The men who started all the current whoopee in hoops are Toymakers Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr, 33-year-old owners of the Wham-O Manufacturing Co. of San Gabriel. Calif. Last March, while attending a New York toy fair, they got a tip from an acquaintance on a wooden hoop popular in Australia. Melin and Knerr turned out a score of wooden hoops, did not like them, started experimenting in plastics. In May they made some 3-ft. hoops out of brightly colored polyethylene tubing. Melin field-tested them on some neighborhood children—and a national fad started. From children's games, the hoop soon...
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