The Swing Wing: From the Annals of Bad Toys for Kids (1965)

During the 1950s, when a hula hoop craze swept across America, the Carlon Products Corp. (a company that specialized in making lightweight plastic pipes), managed to produce some 50,000 hula hoops per day. That got other companies thinking. How could they capitalize on this mania, if not directly, then indirectly? When a second hula hooping craze gripped the country during the mid-1960s, Transogram Games introduced the “Swing Wing,” possibly the worst idea for a kids’ toy until Bag O’ Glass (who here remembers that classic SNL skit?). It’s a dizzying toy, backed by a dizzying — but you have to admit catchy — commercial. Buyer beware, there’s a Swing Wing on ebay. Never opened and ready to go for 53 clams.

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