50 Fun Facts About Fads and Crazes

Which fad of Christmas 1975 lasted about six months yet made advertising executive Gary Dahl a millionaire?

The Pet Rock was a plain stone sold in a cardboard carrier with air holes and straw bedding. Dahl sold nearly 1.5 million of them at just under $4 each.

Which US agency banned Furby toys from its offices in the late 1990s, fearing they might repeat secrets?

The NSA suspected the chattering toys held a chip that could learn and replay classified talk. Furby's maker replied that the toy could not record anything at all.

In which country did 1630s 'tulip mania' push one rare bulb's price past ten years of a craftsman's pay?

The Netherlands, then the Dutch Republic, saw tulip prices peak and abruptly collapse in February 1637. The costliest variety, Semper Augustus, fetched 10,000 guilders.

Which Wham-O toy started a 1958 fad that sold twenty-five million in under four months?

The Hula hoop was a plastic copy of the bamboo rings Australian children twirled around their waists. Sales passed 100 million within two years.

The teddy bear craze of the 1900s took its name from which US president, who refused to shoot a tied-up bear?

Theodore Roosevelt called shooting the tethered animal unsportsmanlike on a 1902 hunt in Mississippi. A newspaper cartoon of the scene inspired candy-shop owner Morris Michtom to make a toy cub.

Which dolls, each sold with adoption papers, had shoppers fighting in American stores before Christmas 1983?

Cabbage Patch Kids were so scarce that shoppers shoved and trampled one another to grab one. Coleco had only begun mass-producing the soft-bodied dolls in 1982.

Sea-Monkeys, sold through comic book ads since the 1960s, are really which tiny creatures?

Brine shrimp eggs can lie dormant for years when dry, so the animals seem to burst into life once water is added. Inventor Harold von Braunhut first sold them as Instant Life.

The 1970s mood ring claimed to reveal emotions, but its liquid crystals actually change colour with what?

Temperature is all a mood ring measures: its liquid crystals shift colour as the wearer's finger warms or cools. The idea was borrowed from medical thermometers.

Many airlines banned 'hoverboards', the celebrity-endorsed scooter fad of 2015, because their batteries kept doing what?

Catching fire was the flaw: overheating lithium-ion packs were tied to 60 blazes in over 20 US states. More than 500,000 of the scooters were recalled in America in 2016.

Which American singer's chart-topping 1960 single turned the Twist into a worldwide dance craze?

Chubby Checker cut his version after TV host Dick Clark judged the original, by Hank Ballard's group, too raunchy for teenagers. Ballard wrote it after watching teens dance in Tampa.

The Rubik's Cube, a craze that sold about 200 million between 1980 and 1983, was invented in which country?

Hungary was where architecture professor Ernő Rubik invented the puzzle in 1974. It first went on sale in Budapest as the Magic Cube, three years before its worldwide launch.

Los del Río, the duo behind the 1996 dance craze the Macarena, came from which country?

Spain's Los del Río recorded the song in 1993, but it took a Miami remix with added English verses to top the US chart for 14 weeks in 1996.

Which toymaker launched the Tamagotchi in 1996, the egg-shaped digital creature that died if its owner neglected it?

Bandai sold about 40 million of the original Tamagotchi. Demand ran so high that its staff were told not to carry bags showing the company logo, for fear of theft.

Which 2016 smartphone game sent crowds roaming parks and streets to collect creatures overlaid on the real world?

Pokémon Go used a phone's location and camera to place monsters in real places, and passed 500 million downloads. Railway officials had to warn players off the tracks.

Which palm-sized toy built around a ball bearing was banned by many schools during a 2017 craze?

The fidget spinner was sold as a stress reliever and focus aid, but teachers in the US, UK and Australia said it wrecked classroom discipline.

Tickle Me Elmo, the giggling plush toy parents fought over at Christmas 1996, came from which television series?

Sesame Street's red monster became a doll that shook and laughed when squeezed. With shelves empty, scalpers resold the $28.99 toy for as much as $1,500.

The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge, with its filmed soakings in freezing water, raised money to fight which illness?

Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, drew more than $115 million in donations from the stunt in 2014 alone. Before it went viral, only half of Americans had heard of the condition.

Which 2012 song, with its horse-riding dance, became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views?

Gangnam Style, by the rapper Psy, reached a billion views on December 21, 2012. Its title refers to the lavish lifestyles of one district of Seoul.

Which newspaper bought Wordle in 2022, three months after the five-letter guessing game was released to the public?

The New York Times paid a low seven-figure sum for the game. Welsh engineer Josh Wardle had built it as a private pastime for himself and his partner.

Which Oscar-winning actress fuelled the 1980s aerobics craze with a chart-topping home exercise video?

Jane Fonda's Workout, released in 1982, was the first home video other than a film to top the sales charts. Her series of tapes went on to sell 17 million copies.

Which frontiersman, played by Fess Parker in a 1950s Disney series, set off a nationwide craze for coonskin caps?

Davy Crockett caps sold at a rate of 5,000 a day at the fad's peak. By the end of 1955 Americans had spent over $300 million on merchandise tied to the series.

Which billionaire businessman created Beanie Babies, the plush animals he 'retired' to keep 1990s collectors hunting?

Ty Warner launched the toys in 1993 and sold them through small independent shops rather than big chains. Profits from the fad later bought him a Four Seasons hotel.

Pogs, the 1990s game of stacking and flipping cardboard discs, took its name from a juice sold in which US state?

Hawaii's POG drink blends passionfruit, orange and guava. Children on Maui were flipping milk-bottle caps by 1927, and promotional caps printed for the juice in the 1970s gave the game its name.

Pedro Flores, whose California factories set off the yo-yo craze of the late 1920s, had emigrated from which country?

The Philippines had played with the toy for hundreds of years. Flores began with a dozen handmade ones in 1928, and by late 1929 his plants were turning out 300,000 a day.

The Frisbee owes its name to a Connecticut bakery whose empty what were tossed around by Yale students?

Pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company were stamped with the bakery's name. Wham-O renamed its Pluto Platter disc in 1957 after learning that students called it by that name.

Troll dolls, the wild-haired figures that became a huge American toy fad in the early 1960s, came from which country?

Denmark's Thomas Dam, a fisherman and woodcutter, carved the first trolls from wood for his children while money was tight. His factory switched to PVC plastic in 1961.

Wham-O's ultra-bouncy 1960s craze ball inspired football executive Lamar Hunt to name which championship game?

The Super Bowl got its name after Hunt watched his children play with a Super Ball. He admitted in a 1966 letter to the NFL that the jokey label could surely be improved upon.

The 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, in which servicemen attacked young men wearing the baggy fashion, erupted in which city?

Los Angeles servicemen stripped the suits from mostly Mexican American youths, calling so much cloth unpatriotic while fabric was rationed for the war.

The 1939 campus fad of swallowing live goldfish is said to have begun with a freshman's $10 bet at which university?

Harvard freshman Lothrop Withington Jr. reportedly gulped one down while running for class president. Rival campuses raced to beat the tally, and a society formed to protect the fish.

Which 1920s endurance fad was led by former sailor Alvin 'Shipwreck' Kelly, who once kept it up for 49 days?

Flagpole sitting took off after Kelly perched for 13 hours and 13 minutes in 1924. His 49-day stint came in Atlantic City, and the fad faded with the Great Depression.

Which endurance craze of the 1920s and 1930s kept exhausted couples on their feet for weeks to win prize money?

Dance marathons made couples keep moving for 45 minutes of every hour, around the clock. In the Depression the prize could match a year's salary, with free meals along the way.

Which 2003 craze, started in Manhattan by a magazine editor, had strangers gather suddenly, act oddly and vanish?

The flash mob was devised by Bill Wasik of Harper's Magazine, who called it a social experiment about conformity. The first to succeed filled a Macy's store in June 2003.

Which dance craze, launched by the 1923 Broadway musical Runnin' Wild, swept the dance halls of the mid-1920s?

The Charleston is named after the harbour city in the Carolinas and was at its height from mid-1926 to 1927. Its signature tune was written by pianist James P. Johnson.

Which publisher scored an instant hit in 1924 with the first crossword puzzle book, sold with a pencil attached?

Simon & Schuster took the idea from co-founder Richard Simon's aunt, and the book turned crosswords into the craze of 1924. The firm even founded a national league for amateur solvers.

Sudoku, a worldwide newspaper craze in 2005, got its name in which country, where it first caught on in the 1980s?

Japan's puzzle firm Nikoli coined the name in 1986, yet the grid itself was most likely designed by Howard Garns, a retired architect from Indiana.

Which 1970s craze, boosted by the trucker hit 'Convoy', had drivers chatting under nicknames known as handles?

CB radio spread after the 1973 oil crisis, when truckers used it to find fuel and warn one another of speed traps under the 55 mph limit.

Which colour were the Livestrong wristbands of 2004, chosen to echo the leader's jersey in the Tour de France?

Yellow silicone bands went on sale in May 2004 to raise money for Lance Armstrong's cancer charity, and most of that summer's Tour contenders were seen wearing one.

Crocs, the foam clogs that became a 2000s footwear craze, were first unveiled in 2002 at which kind of event?

A boat show in Fort Lauderdale saw the first model, the Beach, sell out all 200 pairs. The design had been bought from a Quebec firm called Foam Creations.

Trivial Pursuit, the quiz board game that had sold 20 million copies by 1986, was invented in which country?

Canada's Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, a photo editor and a sports editor, devised it in Montreal in 1979. Most accounts say a session of Scrabble sparked the idea.

Disco Demolition Night, a 1979 backlash against the disco craze, ended in a riot at which kind of sporting event?

A baseball game in Chicago fell into chaos when a crate of records was blown up on the field and thousands of fans stormed it. The White Sox had to forfeit the night's second match.

At the 1974 Oscars, during the streaking fad, a naked man ran past which host as he introduced Elizabeth Taylor?

David Niven recovered at once with a dry ad-lib about the man's shortcomings. The streaker, Robert Opel, flashed a peace sign as he crossed the stage on live television.

Students in which country set a 1959 phone booth stuffing record by squeezing 25 people into a single booth?

South Africa's record was set at the Durban YMCA in March 1959. A California college that tried to break it restaged its attempt in daylight for a Life magazine photographer.

Edward Craven Walker launched the lava lamp in 1963 after spotting a homemade egg timer in a pub in which country?

Britain's Craven Walker saw the timer, a cocktail shaker bubbling on a stove, and turned the idea into the Astro lamp, first produced commercially in Poole, Dorset.

Silly Putty, sold in plastic eggs since 1950, came out of wartime research into a substitute for which material?

Rubber was scarce in World War II, and the hunt for a synthetic version produced a bouncing, stretching goo instead. Marketer Peter Hodgson borrowed $147 to sell it as a toy.

Which retailer sold America's first mahjong sets in 1920, at the start of a craze for the Chinese tile game?

Abercrombie & Fitch went on to sell some 12,000 sets. A rule book by Joseph Babcock, who had learned to play while living in China, simplified things for American beginners.

Which producer's 2012 track was the soundtrack to the thousands of Harlem Shake videos uploaded in February 2013?

Baauer's song gave the clips their shape: one masked person dances alone for 15 seconds, then the bass drops and the whole room goes wild.

Hacky Sack, the footbag craze of the early 1980s, was invented in 1972 by two friends from which US state?

Oregon City was home to Mike Marshall and John Stalberger, who created it. Stalberger carried on after Marshall died in 1975 and sold the name to Wham-O in 1983.

Flappy Bird, the 2014 mobile craze its creator deleted at the height of its fame, was developed in which country?

Vietnam's Dong Nguyen built it in a few days and was earning $50,000 a day from adverts when he pulled it, saying he felt guilty about how addictive it had become.

Which entrepreneur bought Pedro Flores's yo-yo company around 1929 and put his own surname on the toy for decades?

Donald Duncan took over the firm, the Flores name included, and his company held the Yo-Yo trademark until a 1965 court ruled that the word had entered common speech.

The Floss, an arm-swinging dance craze in school playgrounds, spread largely through which video game?

Fortnite added the move as a character emote in 2017, a year after a 14-year-old's video first made it go viral. The boy's mother later sued the makers over the dance.