
“I guess it’s a sign of the times,” said Bob Zavell, owner of the Kite Harbor toy store in Oak Park that has a yo-yo club with 300 members. “Toys have always changed as the times have changed. And the yo-yo seems to be no different.”
In a time when kids would rather lounge on the couch with a Nintendo joystick in hand than build a cabin of Lincoln Logs, it’s no surprise these yo-yos perform with very little effort.
Those nagging problems of the yo-yos of yore–tangled and knotted strings, yo-yos that hung limp instead of snapping back into the hand, spins that stopped before tricks were completed–all but vanish with the addition of removable axles, centrifugal clutches and ball bearings.
The advanced technology also makes tricks like “walking the dog,” “rocking the baby” and “around the world” as easy as securing a shoe with Velcro.
Just ask Scott Satinover. The Oak Park 3rd grader traded his basic Duncan for “The Brain,” a yo-yo that sleeps for nearly a minute and automatically returns to the hand.
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“My hand gets tired (with the Duncan) because it goes up and down and up and down, and it doesn’t sleep very long,” said Santinover, 8, a daily yo-yoer and a member of a yo-yo club at Kite Harbor.
Justyn Bentley, 10, a fellow yo-yo clubber, sums it up this way: “The new yo-yos are better for kids. They’re just . . . easier.”
Yo-yos spun into the states nearly 70 years ago when Donald F. Duncan Sr. brought a “new” toy back from the Philippines. There, the yo-yo–which means “come back” in Filipino–was used as both a toy and a weapon.
By the 1950s, the toy was a part of American pop culture alongside the Hula-Hoop. They came into their heyday in 1962, when Duncan sold a record 25 million. By 1965, Duncan lost the yo-yo trademark to the public domain, and the company went bankrupt.
Two years later, Flambeau Corp. of Middlefield, Ohio, bought Duncan, and the company has been producing millions of the spinning gyroscopes each year. The plant in Columbus, Ind., is the largest yo-yo factory in the United States.
Sales bobbed up and down until a few years back when Duncan began an ingenious marketing ploy. They ran commercials on Nickelodeon and ESPN comparing yo-yoing with video games.
“We showed the really cool-looking kids playing with yo-yos outdoors, as an exciting activity and juxtaposed that with kids sitting in overstuffed sofas with a joystick,” explained Mike Caffrey, director of marketing for Duncan and the brains behind the marketing strategy.
Sales took off.
Then, Caffrey developed a lesson plan for educators explaining how to teach science concepts, such as kinetic energy and the movement of a pendulum, with a yo-yo, and then sent out 80,000 plans to elementary and junior high teachers across the country.
“Duncan is well-aware that all yo-yo crazes start on the schoolyard,” Caffrey said. “Once we got the first kids using the yo-yos, the other kids picked it right up.”
But while Duncan stuck with its basic yo-yo design, the newcomers took yo-yo-making to new heights.
Yomega Inc., based in Falls River, Mass., markets “The Brain,” a $12 wonder that boasts a centrifugal clutch. When the yo-yo begins its spins, the clutch opens, allowing the orb to spin longer. As the spin slows, the clutch closes around the axle and the yo-yo returns to the hand.
Perhaps the most technically advanced yo-yo-maker is Tom Kuhn, a San Francisco dentist who markets the Silver Bullet-2. The $90 toy is made of aircraft aluminum and comes with a carrying pouch and a 40-page “Flight Manual.”
But Caffrey of Duncan said he’d put his $3 Duncan Butterfly up against any $90 yo-yo in the country.
“It’s like a cheap camera in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing versus an expensive camera in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they are doing,” said Caffrey, who was a two-time yo-yo champion at age 14, a professional demonstrator by age 18 and the patent holder of the Yomega Brain by age 22.
The main customers have a more basic reason for buying them–they’re fun.
Teddy Rankin-Parker, 11, who owns a collection of 25 yo-yos, said he’d rather yo-yo than play his cello, ride his unicycle or juggle.
“I just can’t stop playing with it. It’s like I’ve got to have it in my hand all the time,” said Rankin-Parker, president of the Kite Harbor yo-yo club and by far the most deft with the spinning discs.