The Hula Hoop as a Fertility Device and Other Urban Legends

In case you didn’t know, the hula hoop was invented in Hawaii. At least that’s what I was told, and like a lot of urban legends, there may be some truth to the tale or there may not. But it’s a lot of fun just weaning the fact from the fiction. I’m not sure of the date, but if my memory serves me correctly the hula hoop got noticed by an English sailing vessel that was cruising the seven seas back when sailing was almost as adventurous as rotating a hula hoop around your waste. The truth of the matter is, these sailors – whoever they were – brought the idea of the hula hoop back with them to “civilization”. And the rest as they say – is history. But no urban legend is EVER that cut and dried.

Now if I’m a sailor in the 18th century, who’s been holed up on a musty ship for 5 or 6 months and suddenly we drop anchor in Hawaii (or whatever they were calling the island back then), you better believe I’m going to sink to my knees and thank my lucky stars. If I’m looking at some nubile Hawaiian girls in grass skirts and flowers, rotating a hula hoop around their waists while dancing to some crazy drum beat, I’d think I’d died and went to heaven. Now wonder Marlon Brando led the mutiny on the Bounty.

Must have been quite a sight. That these sailors actually left the islands and took the idea of the hula hoop back with them, is a feat in itself.

Well, a couple thousand years have passed since the invention of the first hula-hoop. The originals were obviously low-rent models that were made out of grass and wood or maybe vines. In the Hawaiian language, the word “hula” means “dance”. So hula hoop literally means “dance of the hoop”. Go figure. Those crazy sailors – at least the ones who were able to pry themselves off the Hawaiian Islands – made their way back to England and introduced the hula hoop to modern society. Kids took to the hula hoop like a fish takes to water, and before you know it, a fad was born among the rich and famous. In England, adults and children of the upper class were wild about this new pastime called “hooping”.

Now here’s where an already foggy story gets even foggier: apparently someone from AUSTRALIA was in England and saw all that crazy hula hoping going on and decided to take the idea back with him to the Outback. Before you can say “Hey mate, throw another shrimp on the bar-b”, an Australian company took to making their hula hoops out of wood. And they sold quite a few. But we’re talking about Australia in the 18th or 19th century, so how many people are we really talking about? A couple dozen? And even then you’re closest neighbor is twenty miles away. So much for starting a craze. Anyway, now it gets even zanier: fast forward about 100 years and now someone from CALIFORNIA is in Australia and gets wind of the hula hoop craze and takes the idea back with him to the United States. Hey, doesn’t anyone believe in patents? Or maybe the concept of the patent wasn’t invented yet.

At any rate, these two guys from Californians decide to make THEIR hula hoop out of plastic instead of wood. They also decided to color the darn things. They even made a “deluxe” model that was hollow and had metal ball bearings rolling around the inside of the tube. Would you believe in six months these guys sold almost 20 million hula hoops? And do the math: each hula hoop sold for $1.50. Let me seeâÂ?¦20 million times $1.50 isâÂ?¦a heck of a lot of money in 1958. This was when a million dollars (or 30 million dollars to be exact) was really worth something.

Twenty million hula hoops twirling around the waists of little children, teenage girls and silly adults. But like any other fad, the hula hoop craze withered on the vine and petered out within a few years. But with all that money in the bank, do you really think those two guys from California cared?

At its height, the hula-hoop reached such levels of popularity that hula hoop games and competitions were created. Things like the longest you can hula before dropping the hoop. Or spinning the hoop on your arms, legs and waist simultaneously. Hula Hoop games are pretty much a thing of the past, kind of like skipping rope.
The hula hoop lives on – creating fun for a new generation of kids.