SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – "SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape"

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant
Original Air Date: December 12, 2025
Episode Description:
A deep-dive into the fascinating history, wild fads, and physics of the hula hoop, tracing its journey from ancient times to American toy craze, pop culture, and modern hooping fitness.

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Episode Overview

In this fun and informative installment of the "12 Days of Christmas… Toys" series, Josh and Chuck set out to explore the humble but iconic hula hoop. Combining classic SYSK wit with curious historical dazzlers, the hosts orbit through the toy's ancient origins, mid-century American mania, surprising banned status, and its vibrant rebirth as exercise and art.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Playful Introduction & Personal Anecdotes (03:00 – 05:16)

• Josh and Chuck open with banter about adult hula-hooping embarrassment and Jerry’s imaginary "hula fire dance."
• Chuck describes seeing an "amazing" hoop dance at a local Atlanta festival, sparking his realization of the resurgence of hula hooping as both workout and performance art.
  • "I videoed it. It was so awesome." —Chuck [04:32]

Ancient History of the Hoop (05:28 – 13:57)

• Ancient Egypt (ca. 1000 BCE): Children used dried grapevines as hoops to play.
  • "There are little Egyptian children...with dried up grapevines they've made into hoops, playing with them." —Chuck [05:55]
• Ancient Greece and Rome: Hoops were used for fitness and decorated with bells; Ganymede depicted on a 5th c. BC urn with a hoop sparked Olympic speculation.
  • "Supposedly there's an old 5th century BC urn of him...and a hoop. A hula hoop." —Josh [08:24]
• Britain: Middle Ages "hoop rolling" and dangerous games like "kill the hoop" (throwing spears through rolling hoops).
• Native American Traditions: Various tribes performed ritual hoop dances, notably revived by Tony White Cloud (Yemez Pueblo) in the 1930s.
  • "By 1991 there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico." —Josh [13:36]
• Cahokia's "Chunky": Large-scale ancient game with rolling stone "hoops" and spear-throwing—more like bocce in mechanics.

The “Hula” Connection and the Modern Toy Craze (17:04 – 22:21)

• Etymology: 18th-century British sailors observed Polynesian hula dance and applied the term "hula" to the hip-gyrating hoop activity. No literal hoop in the hula dance!
  • "So the term hula became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate..." —Josh [17:59]
• Swiss Eurythmics → Australia → Wham-O (USA):
  • Swiss educator Emile Jaques-Dalcroze developed Eurythmics for dance/fitness using hoops.
  • Eurythmics imported to Australia as PE; Richard Knerr & Arthur "Spud" Melin, founders of Wham-O, took inspiration and created the plastic "hula hoop."
  • The first hoops were 40 inches, cost $1.98, and came in bright colors.
  • "Hula hoop craze in 1958 was born." —Chuck [21:46]

Hula Hoop Fad & Aftermath (21:51 – 24:01)

• The Phenomenon: 100 million sold in six months (summer-autumn 1958).
  • "Flash in the pan craze…these things were rotting in the warehouse" shortly after launch. —Josh [21:55]
• No Patent Reflection: Wham-O could not patent the hoop, only trademark the name.
  • "They trademarked the name Hula Hoop in the United States..." —Chuck [23:07]
• Competitions and Music: National contests ran 1968–1981. Numerous hula hoop songs emerged during the craze.
• Records and Endurance Feats: Not limited to the past! Modern records—e.g., hula hooping for over 74 hours (Aaron Hibbs, 2009) and spinning 132 hoops simultaneously (Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair).

Cultural Impact & Representations (26:15 – 27:14)

• The Hudsucker Proxy: The Coen Brothers' film features a fictionalized story of the hula hoop's invention, prompting a debate about the merits of Coen Brothers’ films.
  • "Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman in a fictitious tale of the invention of the Hula Hoop." —Chuck [26:51]

The Physics of Hula Hooping (30:41 – 35:14)

• Angular Momentum & Torque: Conservation of angular momentum and torque applied by hip rotation keeps the hoop up.
  • "You are the axis." —Chuck [31:37]
  • "When you move your hips around...you're applying what's called torque." —Josh [31:39]
• Friction: Friction, ironically, both slows down and keeps the hoop from falling.
  • "Ironically, that same friction is keeping it from doing that [falling]." —Josh [31:55]
• Body Mechanics: Knees, hips, ankles all involved; scientific studies confirmed variability by individual.
  • "Depends on the motion of your ocean." —Chuck [34:46]
• Notable Record: Someone hula-hooped with a 54-pound tractor tire for 70 seconds!

Types of Hoop Play & Hula-Hoop Games (35:14 – 38:06)

• Standard Hooping: Hip-rotation for endurance or speed.
• Hoop Dancing: Involves moving the hoop across neck, arms, legs for performance (becoming a modern art form).
• Hoop Rolling (Trundling): Rolling the hoop along the ground with a stick or hand, echoing ancient practice.
• Other Games: Belgian ankle skipping, hoop jumping, "return the hoop" (letting it spin back), "hoop your environment" (using hoops as islands in imaginative play).
  • "Are we gonna start doing that? ...We're gonna get emails." —Josh & Chuck exchange [36:01–36:11]

Hula Hooping as Exercise (38:10 – 40:39)

• Hoop as Fitness Phenomenon:
  • Marisa Tomei used hooping to get in shape for "The Wrestler."
  • Michelle Obama promoted hooping at the White House.
• Calorie Burn: Weighted hoops used in a study led to women burning ~210 calories in 30 mins (comparable to weightlifting).
  • "That's good exercise, people." —Chuck [39:25]
• Core Strength: Besides calorie count, hooping builds significant core strength.

Modern Hooping: Art, Culture, and Social Effects (40:44 – 43:13)

• Performance: LED and fire-decorated hoops light up music festivals.
• Long-Exposure Photography: Captures the intricate, almost chaotic paths of LED hoops.
• Performance Art: Sigalit Landau’s "Barbed Hula" (2003) used barbed wire hoop as a political statement about Israeli borders.
• Social Commentary:
  • Hula hoops were banned in 1950s Japan for being suggestive.
  • The Soviet Union decried the hula hoop as a symbol of American cultural emptiness.
  • "It was evidence of the emptiness of American culture." —Josh [42:40]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions." —Josh [05:36]
• "People would get injured...early physicians...would pull up their plague mask, just long enough to be like, stay away from hula hoops." —Josh [10:13]
• "So the term hula became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate...these British sailors ended up applying the word hula to it and it stuck." —Josh [17:59]
• "By the end of 1958, these things were rotting in the warehouse. But...they sold...100 million hula hoops." —Josh [21:58]
• "They couldn't [patent] because it was so demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it." —Josh [22:59]
• "[Hooping] is legitimate exercise...151 BPM...burning 210 calories during a half hour of hooping." —Chuck [39:17, 39:25]
• "The Soviets said that it was...evidence of the emptiness of American culture, the hula hoop craze." —Josh [42:40]

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Segment Timestamps

• Opening banter & hula hooping in adulthood: 03:00–05:16
• Ancient to pre-modern history: 05:28–13:57
• "Hula" name & global craze origins: 17:04–22:21
• Wham-O & 1958 American fad: 21:51–24:01
• Cultural sensations & odd records: 24:01–29:14
• Physics of hooping: 30:41–35:14
• Types of hoop games: 35:14–38:06
• Exercise & health benefits: 38:10–40:39
• Hooping in modern art & social critiques: 40:44–43:13

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Tone & Style

Playful, curious, and brimming with friendly skepticism, Josh and Chuck use their signature blend of humor, tangents, and deft storytelling to make the story of hula hoops as fun as the toy itself.

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For More Information

• Learn more at ...howstuffworks.com and check out SYSK’s archive for related toy and physics episodes.
• For hula hoop history: [Time Magazine, "All-Time 100 Toys"]
• For modern hoop fitness: [Journal of Physical Activity & Health]

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"First of all, Chuck, I want to do an episode...But there are so many medical myths out there that are just taken as fact."
—Josh, teeing up future SYSK deep dives [39:36]

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Sponsor/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human support for this show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, buys one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures it's time for.

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[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Okay, it's Joshy again And up next on Our playlist is our episode on hula hoops. This is a stuff you should know. Classic and hula hoops, for those of you who don't know, were this hoop that you kept going around your waist by making a hula motion. It's one of the more appropriately named toys of all time and it was a huge craze back in the 20th century. So get your time machine, leather helmet and goggles on and let's go back.

To the hula hoop.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf should know from howstuffworks.com.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. And this is Stuff youb Should Know the podcast.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

How's it going?

[Josh Clark]

It's fine.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Great.

[Josh Clark]

How's it going with you?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Good. Jerry's distracting me a little bit because all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing her new hula fire dance routine.

[Josh Clark]

It's pretty dangerous.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's dangerous, but it's interesting to see out of the corner of one's eye.

[Josh Clark]

It really is.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Performance art.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Performance hula art.

[Josh Clark]

Can you hula hoop?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I cannot, sir. I'm too self conscious too, to even try it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's a grown man, 44 year old man hula hooping.

[Josh Clark]

Plus when I do it, like as I rotate my hips, it makes the sound, say gyrate. Rotate my hips?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It makes the sound of like almost congealed jello just slopping around in a bowl. You know what I mean? I don't want to make that sound. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But I did see at the East Atlanta Strut Festivals, one of Atlanta's many great neighborhood festivals. I believe the Strut to me is known for having the better music of most of the festivals.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played Space Knife. Not Space Knife.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

This one was. I can't remember the name of this band, but that band is no longer. Now he's got a new band.

[Josh Clark]

Even that guy is always coming up with new stuff. You can never pin him down. He's too good.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You should check out Space Knife though, people on the web. Yeah, you can find it. It's good.

[Josh Clark]

It was in our TV show too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's his alter ego. But anyway, Craig's band was playing and this. I was pretty hula naive. Hoop naive at this point and a few years ago and there was this lady doing a hula routine to his band playing. And I videoed it. It was so awesome.

[Josh Clark]

So she was hoop dancing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hoop dancing?

Yeah.

Like the neck, the arms, the legs, moving around with it, like supremely talented Hooper.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you go onto the web and type in hoop dancing, it's gonna bring up some pretty impressive videos.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And it's quite a workout. I could tell. We'll get to that. But just watching her, I got tired and so I drank another beer and just listened to music. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And pretended you were hula hooping in your head.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You're like, I'm so good at this in my head.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But I was like, man, that's a thing. Again, I had no idea. But it's a big thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But it's been around for a while.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes, it has.

[Josh Clark]

For example, Chuck, did you know, as Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote this article from Stuff to Blow youw Mind.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he says that the hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

That's really saying something.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That is saying something. So let's get in the wayback machine.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, we're going way back, aren't we?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, let's go back to 1000 BC, my friend. We're in Egypt. And there are little children, Egyptian children with dried up grapevines they've made into hoops, playing with them.

[Josh Clark]

And there's some Egyptian who's like, get off of my patch of sand, kids.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, instead of a lawn.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure, I get it. That was good.

[Josh Clark]

That was all right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So they no doubt use them in similar ways that we did today. But one thing they did, which was a big sporting thing to do for a long time, which I don't get personally, the fun value that is is using a stick to push a hula hoop down the road.

[Josh Clark]

I think the fun in it is that the hula hoop as it's traveling down the road, which does seem to be the oldest use of the hoop as playtime activity. Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. It wants to fall.

[Josh Clark]

It wants to fall over. Right. So if you can keep it going, then there's probably a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction that you can carry all the way to bedtime with and maybe have good dreams because of.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I don't even see if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop. I don't see how a stick, like, how you would even push it.

[Josh Clark]

You would want a stick with maybe like a fork. No, probably something like a stick with a big wad of chewed bubble gum on it to like just have Some sort of point of contact. Because as we'll see when we talk about hula hoop physics, friction plays a big part in making hula hoops. Hula hoop?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes. Around the waist, that is.

[Josh Clark]

Well, in any. In this case as well. When the stick makes contact with the hoop, you're using friction to push it along.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, good point.

[Josh Clark]

So I see your point. Like, if you're gonna use a stick on a. Like a plastic hula hoop, it's gonna slide off or it's gonna want to.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Maybe. It scares me. That's why I think it's dumb. Maybe I would be made a fool of by the hoop. So I'm intimidated.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe at first. But, Chuck, you would have to hang in there and stick with it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an Egyptian kid.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, like an ancient Egyptian child.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well. In Rome, they decorated them with bells and things and toys. 5th century BC there's. You ever heard of Ganymede?

[Josh Clark]

Of course.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Ganymede.

[Josh Clark]

Ganymede.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Ganymede. He was a handsome hero.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, he was the handsomest. Supposedly there's an old 5th century BC urn of him where he's holding a rooster that was apparently a gift from Zeus.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And a hoop. A hula hoop. Clearly a hula hoop. And apparently this discovery. I'm not sure why it's called the Berlin Painter urn, but it is.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Again, no idea. But apparently they said, well, I wonder if hoops played a role in the earliest Olympics. And I guess they discredited that idea now, but for a while, because of this urn, this picture of Ganymede with a hoop, they wondered, was it a sport.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, an Olympic sport.

[Josh Clark]

But the Greeks supposedly did use hoops for physical fitness as like, a physical activity in very much the same way it's become popular today.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I would imagine an Olympic hula Hooper would be sort of like the, you know, the. What's the sport? The curler of today. You kind of like in ancient Greece, like, hey, what do you throw the hammer? What do you do? I'm a hula hooper.

[Josh Clark]

Although I would guess it'd probably be more akin to the Hula Hoopers of today.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, the Hooperoller is what the sport would have been.

[Josh Clark]

That'd be more like curling, right? Hula hooping. That's tough, man.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It is tough. What else? The ancient Britons, they had a game called a battle game called Kill the Hoop.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I like this one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

When they would roll the hoop and throw. Try to throw a spear through it.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Pretty neat and dangerous. And apparently they also used it in the hula method. And it would. People would get injured.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was a 15th, 14th or 15th century.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

14Th.

[Josh Clark]

Was it the 1400s or the 14th century? 14th century hula hoop craze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

In Britain. Isn't that bizarre?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It is weird.

[Josh Clark]

And. And yeah, people were getting injured. They. There was a proclamation by the early physicians. They would pull up their, like, crow's mask, their plague mask, just long enough to be like, stay away from hula hoops. Steer clear of those things.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. The warning was hoops kill was I guess what was posted on the church door.

[Josh Clark]

And this is like, in addition to being in the way of a spear that was being thrown at a rolling hoop.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, this is just from hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I would stay away from the hoops altogether if I was an ancient Briton.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because really, if you're like an ancient Briton, you're going from like 0 to 60 as far as, like, physical fitness goes. Sure. Once you're hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah. You know, just because you're not just sitting around eating lambs brains, drinking mead. What else? The Native Americans have a long culture of using the hoop. In New Mexico, the Taos Pueblo people, they use them in ritual dances, private healing ceremonies. And did you look up this chunky thing?

[Josh Clark]

No. Did you find the chunky reference?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I did. The Cahokian Native Americans.

[Josh Clark]

That was an unusual way to pronounce that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, how would you say it?

[Josh Clark]

Cahokian.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think in Native American would be Cahokian.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, that's fine.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Near St. Louis, apparently, is where they played this game Chunky, which I just had to look it up because a game called Chunky. Yeah. With an ey. And from what I saw, it was more of a small stone disc than like a hula hoop.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Looking thing.

[Josh Clark]

And you would. It was like kill the hoop, though, in Britain, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. They would throw a stick. Apparently it looked like a combination of like bocce and kill the hoop. Weird, because I think they would try and throw the spear where the disc would eventually land. And the closest to the disc one.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's how like, they're predicting where this. Where the hoop would fall. I guess this makes sense.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Although that's not really like bocce at all. I mean, I get there's a proximity element that's bocce esque.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Well put.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But I don't know. I don't know. Like, once I saw that and saw pictures. I was like, I don't even know if this should be in this article.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because it's like a small donut.

[Josh Clark]

That's a hoop of sorts.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I guess. So it's a stretch if you ask me, but it was a big Spectator Sport. Like 50 acre stadiums of people would watch this.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Would go to chunky games. Chunky matches.

[Josh Clark]

So there was chunky matches in Cahokia.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the pueblo used their. I think, as you said, they used hoops. And they weren't the only ones. There were other tribes from all over North America and Mesoamerica, I believe, that used hoops for dancing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently it was in 1930. A guy named Tony White Cloud, who was a Yemez Pueblo down in New Mexico did like a hoop dance in public and basically brought it back.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like it had been virtually lost to the ages. At least as far as the average American was concerned.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Most people didn't know this was the thing. Luckily Tony Whitecloud was like, check this out. Did an awesome hoop dance. And then by 1991 there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico. And they're a big deal still to this day.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, of course. I think. Did he kick off the American craze?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, he didn't.

[Josh Clark]

He was strictly Native American hoop dancing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Not hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay, so let's go to. Well, let's take a break actually, because this is the big revelation here.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra, SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures tired.

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[Josh Clark]

Hey, everybody.

We're hitting the road again, starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026. And eventually Canada will tell you year dates, too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs. And the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado, at the paramount theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

All right, Josh, we're at that point where mainstream America goes hoop crazy.

[Josh Clark]

But to get to that point, we actually have to go backward again in time for a second back in the Wayback Machine. So let's go.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I left it running.

[Josh Clark]

Let's go to, I don't know, Fiji or Tahiti or Polynesia. Yeah. And it's the 18th century.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

See all these British sailors.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Can we drink some rum?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. In addition to the rum we've already drank today.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right, good.

[Josh Clark]

So the British sailors that you see here are noticing a hula dance. Right. And they're filing it away in their mental catalog. And now when they reach Britain again.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Why have we been saying it like that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

They notice that it bears a striking resemblance to what people do with the hula hoop.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You gyrate every time you say that, by the way, in your seat.

[Josh Clark]

Can't not do it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

So the term hula became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate to rotate them. When you rotate your hips with the hoop. These British sailors ended up applying the word hula to it and it stuck. That's where it came from was Polynesia.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right.

Even though there was no hoop involved in Polynesia. Correct, yes. They just kind of ganked that word for their own purposes.

[Josh Clark]

It is 1997 all over again.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That was a big 90s term, wasn't it?

[Josh Clark]

Ganked, yeah. Let's go watch some X Files.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Lutz. Actually.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The movie's coming out soon, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah. They're doing another one, aren't they?

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That thing will never die.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think it should keep doing movies.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's what I say.

[Josh Clark]

So we mentioned that the Greeks, I believe, used it for physical fitness, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't think we said that.

[Josh Clark]

I think I said it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

The Swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons, too, in the 19th century and early 20th century.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Someone named Emile Jacques Dalcroze.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that was great.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's tough. Had a program called Eurythmics, which, of course, I started singing Sweet Dreams this morning, of course, because of that. And I've been singing it all day as a result. So that was a special training program and it was apparently a big deal.

[Josh Clark]

It was a big deal. So Eurythmics used hoops for basically physical fitness, but also interpretive dance, that kind of stuff. It was a combination of. It was like dance training is what I can gather. And it used hoops. The reason that we're mentioning this when we're talking about the American craze is that it directly led to the American craze, potentially because Eurythmics spread from Switzerland to Great Britain. And it was brought in as part of, like, PE class in Australia. And it was in Australia that the founders of Wham O were inspired to create the modern hula hoop that we think of today. Boom. So it's possible they watched a Eurythmics class or heard about a Eurythmics class with Australian kids and then said, well, this is clearly something of Australian design and let's bring it to the US and start a craze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They said, sweet dreams were made of these.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And this was Richard Nur and Arthur Spud. Melon. Mel. Melone. Melon sounds like M L O N. Like Thornton Mellon. Uh huh. Don't tease me with that movie, the Great Back to School. I saw a bit of that recently.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And the only thought through my head was like, man, why couldn't I have caught this from the beginning?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because I wanted to see it all.

[Josh Clark]

That and man, his son is pasty.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were saying that was a line for the movie.

[Josh Clark]

It should have been.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. His son, Keith Gordon, who became a great movie director.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. The guy from Christine and Back to School. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He gave up acting and started directing movies and directed a bunch of good movies. One called Waking the Dead. You should see.

[Josh Clark]

I thought Keith Gordon co starred in they Live.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know. Maybe. I'll have to check that. So where were we? Oh, yes. The two founders of Wham O. They said, you know what? Let's take these wooden hoops, let's make them out of polyethylene, let's make them 40 inches, and let's charge $1.98 for them and make them all kinds of fun colors.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And boom. The hula hoop craze in 1958 was born.

[Josh Clark]

Like, it was the definition of a flash in the pan craze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. A lot of money in a very short span of time.

[Josh Clark]

Like a summer, basically. Pretty much in 1958, Whamo released it. And by the end of 1958, these things were rotting in the warehouse. But in the meantime, they sold globally. Globally from the summer to the end of 1958, 100 million hula hoops.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, more than that, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Man, my brain.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, you forgot we were talking about.

[Josh Clark]

I almost said Frisbees.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Did we do one on the Frisbee? No, I thought we had, but we haven't, have we?

[Josh Clark]

No, we did one on the boomerang.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, right. Which is like a Frisbee, but not.

[Josh Clark]

It's like a dangerous Frisbee.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So they sell all these hula hoops, they make a ton of money, like, you know, over $50 million in a short span of time, which I'm sure they weren't happy with that. It didn't last. But they were also probably like an injection of cash. Like, that is great for any business. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Then they moved on to the Frisbee and made even more money.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they couldn't because it was so demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Nope.

[Josh Clark]

But they trademarked it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They did. They trademarked the name Hula Hoop in the United States, which is why we still call it Hula Hoop today, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It just became the name.

[Josh Clark]

We should probably put the title with a R in a circle for this.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah, we should do that. Like Barbie.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It was named the number 35 toy of all time by Time magazine.

[Josh Clark]

And they know toys.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They know their toys. And then from 1968 to 1981, there were national hula hoop contests held. And I guess in the early 80s, people were finished with it.

[Josh Clark]

There were also, like, a tremendous amount of music, like musical singles released called the Hula Hoop Song.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Different people recorded different songs about hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Doesn't surprise me.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was a craze. Big time.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And you say that they were done with it by the 80s. Not true.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

What? The national competitions there is.

[Josh Clark]

So if you look at hula hooping records.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The most recent hula hoop record is from 2009.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, but was that part of a national competition?

[Josh Clark]

Probably. Or just a guy named Aaron Hibbs. He hula hooped. Just hula hooped for 74 hours and 54 minutes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

He broke the record of.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I couldn't even stand up for that long.

[Josh Clark]

He broke the record of a girl named Kim Koberly. She held the record twice in 1978 with 54 hours and in 1984 for 72 hours.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Which is pretty impressive.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. People do, like, hundreds of them at once. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's a guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair, who set the record in 2009 with 132hoops at the same time.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow. That's impressive.

[Josh Clark]

He's basically probably just like. Like the Michelin man made of hula hoops.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Did I ever tell you about the Surface Area man costume in Athens?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I was out on Halloween in Athens in college, and there was a dude. I know the guy. His name is Blake. He has. You may have seen him. He had big red dreadlocks. Kind of a short guy. Just a ubiquitous Athens dude. No, he lives kind of in my neighborhood now. I still see him every once in a while. We called him Sideshow Blake. Because of Sideshow Bob.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And he came in the bar, in the Georgia bar, and he had these foam discs around his arms, around his legs, around his waist and neck that were huge. Like, probably four feet across. And he was Surface Area Man. And that was just his costume, because when he moved around, he took up, like, you know, probably 75 square feet of space. And he would just move through the bar and say, I'm Surface Area Man. And I'll always remember every time I see Blake, I saw him at the grocery store the other day.

[Josh Clark]

Was he dressed like that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, but I was like, he wouldn't fit down the grocery aisle.

[Josh Clark]

Does he have dreads? Still?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Does he really?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Still rocking the red dreads?

[Josh Clark]

He's dedicated.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

He looks exactly the same, actually. But we weren't friends. I could actually. Next time I see him, actually, I'm gonna just walk by him and go. Surface area, man.

[Josh Clark]

You should.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I'm gonna do it. All right. Let's talk about the Hudsucker proxy for a quick moment and then we'll take another break.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Did you ever see that one?

[Josh Clark]

I don't think I made it through that one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

The Coen Brothers.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Not all of their movies are great.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I disagree.

[Josh Clark]

I love the Coen Brothers, but some of their movies stink.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, boy. They're part of my 100% club, where every movie they've made has been great.

[Josh Clark]

That is wrong.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Which other ones don't you like?

[Josh Clark]

The man who Wasn't There Loved it. Bob Robertson.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They didn't. That wasn't theirs.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it was terrible.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Well, the Hudsucker proxy too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I liked it. I would put it at Lesser Cohen's for sure.

[Josh Clark]

You'd have to.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But I enjoyed it quite a bit. Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman in a fictitious tale of the invention of the Hula Hoop. It is not the true biopic of the invention of the Hula Hoop. But they co opted it for one of their movies and it was nothing. Pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But that's just me.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. All right, so go ahead.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, no, that was it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I just wanted to shout it out.

[Josh Clark]

Fine. Well, then let's take a break because we're about to get into physics.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And hoop games.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. After this.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey everybody.

We're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs, and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets@stuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Josh Clark]

No country for Old Men. Terrible. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, you like that one?

[Josh Clark]

I love that one. That's maybe the best. Raising Arizona is probably the best.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It'd be tough for me to pick on any given day, but Fargo is the one I can watch over and over and over.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, I would say those three are tied for first.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Did we just come back from the break? Just segueing right back into the comments.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right, let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

We'll see how Jerry edits this.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So let's it wouldn't be a Stuff youf Should Know podcast if we didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly unscientific.

[Josh Clark]

Well, hula hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, you know, but super complex. Super complex.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

There's just a few things.

[Josh Clark]

We are not in agreement on stuff today, are we?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know what's going on.

[Josh Clark]

So let's say you have a hula hoop, right. And it's around your waist and you take it and you throw it. You have it up against maybe one hip. It's making contact with your body.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You're starting in the traditional way then.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. And you whip it around to one side, and as you do, you start rotating your hips.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You're gyrating, right?

[Josh Clark]

I'm rotating my hips, Chuck.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And as you do that, when you rotate your hips, what you're doing is, first of all, you're conserving the angular momentum you gave the hula hoop when you pushed it in a certain direction, twisted it around yourself, Right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. You are the axis.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. You are the axis.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And when you move your hips around, when you rotate your hips, you're applying what's called torque.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Because all this hoop wants to do is fall down around on the ground and make you look foolish.

[Josh Clark]

It wants to stop. Well, no, it doesn't want to stop because of inertia. It wants to keep going, but it can't because of friction. But it wants to fall down to the ground like you said and make you look foolish. But ironically, that same friction is keeping it from doing that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Who is the fool now? Hoop.

[Josh Clark]

The hula hoop.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Fool.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right. Did you talk about the torque?

[Josh Clark]

I did talk about torque. And torque is a twisting force where you're twisting your hips and you're thrusting the hula hoop around in the circle. And what you're doing there is contributing to the centripetal force.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right. Centrifugal.

[Josh Clark]

No, centripetal, two different things. Is a force that moves at a right angle to the motion of your body. So it keeps that thing, whatever it is, say hula hoop or tractor tire, which, by the way, someone set a record. Hula hooping with a tractor tire.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Shut up.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for like 70 seconds. A 54 pound tire.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

How big was a person?

[Josh Clark]

I'm sure he's ginormous. I think he was from like Belarus or something, you know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, yeah, they do that on a daily basis.

[Josh Clark]

So with the centripetal force, since it's going at a right angle to the direction that you're thrusting your hips.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's constantly going to move around a circle on the axis. That is centripetal force.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Boom.

[Josh Clark]

Centripetal motion, I should say.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes. And when this hoop wants to fall, of course we're talking about gravity. Gravity wants to win that fight. But if you keep that pulsing gyration Going, then you're going to keep that hoop just a little ahead of the curve.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's apparently the key. And Robert puts this in here as a kind of like a throwaway thing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that is the thing that's the.

[Josh Clark]

Key of hula hooping is you want your hip to move just before that. That, I guess, wave that comes in contact with your body again. Comes in contact.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's almost like around a catch and release in a way.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like you're catching it on your hip and then slinging it back around. No, I'm gyrating.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you are.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

There's a lot of gyrating going on in this room right now.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

There is.

[Josh Clark]

It's crazy.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So there's a few different parts of the body at work. I don't know why in 2004 they needed a 15 page study in the Journal of Biological Cybernetics to figure this out. Because if you just look at somebody, you can tell that the hips, knees and ankles are really what's at play keeping that thing going. And that's if you're just doing the hip. Hula hoop, not using neck and legs and all that.

[Josh Clark]

Of course. Yeah, just the standard hooping. Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And so another study, I think four years later in the Journal of Human Movement Science, I don't know why they.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Needed that one either.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they built upon this 2004 study and said, okay, you use your hips, knees and ankles. Everybody uses it. But depending on the individual, there'll be different contributions from the hips, knees, or ankle.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Depends on the motion of your ocean.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. So it's like the individual. Everybody uses the same parts, but they use them in different percentages to come up with the hula hooping motion.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I bet certain body types are better at this than others, too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's slim.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, probably.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So the one in front of Craig's band, she was pretty slim, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

She was working that thing, man. It was like. It was pretty amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Hula hoop.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So that's hoop dancing. When we'll finish up here with some other games.

[Josh Clark]

Well, we didn't talk about hoop dancing. We were just talking about hula hooping.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, we talked about hoop dancing at the beginning with that lady.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay, so that's hoop dancing.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's when you, you know, it's around the neck and then you work it down around your hips and then up one arm and then up the other arm.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's pretty impressive, your standard hula hooping, of course, which we've covered. Speed, endurance, depends on what you're after.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like I want to do this for 20 minutes or I want to do it 74 hours really fast for five minutes.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hoop rolling.

[Josh Clark]

That's one of my favorites.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hoop trundling.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like you're a little ancient Egyptian kid.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I would like to see you do that hoop rolling.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, let's do it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Let's do a video for that.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. We could do a periscope of it. Oh yeah, let's do that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Are we gonna start doing that?

[Josh Clark]

We could do at least one of me hoop rolling.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think people, we're gonna get emails.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They'll turn out in droves to see that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure. Hundreds of people will show up for that.

[Josh Clark]

There's one not on this list that I want to give a shout out to.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right. What?

[Josh Clark]

It was invented apparently in Belgium. They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping. It's where you put the hula hoop on one foot around one ankle and you use it to hula hoop. You make the hula hoop motion with that one and as it comes around you jump through the hoop with the other one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I can't believe it wasn't on this list.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's a solid hoop endeavor, but.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently it's a pretty recent invention from like the 60s.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, really? Alright, that makes sense. That's sort of like hoop jumping, but not quite.

[Josh Clark]

No, hoop jumping is more like jump roping with a hula hoop.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, but that kind of reminds me of that too.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hoop jumping is when you hold the hula hoop the top of it and then you swing it around your body and jump up and down.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like you have nothing better to do in life.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Like you can't find a jump rope. You haven't heard of those before.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Return the hoop. This is the only one I was ever good at. That's when you hold it vertically and you fling it out as hard as you can backwards and it sort of spins in place and comes back to you.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And if you're not expecting it, you're going to turn and run because it is startling.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

We've already talked about kill the hoop. We don't recommend you use spears to do that.

[Josh Clark]

Or just make sure nobody's in the vicinity of where the hoop is. Yeah. You don't want to combine hoop trundling and kill the hoop because you'll kill the hoop. Trundler.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No. And I'm not even going to cover this last one. I dare you to though.

[Josh Clark]

I like this One hoop your environment. Yeah, go ahead. So it's like you put hula hoops around and you jump from them like they're. They're islands and there's lava in between.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

What's wrong with that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Too childish?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, I'm very childish. But I don't know, it just didn't.

[Josh Clark]

There's a. You're childlike, not childish.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Big difference, man.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, we talked about exercise. It is legitimate exercise. Our hula hoop classes. Now, apparently, Marisa Tomei, the actor, took hoop fitness classes to lose weight or to get in shape for her movie The Wrestler. In 2008. First Lady Michelle Obama very famously hoop worked out. Yeah. Hooped the lawn of the White House to say, hey, kids, get active.

[Josh Clark]

And at the U.S. open.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. You can still have fun by doing this.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And they even did another study to see what kind of calories you could burn.

[Josh Clark]

Lots of hoop studies.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Too many. They took women between 16 and 59 and said, go crazy and hoop. And they asked for half an hour. Yeah. And they were weighted hoops too, by the way. Which is not to say they were super heavy. They're generally still pretty lightweight.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But strangely, a weighted hoop is easier to keep going.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes. Which makes sense, I think. And they average 151 beats per minute. BPM.

[Josh Clark]

Heartbeat.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, heartbeats.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, their heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Tribe Called Quest would be proud.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And that is burning 7 calories a minute or 210 calories during a half hour of hooping. So that's good exercise, people.

[Josh Clark]

That's like weightlifting type calorie burn.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Plus also, like, if you just break it down to calorie burn. First of all, Chuck, I want to do an episode and I'm not quite sure how to frame it yet. It doesn't have a thesis. But there are so many medical myths out there that are just taken as fact.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Even by the medical establishment. Even though if you asked a doctor, is this fact, they would be like, no, no. Actually, it's not like drinking eight glasses of water a day. Totally made up.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I knew you were going to say that one.

[Josh Clark]

I think we should do one on myths sometime.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

What do you think we should have? We not.

[Josh Clark]

No. Like, part of me wants to say we have, but I think things have just come up, like here or there over the years. Anyway, even if you take the calories out of the equation, just hula hooping, the standard hip gyration hula hoop will really, really work out your core.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. You Need a hula hoop?

[Josh Clark]

No, you can just sit in your chair and do what I'm doing now. Yeah, like, I'm getting. I'm sweating right now.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You totally are.

[Josh Clark]

My lip, my upper lip is broken out in perspiration.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Modern hooping. Burlesque uses hoops. If you go to any music festival these days, you're going to see the ladies like I was talking about. Or they might have them decked out with LEDs or even fire.

[Josh Clark]

Well, what's neat is LED. Hula hoops in particular are really displaying, like, the physics of hula hoops. Pretty neat through, like. What's that type of photography?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Lsd?

[Josh Clark]

No, no. What's that? Photography where you just keep the shutter open. So high exposure or long exposure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, you just said it. Keeping that shutter open. It's like when you see the pictures of the cars on the freeway at night and it's just like a long trail of headlights.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but there are photos out there of LED hula hoops there. It's just like, you can see they don't just keep, like a flat path, they go all over the place in some way. It's really neat.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's pretty cool. What about this lady, the Israeli sculptor? Did you watch that?

[Josh Clark]

I saw a couple pictures of it, yes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Her name is Sigelet landau. And in 2003, she did a performance art political statement piece where she did. It was called Barbed Hula and she was naked and hula hooped with a.

[Josh Clark]

Barbed wire hula hoop that just tore her abdomen up. Yeah, it's really rough.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, it was pretty disturbing. But she said she was on an Israeli beach that she defined as the only calm and natural border Israel has. So she was making a statement, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

Well, she's an artist.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's what they do.

[Josh Clark]

I got a couple of last things.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Let's hear it.

[Josh Clark]

In the. That hula hoop craze of the 50s in America.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Not the. Not the 14th century Britain one. Okay. It was. In Japan, it was banned. The hula hoop was banned because they were worried it was gonna lead to actual stuff. Things happening. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Gyrating hips.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And apparently the Soviets said that it was a. It was evidence of the emptiness of American culture. The hula hoop creates.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Leave it to the Soviets to be like Americans. Come on. They hated America. Do you remember when the Iron Curtain fell and you were like, oh, wait a minute, like, everything we were taught about the Soviet Union was basically made up.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And they were like, you know, the average Russian was like, A good person.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the average Russian was a lot like the average American.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Drunk on vodka.

[Josh Clark]

I'm gonna live forever. All right, that's it. If you want to know more about hula hoops, you can type that word into the search [e-mail] and since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I'm gonna call this anorexia. Did you read this one?

[Josh Clark]

No. See how I missed that one?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hey, guys, I'm a huge fan and want to let you know how you How Stuff youf Should Know has helped me over the years. I began listening. I love these. Began listening at the age of 12, and I'm now turning 18 August 9th. Stuff you should know has played a part in the young adult I've become. At 12, I was diagnosed with restrictive anorexia, was hospitalized for about a month, and did day treatment for almost a year. After leaving treatment for the day, I'd religiously put on my headphones and turn on stuff you should know. The podcast was really helpful on bad days, especially if I had just had an argument with my parents or a difficulty meal. Your humor was especially helpful. I remember laughing out loud many times in the car, which was quite a rare occurrence. I'm pretty solid in recovery now, but your podcast also helped me gain a better relationship with my sibling. My eating disorder caused a lot of tension between my sibling and I for quite a few years, but one day I invited her to listen to your podcast. Sophie Schneau quickly became a part of her commute to university class. We occasionally would discuss the podcast topics.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

We now have a tradition, and I love this part, too. We now have a tradition of listening to the Christmas extravaganza together while in winter break, which is what we want people to do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, man.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

To gather the family and make this a thing.

[Josh Clark]

Eat some plum pudding.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Even though I don't know what we're. We're gonna get pretty slim on Christmas topics.

[Josh Clark]

I've got at least one great topic already. Yeah, we need to start looking now that you're right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. We've even gifted each other matching stuff you should know shirts. One year more recently, I received a very urgent text letting me know in all caps that you guys were coming to Minneapolis this fall. And another text to let me know that Chuck's daughter Ruby shares the same birthday is our father. And I want to point out again. And Josh.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, the triumvirate.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right.

Your podcast gives us endless topics and inside jokes. And I can't thank you enough for bringing us closer together. Thanks again for being such a big part of my formative years. My sister and I can't wait to see you guys in Minneapolis this fall. That is from Emily and she said please shout out her sister Megan.

[Josh Clark]

Awesome, Emily. Thank you for telling us all that, like, that really means the world to us.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes. And best of luck in your continued recovery. That is tough stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And congratulations too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, we should do an eating disorder podcast at some point. That one's been hanging out there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, there's like a whole. There's like this new idea that like, almost everybody has an eating disorder in America these days of some kind. Yeah. Like, typically binge eating is like a huge thing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we should definitely do that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you very much, Emily, and hello sister Megan. We appreciate you guys listening and hopefully we'll see you guys in Minneapolis when we come in October.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And you know what, actually write me back. We'll put you on the guest list.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

How about that?

[Josh Clark]

So nice.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Free tickets for YouTube.

[Josh Clark]

Wow, that is something.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Just for YouTube.

[Josh Clark]

No guess, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Just kidding.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you need to lay it down. We should probably have a legal disclaimer added after this too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, we might hear from a lot of Emily and Megan's in Minnesota.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com you can send us an email at stuffpodcaststuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyou should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right, we're going to do at least three legs, and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets@stuffyou should know.com click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right, we can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Guaranteed Human.