More Fads: The 1960's

I'm not going to shit you, after the fad orgy of the 1950's any other decade is going to leave a little something to be desired in the fad department, even the go-go 1960's. But that doesn't mean the era of civil rights and dirty young people didn't have its share of fads worthy of posthumous ridicule. And few can get this embarrassing party started like the limbo.

The limbo originated in Trinidad, an island nation famous for its undersized novelty houses. The native people of this isolated island were so cut off from the rest of the world that they only heard of larger global trends and ideas through rumors, passed through a chain of nearby islands like an absurdly drawn-out game of "telephone." Because of this fact Trinidad developed many absurd traditions, including a virulent bias for shortness, which came about in a confused misunderstanding of the greater world's preference for tall individuals.

Trinidadians took to this adopted prejudice with a passion, and before long every native was trying to out-short the others. Trinidadians blessed with impressive squatness would revel in their ability to pass under low tree branches and would cruelly taunt the island's unfortunate taller inhabitants, asking them if would kindly clean out the ceilings of caves with their hair and screaming for them to duck when birds flew by.

Eventually this short one-upsmanship became ingrained in society, and a huge premium was placed on living in shorter and shorter houses. Soon most homes were barely three feet tall, and residents had to enter by leaning way back and waddling forward with bent knees, a practice visitors to the island dubbed "limboing" due to their lack of imagination.

In time, pretending to be shorter than you actually are became something of a sport in Trinidad, and in 1958 national limbo champion Dolores Reyes set a world record by limboing her way into a casket 6 1/8 inches tall before she expired. This feat caught the eye of Hollywood producers, who promptly made the world's first limbo movie in 1960. The grammatically-incorrect "Where the Boys Are?" featured the hottest young milkfed stars of the day limboing under various objects to try and find out where the heck all the boys went. The film was terrible but a huge hit, as teens of the day loved any odd, kitschy behavior and bright jazzy images flickering on the big screen. The trend caught fire and spread to the wider world, and almost instantly people everywhere were hurting themselves trying to limbo.

Meanwhile back in America, superballs were created when scientists at Cornell University were trying to develop bouncy-shoes that would allow them to bound into treetops and peek through the windows of the girls' dormitory showers next door. The shoes were a failure, as the first scientist to try them broke his neck after bouncing through the window of a nearby umbrella factory. But the scientists discovered something interesting while they were throwing the leftover shrapnel from the shoes at each other: It was fun. The ball-shaped fragments were outrageously bouncy, and seemed to have a special knack for gaining speed immediately before they ricocheted right into somebody's eyeball. They also made a hilarious sound when deflected off an unsuspecting skull.

These superballs became a huge hit as toys, gaining initial popularity only because guys wanted to tell girls they had "super balls" but then growing into a national mania as their considerable potential for mayhem was realized. Flinging superballs into cramped men's rooms and running away became a popular hobby, and several hit comedy records were released that featured nothing but the startled screams of superball victims.

Sea Monkeys were the hit pet of the 1960's, which should go a long way toward answering any questions about how much drugs people actually did in the 60's. Discovered gumming up California toy mogul Walter Gallagher's pool after he got back from a six-month peyote binge in Sri Lanka, sea monkeys were originally marketed as food for pet baleen whales. Realizing he was aiming for something of a niche market, once his swimming-pool stock ran out Gallagher changed gears and began selling packets of the tiny brine shrimp as pets for retards and mental patients.

Under Gallagher's original scheme, he sealed the "Sea Monkeys" in little paper packets so that they were cheap to mail, and if anybody complained that they had a bunch of dead brine shrimp floating in their aquarium he'd just tell them that's what "Sea Monkeys" do: float around like they're dead. It was a genius plan, since only a few of the nation's top nerds knew what brine shrimp actually did in the wild. As long as he didn't sell any Sea Monkeys to those guys, Gallagher would be fine.

To his great surprise however, the brine shrimp not only survived the mailing process, but actually seemed to enjoy it, as it imitated the way they are shipped in the wild. Soon, every kid in America had a plastic bowl of fetid tap water sitting on their desk, clouded with a bunch of tiny wet fleas. And fun was had by all. Actually, most kids added Kool-Aid to the water so they'd have psychedelic Sea Monkeys for a few days before they all died, but this was a natural response to being jobbed into thinking they were getting some magical mermaid king and queen pet family when they bought the kit.

The 1960's saw the birth of many other short-lived trends, from granny glasses to glassless glasses and glass underwear. America was also introduced to the skateboard, one of the rare fads you could break your neck enjoying. Tune in for our next installment where we'll further examine America's century-long aversion to wising up. I'm Griswald Dreck, and if you didn't hear it here, it's a load.

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