Toying with toys and making it big

On June 23, 1980, American inventor Arthur Melin, along with several others, filed a patent for a water play toy on behalf of Wham O Manufacturing Company. Melin and his friend, fellow inventor Richard Knerr, sold their Wham O company in 1982 – the year this patent was granted – but it wasn’t before they had spent decades whipping up frenzies like never before. A.S.Ganesh tells you how Melin and Knerr mixed serendipity and hard work to succeed in the toy industry…

When do you grow up? Is it when you become tall enough that you can reach the highest shelves, even fetching stuff for others in the household on occasions? Or, is it when you put on enough weight to be able to lug around things when needed? Or, are you considered grown up when you stop playing with toys?

There’s no one way to answer our initial question, really. But if we are going to take the final parameters suggested as our means to find out, then American inventors Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr never grew up! They surely did grow up, obviously. But they remained children at heart as they went on to spend a lifetime with toys. 

Born within six months of each other (Melin was born on December 30, 1924, Knerr was born on June 30, 1925), Melin and Knerr were boyhood friends who went to the University of Southern California together. Breeding falcons was a hobby that they shared at this point, and training the falcons to dive was something that they relished. 

They did this by lobbing meatballs at them on the wing, which they achieved using a home-made version of a slingshot as their projectile launcher. While they tried to sell their birds to enthusiasts without much luck, they got more traction for their launcher instead. 

As both of them weren’t too keen to join in their fathers’ businesses, they decided to make the most of the interest people showed in their slingshots. With a $7 down payment at Sears, Roebuck & Company, they purchased a power saw and set shop in Knerr’s parents’ Los Angeles garage. While Melin cut shots with the saw, Knerr sanded it and they were both involved in the business of selling it – first personally, and then through postal orders countrywide. The Wham-O Manufacturing Company was thus born in 1948.

They called it Wham-O for the sound a slingshot made when it hit its target. They expanded slowly, first moving out of the garage to a failed grocery store, before eventually becoming big enough to set up a factory. While they set out focussing on sporting goods, they flourished in the toys industry. They remained informal about their business throughout, even when they enjoyed tremendous success.

Their first major breakthrough came through a product that they bought in, the Frisbee. They came across Walter Frederick Morrison, who was trying to sell his flying discs in a parking lot in 1955. They bought the rights to what Morrison called Pluto Platters and got Ed Headrick, their research and development man at Wham-O, to add aerodynamic details like the rings on the top.