Disco Balls are Ridiculous, and We Love Them

Summary

Ridiculous History – "Disco Balls are Ridiculous, and We Love Them"

Podcast: Ridiculous History
Hosts: Ben Bowlin, Noel Brown
Super Producer: Max Williams
Release Date: October 2, 2025
Duration: ~48 mins (content covered through ~46:50)

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Episode Overview

This episode celebrates the surprisingly deep, dazzling, and occasionally absurd history of the disco ball. Hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown dive into the origins, cultural waves, technological changes, and enduring appeal of the mirrored sphere—showing how a device originally intended as a lighting "flex" became a cultural touchstone, then a symbol, and finally, an object of cozy, post-pandemic home décor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise of the "Myriad Reflector": Early Origins

[06:07 – 10:18]

• Way Older Than Disco:
  The mirrored ball didn’t start with disco in the 1970s, but actually dates back to at least 1897.

• First Sightings:
  An electricians’ union in Charlestown, MA, created a dazzling “mirror ball” for their annual ball to “emit light visible for miles around Boston," as reported in The Electrical Worker magazine.

• Original Name:
  The device was first called the "myriad reflector," emphasizing its multiple reflective facets.

• Patent Filed:
  In 1917, Louis Bernard Woest filed a patent for the "myriad reflector," describing it as a polyhedral device covered with mirrors, capable of being suspended and rotated to create dramatic lighting effects.

  "A myriad reflector comprising mirrors mounted to form a polyhedron bounded by a convex system of plane faces [...] so that it may be swung and rotated simultaneously to produce, wait for it, myriad reflections when light rays from an extraneous source are thrown thereon."
  —Ben Bowlin quoting Woest's patent [14:05]

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2. Twenties, Swing, and the Interwar Years

[19:47 – 22:32]

• Spread to Popular Venues:
  Commercial production by Stevens & Woest took off in the 1920s, with the "magnificent globe" (27” sphere, 1,200 mirrors) being sold to dance halls, skating rinks, jazz clubs, and nightclubs.

• Not Just for Parties:
  One 1921 Illustrated World photo caption joked that the image wasn’t a starfield—but a nightclub in Dayton, OH.

• Great Depression:
  Production stopped during the depression due to diminished demand for sparkly decor.

  "Which place are you going to go to? You’re going to go to the one with the mirror ball."
  —Ben Bowlin [20:32]

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3. Omega National Products & The Industrialization of Disco Balls

[22:32 – 29:14]

• Post-War Revival:
  Omega National Products, based in Louisville, KY, revived mirror ball manufacturing in the 1940s, along with flexible, mirrored sheets used in art deco furniture and flamboyant props (notably Liberace’s mirrored piano).

• Workforce:
  During WWII, women predominantly worked in disco ball production.

• Sizing for All:
  Omega offered every size—from keychain “tiny boys” (2”) to massive 6 ft. spheres (at $4,000 in the 1940s, ~ $20K now).

• The Monopoly:
  Omega at one point produced 90% of the world’s disco balls.

• Celebrity Clients:
  Clients have included Beyoncé, Madonna (who emerged from a giant disco ball in concert), "Dancing with the Stars," and the Academy Awards.

  “You are in the C-suite of Omega National and you say: I make 90% of the world's disco balls. Not 100%. But very humble.”
  —Ben Bowlin [27:31]

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4. How Did the Disco Ball Become Synonymous With Disco?

[29:14 – 34:54]

• 1970s NYC Scene:
  The ball's association with disco crystalized in New York City clubs, notably The Loft and The Gallery, run by disco legend Nicky Siano.

• Media & Pop Culture:
  Saturday Night Fever (1977) and club scenes cemented the disco-disco ball relationship.

• Disco Demolition Night (1979):
  The infamous Chicago White Sox promotion involved the public destruction of disco records, devolving into chaos and symbolizing growing hostility against disco (often with racist and homophobic undertones).

• Culture War:
  Disco’s decline was not just musical but cultural; the destruction of disco records paralleled attacks on Black, Latino, and queer club communities.

  "It felt like a Nazi book burning."
  —Nile Rodgers, on witnessing Disco Demolition Night [38:13, relayed by Ben]

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5. Legacy, Rediscovery, and the Disco Ball at Home

[40:00 – 43:41]

• Musical Afterlife:
  Disco’s “four-on-the-floor” beat influenced punk, dance-punk (e.g., LCD Soundsystem), and electronic music.

• Pandemic Resurgence:
  Home-bound folks embraced disco balls as joyful décor, with producers like Libby Rasmussen noting 5,000+ home orders during COVID lockdowns.

• Statistical Spike:
  Etsy searches for "disco ball" were up nearly 400% in early 2022.

• Queer Origins:
  As noted by artist Sophie Peoples, disco balls have long been embedded in queer nightlife and home spaces—and trends often originate in the queer community before broad mainstream adoption.

  “Oftentimes, queer and trans people are kind of the creative pavers of what’s on trend, and it just sometimes takes everyone else a little bit longer to catch up.”
  —Sophie Peoples, quoted by Noel [42:04]

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6. The Aesthetics of Celebration

[46:08]

• Why Now?
  Quoting historian Kate Regev, the disco ball’s revival is part of a wider movement away from cozy, muted pandemic-era interiors toward more decadent, sparkly, and celebratory spaces:

  "They're looking for moments of joy."
  —Kate Regev, via Noel [46:50]

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Memorable Quotes & Fun Exchanges

• On the patent:

  "Every patent is a pitch."
  —Ben Bowlin [12:18]

  "A myriad reflector reflecting surfaces, the same to be arranged in such a manner that the several reflections shall be projected at varying angles, the device itself being arranged so that it may be rotated or otherwise moved so that the reflections may create spectacular effects."
  —Louis Bernard Woest, patent (read by hosts) [13:04]

• Nostalgic Flex:

  "I own about five disco balls in my house."
  —Noel Brown [06:07]

• On the disco ball comeback:

  "You wake up in the morning to a sparkly, dancy, twinkly light show, and it rules. It just feels good."
  —Noel Brown [41:32]

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Notable Timestamps

• [06:07] – The real (non-disco) origins of the mirror ball
• [08:46] – Eloquently poetic description from the 1897 trade paper
• [14:05] – Reading from the original patent
• [19:47] – [22:32] – The interwar years, Dayton, OH club photo, and the Great Depression bust
• [22:32] – [28:22] – Omega National Products’ postwar dominance & manufacturing innovations
• [29:14] – [34:54] – The disco era, NYC clubs, Saturday Night Fever, and Disco Demolition Night
• [38:13] – Nile Rodgers on the “book burning” feeling of disco's backlash
• [40:00] – [43:05] – The home disco ball renaissance during the COVID-19 pandemic
• [46:08] – [46:50] – Kate Regev on 1970s design revival and celebration

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Episode Wrap-up

The episode closes by reflecting on the cyclical nature of trends, the joy disco balls continue to bring, and their deep roots in marginalized communities and celebratory aesthetics. As Ben puts it:

"A disco ball… absolutely fits that criteria [of a thoughtful gift]." [46:02]

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Additional Notes

• Hosts’ Tone: Conversational, gleefully nerdy, and effervescent. They sprinkle jokes (“tiny boy,” “hotdog buns before the game,” “melted disco ball”) with genuine research.
• Memorable Product Shoutout: melteddiscoball.com [44:52]
• Cultural Reflection: The episode ties the disco ball's history to shifting social dynamics, innovation, and ongoing resilience as a symbol of collective joy.

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TL;DR

Disco balls began as a quirky lighting effect in 1897, patented as the "myriad reflector." They soared through jazz age dance halls, faded in the depression, roared back thanks to Omega National Products, and became disco era icons—embodying inclusion, ingenuity, and celebration. Hated and lionized, they’re now back as sought-after art objects and home décor, catching the light (and our hearts) once again.

Transcript

[Ben Bullen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. We can't wait to introduce you to the man, the myth, the legend, the super producer, Mr. Max Tracksuit Bell Bottoms Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Shiny boy.

[Ben Bullen]

Shiny Boy Williams.

[Max Williams]

You did not wait so. You did not wait as I have been introduced.

[Ben Bullen]

There he is. That's Noel Brown you heard as well. I am Ben Bullen as well. And Noel, we are very excited about this one. We've been working on it for a min a while ago, 60 of them even. A while ago of course we were talking off air as we do and I think we were all three of us just mystified. But you know what it was, it was one of our conversations about how strange things seem normal. And you in an earlier pitch meeting you said, guys, do you think about disco balls?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And it's funny cause that was a while back and it hadn't really occurred to me at the time that disco balls has sort of seen a bit of a resurgence, a renaissance, a renaissance. A disco ball renaissance in the form of like TikTok decor things and projects, art projects, crafts and stuff like that. And also Pinterest even as far back.

[Ben Bullen]

As and little homemade disco balls, you know.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. Etsy stores selling like fruit shaped discos balls and anything kind of sparkly and mirrored. And a lot of this kind of new disco ball boom times can be traced back to like a lot of things, trends to Covid times. But even farther back than that, I think both of us probably pictured starting an episode about the history of disco balls. Talking about disco. But whether you grew up cutting rugs in the East Village discotheques of the 70s or like Ben and I have been to an LCD sound system show in the last Dec or so.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh that's right.

[Noel Brown]

Massive disco ball they have on their stage. And it's an incredible lighting effect which we'll get to. Or speaking of lighting effects, you're just into having sparkly twinkle lights dancing around your bedroom or living room. You're probably familiar with the iconic lighting effect art object colloquially known as the disco ball. But Ben, I think we both thought we'd probably start this conversation about the history of disco balls. Talking about disco. Yes. Not the case though, eh? This is an I heart podcast. So do you want to look and feel your best this summer? Well, don't just think skin deep, think cell deep with Prolon.

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[Bobby Bones]

I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio music festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. How did Ashes come together?

[Diplo]

Diplo I pulled up real quick, he about to leave on tour, you're about to jump in your tour bus and we had like three hours.

[Bailey Zimmerman]

It was really cool. He really just like randomly showed up to my house and I'm like, oh hey Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay.

[Bobby Bones]

You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcasts and big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible. Had a blast cruising around festival weekend in the all new Palisade Hybrid.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

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[Noel Brown]

Stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Hey, what's up?

[Mario Lopez]

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[Ben Bullen]

Well, we're going in a different direction as you called it there, Noel. I want to credit where due is very important to me personally, so I just want to thank you in advance for being our research associate on this excellent work here. You dug in, you did the research, and you delivered a lot of stuff I didn't know about disco Ball. So I'm going to learn from you.

[Noel Brown]

Where, you know, I get a little pet project and will be in my bonnet every now and again. But this is, you know, I definitely intersects with a lot of other stuff that I'm interested in. And I personally own about five disco balls in my house. But like we teased, would you believe that the origins of this delightful mirrored sphere date back way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way further than John Travolta's iconic disco dancing in Saturday Night Fever? So let us go. Let's take it back, way back. Not to the psychedelic 60s or the booming 50s or the. What is it, the wartime 40s or the roaring 20s. Let's go way, way back to the early 1900s, where we join the beginning of the story of the disco ball already in progress.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, my gosh. And this is a phrase that you taught me through your research, the Myriad Reflector.

[Noel Brown]

You might remember the slightly lesser beloved Arcade Fire album Reflector that was produced by James Murphy of LCD Sound System and had a bit of a disco feel to it. And they're talking about. They have the. The most popular song on there was called Reflector. Pretty certain that is a reference to the original name for the disco ball, which was the Myriad Reflector. We, as we've mentioned, typically think of it as linked to the disco era of the 70s. However, the first kind of piece of decor, let's call it, or a lighting effect or whatever, actually dates all the way back to 1897. I was off by about three years, but, hey, you know, not too bad to good old Charlestown, Massachusetts, where members of a local Electricians union were getting together for their annual Electricians Ball. Oh, sure, yeah. Like they did. And they decided to take their electrician skills and parlay those into a cool kind of showpiece, I guess, for this shindig.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were getting this from vinepear.com their idea was that they would make a thing, as you said, Noel, a flex, really, a showpiece ornament that could emit light visible for miles around Boston. And to do this, they created, invented their own incandescent lamps that would cast a number of colors and a carbon arc that are all reflected off what they called, as you said, a mirror ball. And we first learn about this in the Electrical Worker, which was the Electricians.

[Noel Brown]

Union magazine trade paper, whatever you might call it 100%. The bulletin posted in the magazine promised a new novelty that would change a hall into a brilliant fairyland of flashing, changing, living colors. A place of a million colored sparks darting and dancing, chasing one another into every nook and corner, filling the hall with dancing fireflies of a thousand hues. Gotta give them notes for using dancing a few too many times or at least one too many times. But the rest of this, is it not poetry.

[Ben Bullen]

I love it.

[Noel Brown]

And I love a place, Ben, of a million colored sparks.

[Ben Bullen]

I like the way you did the intonation of thousand hues, by the way. Thank you.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, well, it is. It feels like a place that I want to go to.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, there it is. And this was at the time, a one off thing. A very special, unique. Boy, it was custom made for the party. Yeah. They weren't planning to make a hundred of these and sell them throughout New England until a guy named Louis Bernard Woost, W O E S T e applied for a patent because the streets were watching. And so in 1917, as he said, this guy goes to our friends at the U.S. patent Office and he says, I got a crazy pitch. You heard of reflectors, right? You've heard of the word myriad? Well, why not a myriad reflector, which.

[Noel Brown]

Just means a lot of reflectors. That's all it means. Myriad just means many, you know, multitudes of aplenty. And, you know, so ultimately, while it may sound like a clever, markety kind of name, it really is just like a descriptive. For the purposes of filing the patent, which we're going to read from.

[Ben Bullen]

He does get the patent. He's got a company out there in the Natty Cincinnati. I don't know if they called it the natty in 1917, but in the 1920s, they said, look, we're gonna fill all your favorite clubs, all your dance halls with these dancing fireflies of a thousand hues.

[Noel Brown]

A thousand hues. That's good. That's more marketing speak right there. Let's read a little bit more from the inventor himself when it gets a little more Dr. But not too much less delightful. You want to take this one, Ben, and we go back and forth.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, let's. Round robin.

[Noel Brown]

Sounds great.

[Ben Bullen]

All right, so pulling from the actual facts, patent shout out. Lauren Vogelbaum, our buddy, says, my invention relates to reflectors to be used for exhibition or theatrical purposes for the production of effects.

[Noel Brown]

Effects, exactly. I love that. You gotta think about this too, man. Because now we think of, like, effects, lighting effects, special effects, visual effects, but this is, I think, a pretty novel use of this term. He needed something to call it right. Like, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm reaching here, but it does feel like as early as this was filed, that this is probably where you start to see this term, if not coined by him. It's around this time where you start to see maybe more theatrical devices that are there to generate an effect. Although now that I think about it, Ben, I bet you even farther back than that. Cause it makes me think of the kind of tricks that mediums would pull back in the day and having dry ice and various things. So I'm probably reaching.

[Ben Bullen]

Well, every. Every patent is a pitch. I think we're with you on this one because. No, no, no.

[Noel Brown]

100%. I just mean the term effects feels like there may have been a time where it was a little more novel than it is today. And I might be misjudging its timeline here a little bit, but it just was worth mentioning.

[Ben Bullen]

But he goes on. Louis goes on to specify and explain what he means by effects.

[Noel Brown]

He does. He goes on in the patent. The object of my invention is a myriad reflector reflecting surfaces, the same to be arranged in such a manner that the several reflections shall be projected at varying angles, the device itself being arranged so that it may be rotated or otherwise moved so that the reflections may create spectacular effects.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, all right. We're escalating a little.

[Noel Brown]

We are.

[Ben Bullen]

We started with effects, and now it's a spectacular effect.

[Noel Brown]

That's true.

[Ben Bullen]

I can hear Louis gassing himself up as he's writing this.

[Noel Brown]

100%. It is fun to read these patents sometimes, because while there is some sparkly, no pun intended, language in here, in general, it is just a very cut and dry description of what makes the thing unique. And that's obviously very necessary for a patent. Let's read these last two points. That basically outlines those exact things. What makes it unique, right, in its.

[Ben Bullen]

Design, which you have to prove for a patent. And do check out our excellent series on patents and ip. I can call it excellent because we didn't write it. Our pal Max did. So here we go.

[Max Williams]

Somehow it is not absolutely boring. And I don't know how.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I completely agree. This stuff is fascinating, I think, to all of us. We definitely try to. We're like a dog with a bone with patents and ip.

[Ben Bullen]

So here is the first point. We'll round robin this. Louis specifically goes to Uncle Sam and describes what. What we would call the disco ball. He says, you guys know mirrors, right? He doesn't say that, but that's his pitch, he says, a myriad reflector comprising mirrors mounted to form a polyhedron bounded by a convex system of plane faces, P, L, A, N, E. In combination with means for suspending the device, the little thing that you hang it from so that it may be swung and rotated simultaneously to produce, wait for it. Myriad reflections when light rays from an extraneous source are thrown thereon.

[Noel Brown]

I would argue he should have used the word external instead of extraneous there.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Doesn't extraneous mean it's like extra extra and not necessary? Yeah, kind of external.

[Ben Bullen]

External would be good because it's not.

[Noel Brown]

Contained within the device. It's required a separate, like, external light source not included, let's just say. But y', all, what he's doing here is very brilliantly and plainly and of course, a little dryly describing how mirrors work. And the fact that it's convex and it's arranged in this circular or spherical array is what gives you that massive spread and throw of these light rays as they're reflecting off of those surfaces and then bouncing in all different directions, essentially in 360 degrees in all directions. Because there's one of these on every possible inch of the surface area of the ball. And that's what gives you this insane coverage. And the bigger the ball, the more insane the coverage. That LCD sound system one, Ben, when they hit that for a lighting effect, it lights up the whole theater, like, and it's, you know, if there's smoke in the room, you start to see these just. What's the word? Swathes of light kind of cutting through the fog. And it's an absolutely remarkable thing to behold. And I actually included a second point here, but Ben pointed out off Mike that it's basically the same thing except for what is.

[Ben Bullen]

The mirrors are separated from each other. The facets are separated by a non reflecting substance.

[Noel Brown]

Got it.

[Ben Bullen]

Which is why the mirror ball, the myriad reflection looks like a grid.

[Noel Brown]

There we go. 100%. That's exactly right.

[Bobby Bones]

Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bones show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio music festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. Check this out. So how did ashes come together, Diplo?

[Diplo]

Well, I kind of briefly met Bailey, I think, at Morgan's show, one of them. And I think he's just a guy in Nashville. He's cool as hell, and I had a new kind of sound I wanted to do. And I think he's the one guy that could carry it. And I came to his house, I had a show, I pulled up real quick. He about to leave on tour, you're about to jump in your tour bus. And we had like three hours play the record for him. We kind of like got a scratch and then he handled it on his own on the road.

[Bailey Zimmerman]

Yeah, it was really cool. He really just like randomly showed up to my house and like, oh hey Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay. And then now we're here playing it live.

[Bobby Bones]

You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcasts and big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible. Had a blast cruising around festival weekend in the all new Palisade Hybrid.

[Noel Brown]

Hey, what's up?

[Mario Lopez]

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[Noel Brown]

Let'S jump into the rise, fall, re rise and reimagining of the myriad reflector or as it came to be known, the mirror ball or the disco ball. So this company that you talked about, Ben Stevens and Woast, we don't know much about Stevens. We know about Woast, who's the one who filed the patent. Their flagship magnificent globe as they marketed it was 27 inches and covered with, as they described it, more than 12, 1200 special made mirrors. They were able to sell these like hotcakes to dance halls. Like you said, Ben, skating rinks, jazz clubs, nightclubs. This is obviously very much pre disco. This is more in the pre war kind of swinging big band era, right?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Yeah. And this has got to be a banger. When you go into the club, you're in the party district. You can go hear jazz at one of three places. Which place are you going to go to? You're going to go to the. With the mirror ball.

[Noel Brown]

People are going vibes based, man. 100%.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. There's a 1921 copy of Illustrated World that features a photograph of what we call the disco ball today. And it says, no, this is not a photograph of the heavens, the milky way or new constellation. It was made at a dance palace in Dayton, Ohio.

[Noel Brown]

Sounds like a diss at the end there. No offense to Dayton, Ohio. No offense.

[Ben Bullen]

We love you Ohio.

[Noel Brown]

It's just hilarious though, especially when you did it in that voice. And I love the idea of a dance palace.

[Max Williams]

Actually, I'm trying to think because Dayton and Canton share an airport. I actually have family in Dayton, Ohio.

[Bailey Zimmerman]

My.

[Max Williams]

My cousin.

[Ben Bullen]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Max Williams]

Yeah, no, no. I mean, I am. I am not someone who lives in Ohio for very obvious reasons.

[Noel Brown]

Well, I'm sure there's great things about it. And it would appear that one of those great things might have included a disco ball. An early example of a badass disco ball.

[Ben Bullen]

Wait, wait, why. Why are we. Why are we weirdly dissing the Buckeye State here?

[Noel Brown]

I didn't mean to. It was my started it and I fully walk it back. Y' all are great. We love you.

[Max Williams]

I have four and a half years of this podcast experience of dissing Ohio And I'm not changing now.

[Noel Brown]

All right, fair.

[Ben Bullen]

All right, well, then let's blame. It's our differences that make us a good team.

[Noel Brown]

It sure is. So there was a bit of a boom time for the disco ball, followed by a bit of a approaching bust time. Depression came. Yeah, it was a bit of a depression. No one was wanting sparklies at this point. They wanted, you know, to be able to feed their families. So Stevens and Wo did stop production of the disco balls, and it kind of, I don't know, took a back seat in the zeitgeist for quite a while. Wasn't produced again until the 1940s when we have a new company entering the chat. Ooh.

[Ben Bullen]

And I love their name. Just from a writing perspective, Omega National Products sounds like Illumination Global Unlimited.

[Noel Brown]

It does. Very much so. And call back to our recent Kentucky Derby episode. This company was based in Louisville, Kentucky. So at this point, the company is. Has. I don't know. They're. They're back to it. They're kind of capitalizing on some of the popular art deco. Okay. Styles that were popular at the time. Modestly successful at first, but not an immediate hit. What set the Louisville company Omega National Products apart from Stevens and Woes was that they weren't just making the balls. They were making this flexible, like, faux fabricy type, these sheets of mirrored material that. That were, again, in keeping with that art deco furniture style of the era that was super popular. And you could, like, bedazzle stuff. And you may remember Liberace's very iconic mirrored piano that was done using these flexible mirror ball sheets.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Liberace, famously the most subtle musician in history.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. And also there's this incredible clip of him from. I think he was on laughing, that mega 60s show where all the, like, girls kind of wore bikinis and painted their bodies. And Goldie Hawn was on it originally, I want to say. And he does this thing where he's like, hey, young people, what you groove in this Liberace and I'm here with you. And it's like the most go home dad kind of thing you've ever seen in your life. Diddly do. Feeling groovy, Liberace. He's. He's turning on. That's what he says.

[Ben Bullen]

And Omega is turning on for sure because they are the only source of this new miracle substance, this application of mirrored sheets in that grid thing. They're saying, we don't just make balls. You name an object, we can put our mirror amalgamation upon it. And so they get a bunch of Clients. We're talking jukebox halls, amusement parks. People are coming to them and asking them to put this stuff on any imaginable thing. But the main thing they still love is the original mirror ball.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. And these things ranged in size for any budget, and they were produced largely by women, because this is during World War II. And as we've talked often on the podcast, the men were away and the women took over those factory jobs. And it led to, of course, the whole Rosie the Riveter thing and a lot of demands for equal rights, rights for women, because women get the job done. And that's absolutely true. And it's weird that it took this to create that outcry, but sometimes that's what it takes, I guess. Especially in times where things are maybe a little more backwards.

[Ben Bullen]

Dude. It's like we were saying in this is a bit backstage. And I acknowledge this may sound pretentious, but we have literally traveled the world teaching people how to make a good show. And maybe one day, you and I will make a good show as well.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Who knows? Maybe someone will travel to us to teach us how to do it.

[Ben Bullen]

But one of the key things that I think speaks to Omega's brilliance here is that they decided to meet the consumer where they're at. I think it's key to meet people where they're at. And so they say, we're not just going to make one size fits all mirror balls. We're going to see if. If someone can just afford a tiny one. A tiny boy.

[Noel Brown]

That's two inches for your keys, maybe, you know, put it on your key ring. So, yeah, no, they are absolutely meeting the customer where they are more like huge.

[Ben Bullen]

Six feet.

[Noel Brown]

They're accommodating all sizes and budgets and needs. And they go from the two inches you mentioned, Ben, to six feet in diameter. We even see ones as large as 48 inches amounting to at the time, y', all, four grand. And we must Inflation calculator that bad boy. So let's. Can we get a. Can we get a boop, Max?

[Max Williams]

You want a boop?

[Noel Brown]

I'll take a boop and a boop.

[Max Williams]

I am booping currently. This is a boop.

[Noel Brown]

19. 40. $4,000. We're 40 esque. Ish. We don't have an exact number here in today's dollars. 20 grand. 20 grand.

[Ben Bullen]

Wow, that's a lot of cheddar. That's scratch. Big ball.

[Noel Brown]

It's a big ball, man. You got to throw down if you want a ball that size. Omega national, to your point, Ben, had the monopoly on this product. They at one point were producing as many as 90% of the world's disco balls.

[Ben Bullen]

What a cool. So I love specific brags and flexes.

[Noel Brown]

I love like the glitter company. Remember when we discussed.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh yeah, that's a good callback. I love the idea of, picture it this way. You are in the C suite of a mega national and maybe you're going on a date, right? You're meeting your prospective spouse in the future because everyone was getting married back then and they say, what do you do? And you say, I make 90% of the world's disco balls. Not 100%, but very humble 100%.

[Noel Brown]

I would kill to be that person.

[Ben Bullen]

We know the company, as you pointed out, continues to produce mirrored balls, disco balls for a lot of big time operations.

[Noel Brown]

When you want the best, you go omega.

[Ben Bullen]

You go omega when you want the best. That's a free tagline by the way, guys. You're welcome.

[Noel Brown]

They've been at it for a long time. They should know. It would appear that some of their high end clients are folks like Beyonce, who really is responsible in many ways for the resurgence of the disco ball because it's a big part of her or has been a big part of her stage performances. And Madonna, I want to say in the 90s, or it might have been the late 80s or mid-80s, there was a concert tour where she would emerge from a giant disco ball that would crack open and they also produced them for film and television shows like Dancing with the Stars and even the Academy Awards.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Shout out to Oscar. But Noel, we have a question that I think is on everybody's mind. How did the idea of the myriad reflector or the mirrored ball become so inherently tied to the era of disco?

[Noel Brown]

Well, in the 1970s, we really did start to see these guys being strung up in discotheques and made a fixture of the zeitgeist and of pop culture. It is tough to kind of pin down, as the Vine Pair article points out, exactly which club in New York City first kind of brought these glowing doodads back. But places like the Loft in the East Village in New York played a huge role as well as a venue known as the Gallery, which was created by an iconic disco booster named Nikki Siano. I just want to take this opportunity too, if you want to do a deeper dive into disco that includes a lot of this stuff. Great podcast. I worked on some years ago with this co cool guy named Steve Greenberg who's A record producer and he was around during a lot of this stuff. And he does a super deep dive into the history of disco in the Speed of Sound podcast. We did like a multi part series on disco that includes Saturday Night Fever, 1977, huge smash hit movie with John Travolta where he does a very iconic disco dance featuring a mirror ball. And an unfortunate event that kind of brought disco to its knees. The Disco Demolition Night in Chicago at Comiskey Park.

[Ben Bullen]

Right. And for any longtime fellow ridiculous historian, you may recall that we did an entire episode on Disco Demolition Night. This was a pivotal moment in history. It's about 46 years after this occurred. It was a promo event on July 12, 1979. Long story short, do check out the episode. The Chicago White Sox Twilight doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. And it quickly fell into pandemonium because of the activity of a guy we could call a predecessor of a podcaster, a DJ named Steve Dahl. He was known on WLUP 97 Point. Yeah, pardon my radio voice for mocking disco. He didn't like disco. He had been fired from a previous gig because the station switched from rock to disco. And Steve had principles. So they asked all these fans to bring with them a disco record when they came to the game. And if you brought a disco record, you got a discount on admission. You would get $0.98 admission and you would lend your. Well, you donate your disco vinyl to be gathered up and then blown up live in front of the audience between the games. It did not go well.

[Noel Brown]

Didn't go well for various reasons. But I don't know if we talked about this in the episode, Ben, but it does occur to me that like, vinyl records are sharp. Doesn't it seem like someone could catch some shrapnel from this?

[Ben Bullen]

That's exactly what happened.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, okay, I'm not remembering. Cool. Check out the episode.

[Max Williams]

It was terrible and they oversold the event and stuff like that. I just want to jump in here and draw a recent parallel to. I know I mentioned to you guys, but it's been referred to as Baseball Fire Festival. But.

[Noel Brown]

Oh gosh, tell me, tell me.

[Max Williams]

This past season they held a baseball game at. I forget which speedway was. But at a speedway event and they marketed it and it had the Atlanta baseball team in it. So that was a big deal around us. But it was like something that. It had a massive rain delay the entire time. But.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, I remember hearing about this and.

[Max Williams]

But like it's like one of these things where it's like, oh, yeah, you hear all these things that happen. It's so bad. And then you find out beforehand that there was, like, they were selling seeds that didn't face the field. They ran out of hot dog buns before the game started. People just single hot dogs and stuff, just throwing wieners.

[Ben Bullen]

Adam.

[Max Williams]

So if you've heard of.

[Noel Brown]

Of.

[Max Williams]

For the listeners out there, if you've heard of that story that happened this year, I just want to let you know that Disco Demolition Night was so much worse.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, my God. I mean, it's outrageous. Like, I. I didn't even remember about the shrapnel. So do check that out. It makes perfect sense.

[Ben Bullen]

But most of facts.

[Noel Brown]

Max with the facts. Indeed, Most importantly, I think for our purposes here is that this really represented this shift into, like, almost a demonization of disco. There already was a lot of tension from the rockers, you know, folks that were more into, like, heavier music, I imagine, at this era. Yeah, definitely. We've got punk happening. Disco definitely has been around, sort of maybe seen as having its. Having had its heyday, and people are a little sick of it. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but the way this was handled was, in fact, wrong, because disco was, of course, a huge part of the black, Latino, and queer community. That club culture, and that musical scene, and. And there was a sense at this event that folks were not only protesting the music, but protesting the people that made it. Becoming a culture war. Becoming a culture war.

[Bobby Bones]

Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bones show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio music festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. Check this out. So how did Ashes come together? Diploma.

[Diplo]

Well, I kind of briefly met Bailey, I think, at Morgan's show. One of them. And I think he's just the guy in Nashville. He's cool as hell. And I had a new kind of sound I wanted to do, and I think he's the one guy that could carry it. And I came to his house. I had a show. I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus, and we had, like, three hours play the record for him. We kind of, like, got a scratch, and then he handled it on his own on the road.

[Bailey Zimmerman]

Yeah, it was really cool. He really just, like, randomly showed up to my house, and I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you, and I was like, okay. And then now we're here playing it live.

[Bobby Bones]

You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcasts. And big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible. Had a blast cruising around festival weekend in the all new Palisade Hybrid. Hey, what's up?

[Mario Lopez]

It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions, whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign in the heat of battle.

[Lenovo Representative]

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[Ben Bullen]

We know that disco being the new kid on the block genre wise was clearly going to be vulnerable to attack and criticism and mockery. And this is what leads folks like Nile Rogers, co founder of A band called Chic, the Disco Band. He looked at the footage the day after this happened in Comiskey park and he said to us it felt like a Nazi book burning. Thank goodness they didn't burn all the disco records. Because I unreservedly love a lot of disco. I'm stupid, super into it.

[Noel Brown]

Same. I love it very much as well. I love the hypnotic kind of propulsiveness of it. I love a lot of the arrangements. It's fun.

[Ben Bullen]

Xanadu. Are you kidding?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean I really love a lot of electronic music as well. And a lot of that was beginning get from disco culture like techno and house music and Four on the Floor. That beat that is so propulsive and hypnotic. Kraut rock over in Germany, things like Kraftwerk and Cannes and things like that. While they were pre disco, there is a similar hypnotic kind of. What's the word that Alex Williams likes to use a lot. Motoric beat quality. That is sort of this trance inducing sort of type of music. So red meat for me.

[Ben Bullen]

And that's our composer, Alex Williams. You'll recognize him at the beginning and end of every episode.

[Noel Brown]

You sure will. But I guess we can wrap this episode up just kind of bringing it back to what we talked about at the top. This idea of disco balls. Disco has been having a resurgence since the early 2000s, man. I mean like a lot of that New York sleaze kind of music, like the yeah yeah Yeahs and a lot of that dance punk kind of stuff like the Rapture and Phoenix even. And you know, a lot of bands have been truly really honoring that Four on the Floor and kind of disco quality LCD sound system as we mentioned. But as a art object, disco balls have really kind of come back in a big way since COVID right?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. And I think this is something a lot of us have encountered in our own neck of the global woods. The lockdown Max, give me dramatic music here. In a world where you can't go outside, what do you do do to make your home more interesting? Disco ball. That's right. People are buying disco balls for their own homes, which I love. And Noel, I believe that you are the proud owner of a couple of myriad reflectors.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I got one upstairs that's small. I got ones downstairs in my studio that's medium. And I have like a couple of sort of artsy, stylized ones. I have one that looks like it's melting. I just. It's fun. And a YouTuber that I was watching. I'm sorry, I didn't copy the link, but just look up history of disco balls on YouTube and you'll find this video. It's like nine minutes. She pointed out that I think a lot of people really started getting into disco balls when they realized that it would also reflect daylight. So you just have it hanging in your living room, and you have really nice natural light coming in. You wake up in the morning to a sparkly, dancy, twinkly light show, and it rules. It just feels good.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay. Yeah, I could see that. We know that one producer of disco balls not related to Omega, a person named Libby Rasmussen, talked to the New York Times and said that during her first year of disco ball production during the COVID lockdown, she got over 5,000 orders and further demand seemed to be increasing. You also found a stat from Etsy that appears to confirm this trend.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, from that same New York Times piece that the Vine Pear article referenced, Etsy searches for disco ball increased nearly 400% in 2022 during the past three months from when that article was released compared to that same time period the previous year. Another person that they spoke to, let's see, Sophie Peoples, an artist from Oakland, California, talks about the kind of inseparability from gay nightlife and culture. They say being in the queer community, disco balls kind of always been a part of that culture and a part of nightlife and tucked inside of our apartments and hanging from our windows and sitting in the soil of our house plants. Oftentimes, queer and trans people are kind of the creative pavers of what's on trend, and it just sometimes takes everyone else a little bit longer to catch up. And that's absolutely true of a lot of slang, of a lot of cultural things, trends, clothing, fashion, et cetera. You can trace a lot of that back to the queer community and, you know, like drag culture and things like that.

[Ben Bullen]

Like that. Sure. The recursive property of aesthetics, right?

[Noel Brown]

A million percent.

[Ben Bullen]

We talked about the 90s with 1990s. Sorry, I have to date myself and specify with our pal Ross Bettish, who is going to be returning for a conversation about wrestling. We're really excited there. We know that. Look, everything that is cool at some point will become uncool and it will become cool again. Society is a lot of things, but not particularly original, right?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Well, no, it's cyclical for sure. And in fact, that Vine Pear article that we've been referencing, the headline of it is the Spinning, Shimmering History of the Disco Ball and begins with the line, everything old is new again. And that comes from the. The very pithy singer songwriter Peter Allen, who's more of a musical theater guy.

[Ben Bullen]

Big fan of musical theater. I dig it. I have a pitch for you guys. Just thinking out loud here. You know, I'm a dampier. I'm not a sunlight entity. Is there a way to make, like, a dark disco ball? Like something that would reflect darkness?

[Noel Brown]

It's a good question. That would be really cool. Maybe, like, if you cover it with tiny black holes.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, there we go. Or like the, you know. Now my head's in. Hot Topic. Gad zooks. Gosh. Speaking of dating yourself, I wonder about a blacklight disco ball. I feel like there are so many directions people can take. The concept of myriad reflectors, too. This is just a brilliant invention, and I can't thank you enough, Noel. I love learning about inventions.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, man, we all do. And thank you as well, Ben. And if you want your own melted disco ball, look no further than melteddiscoball.com where you too can have one of any number of melty disco ball arrangements. And they're super affordable and super fun. Not sponsored by them. But I was tickled that they have their own domain. And I believe they were featured in Vogue and Trendbook, according to their own website that claims that they are the new trend. Take that, for what it's worth.

[Ben Bullen]

Amazing. I want one. This is the. The next gift for your loved one. This is a great way to surprise people, by the way, the idea of, like. Okay, so recently I received a very thoughtful gift from a friend of the show. I've been thinking a lot about how astonishing and profound a thoughtful gift can be. Not a gift card, not a Hallmark card. Just something that means I know who you are and I think about you.

[Noel Brown]

Gosh, yes.

[Ben Bullen]

And a disco ball. You have persuaded me, Noel. Absolutely fits that criteria.

[Noel Brown]

Well, I think so, too. And Kate Regev, an architect and historian at Zubotkin owner representation in New York City, agrees. And I think we'll close out the episode with a quote from them from that New York Times piece. I do think that there are cultural shifts, shifts that are going on that also play into the return of 1970s design. There's a decadence and exuberance in shapes and materials. Shiny metals like brass and chrome, bright patterns and bold tones like orange and avocado green. That speaks to people's interest today in moving away from the cozy, homey, comforting spaces we crave during the heat of the pandemic. I think people are looking for ways to celebrate again. They're looking for moments of joy.

[Ben Bullen]

And with that, thank you so much for tuning in. Fellow disco fans, fellow fans of Staying Alive. Staying Alive. Big, big thanks to Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams, our research associate for today's episode, Noel Brown.

[Noel Brown]

Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, the Disco Boy himself, the Disco Duck and Christopher and Eve, Jeff Coates here in spirit.

[Ben Bullen]

Also big thanks to our pals at Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you will love them. Take our word for it, they're very much disco people and I think it's time to let the ball drop.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, let's go take a little disco nap. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Bobby Bones]

Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bones Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio music festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. How did Ashes come together? Diplo?

[Diplo]

I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus and we had like three hours.

[Bailey Zimmerman]

It was really cool. He really just like randomly showed up to my house. I'm like, oh, hey Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay, you can.

[Bobby Bones]

Listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcast, podcast and big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible. Had a blast cruising around festival weekend in the all new Palisade hybrid.

[Noel Brown]

Hey, what's up?

[Mario Lopez]

It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, teacher, coach or neighbor, check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

[Lenovo Representative]

In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming [e-mail] donate dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth, high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking Win the tech search power [e-mail].

[Noel Brown]

This is Justin Richmond, host of Broken Record. Lexus is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard, which I can appreciate as someone who holds themselves to lofty, if not ridiculous standards, especially with the car I drive. The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus measures success by the feeling and emotions evoked in a driver, like exhilaration and joy. Amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level.

[Max Williams]

Level.

[Noel Brown]

The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. Machines that make you feel more human because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. This is an iHeart podcast.