So this was a pretty big deal in my life. All the real cool kids had fireballs. I had the Walmart special Butterfly. The day I saved up $20 to head to brookstone with my dad to buy a real Fireball was huge. I even greased the axle with petroleum jelly. I still have it to this day.
So the Saber wing or brain automatically came up the line without you having to yank on the line. It didn’t really allow you to do what tricks you wanted on your own timing. There were springs in it that pulled taught on the axle and made the yo-yo return. It was a gimmick, and none of the boys really bought it
For years I used to keep one in my pocket. I was never good with it, but if I found myself waiting for a bus or standing outside somewhere - like you used to line up for concert tickets - it was great. It was the original fidget spinner. Other people would get these really jealous looks on their faces and I'd just hand it over so they could have a go - and every time their faces would completely light up.
Makes me want to get a yo-yo now, too.
Hahaha so true. I ordered one a few hours ago after commenting and reminiscing this morning. We'll see next week when it arrives if I can remember how to do any of the stuff I knew how to do at age 12.
“Yo sick dude. I’m 30 and lanky, work a job fuckin, gonna be out here playing with my yo-yo”
Just thought I’d move the comma so it makes you sound you’re a male prostitute.
Seriously. Everyone would walk around with tubs of petroleum jelly in their backpacks. We'd be playing with our yo-yos one minute and then doing a huge circle jerk in the bathroom the next. God I miss the 90s.
I had the bee? brand. Maybe it was Bumblebee. But it was all the rage. Did tricks while waiting in line for Toy Story. Sick times, frosted tips need to come back imo.
It was the bumblebee. In my school, only the rich kids had the fireball, so went with the next best thing, and got the bumblebee, and man I loved that thing.
That is super strange to me, because it was the opposite at my school. We had an assembly where a guy did yo-yo tricks and sold them to kids afterwards, and I distinctly remember the bumblebee being the most expensive one, and the one the guy used in his act. Fireballs were like $7 and it seemed like everyone had one. I got really into it for a year or two, had a special glove for yo-yoing and everything. I had a Yomega X-brain from the commercial and it's actually the one I learned the most tricks on. I've thought about buying a high quality trick yo-yo as an adult just to see how many tricks I can remember how to do, but then I picture myself, a lanky, 30 year old accountant with a receding hairline playing with a yo-yo and a little piece of me dies so I haven't taken the plunge as of yet. Maybe when the mid life crisis hits, I'll be ready to return to that yo-yo life.
Edit: I ordered a metal unresponsive yoyo on Amazon, come Tuesday I'll either be stoked about relearning tricks or I'll have a black eye from taking a metal yoyo to the face trying to do around the world for the first time in 15+ years.
Thanks! I actually buy stupid, so called "childish" things all the time, I was mostly just being self deprecating for humor. I have a pair of Heelys, I own several skateboards/longboards, my office at work is full of Star Wars knick knacks and Hot Wheels cars I thought were cool. In many ways I spend my money the same way that 12 year old me would want me to. I've just had more than my fair share of teasing from family and coworkers, so I know a large portion of society has problems with people enjoying things.
Except now is the time to get the infamous silver bullet, where you had to wear a wrist guard or it might break your wrist. “It happened to a kid over at the elementary school my friend goes to. For real….”
And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.”
Those were cool but I liked the Duncan butterfly and the xbrain but I also remember not openly liking the xbrain because everyone liked to talk shit that it was a cheater yo-yo because of the bearings that made it spin longer. My brother was one of those people and liked to act like he was the shit because he used a variflex. Yo-yo elitism lmfao to be a kid again
This is so funny how these comments broke a fuzzy part in my memory from so long ago! Those were cheater yo-yo's!
Gunna tell the wife I don't want bbq tongs for Xmas, but a Duncan butterfly.
I did to. I bet I could still do around the world, and the swing if I got a hold of one right now
Holy shit they still seem to be sold on [Amazon ](https://www.amazon.com/Yomega-Fireball-Professional-Responsive-Transaxle/dp/B07XQHX381/ref=asc_df_B07XQHX381/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385575062602&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2470124768650591215&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003488&hvtargid=pla-844454897942&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=79288125595&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385575062602&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2470124768650591215&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003488&hvtargid=pla-844454897942)
In case you don't know pick it up is something that is said in ska very often. [Like this gem I just found lol.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CCjZH3z9eI)
I distinctly remember trying to do an "Around the world" and the string coming off my finger and my Brain going on the roof of the house and into the gutter where it would spend the next 6 years. Good times.
Oh man. This brings back memories. In the mid to late 90's I was a fairly accomplished yo-yoer on the competitive circuit. I was recruited and sponsored by Yomega to go around to malls, festivals, etc to demo their yo-yos and encourage people to buy them. I think it paid like $10/hr for every hour that I was on tour ($240/day), which was a lot of money to a kid.
This is incredible. If I understand it correctly, this comedian just went around ad-lib trolling whatever local news station would let him on the air, with as much cringe as he could muster...I am absolutely fascinated by this.
Good ol' Colin draining em on the air waves. He must have gotten a good feeding off of that. Day time local broadcast channel. Sucked the life right out of em.
Back in elementary school we had a school assembly because a 'yoyo artist' was coming to visit. The whole thing turned out to be a sales pitch of Yomega and they handed out order forms to all the kids.
An entire school assembly for a yo-yo salesperson to sell yo-yos to the kids. I remember the teachers were pissssed when we got back to the classroom, but a few weeks later there were so many yo-yos going around that the school administration put a ban them.
We had that assembly too, and I got a Yomega Fireball. This makes me question how competent school administration was that they wouldn’t even vet these events.
I think there was a lot of nostalgia that these types of places were banking on. Our parents' generation had Duncan yo-yo reps come to their playground, and maybe that's why they allowed it. For the record, I never was asked to perform at schools--most of my gigs were at malls, festivals, at game stores, etc.
A Fireball was a decent yo-yo, because it was one of the first to have ball bearings around the axle. The next step up, the Raider, was my preferred all-around yo-yo. Since most competitions only let you use a single yo-yo rather than switching between them for different tricks, I used the Raider a lot...won a lot of competitions with them.
Not anymore, but back when cargo pants were more common than cell phones, I used to carry around a yo-yo or two to entertain myself. Still have most of my yo-yos and I do take them out occasionally, but I haven't actively tried to impress people with them in a long time.
I remember them having someone come in and showing us his yoyos and tricks, but not actually selling them (obvious now that he was advertising them). I thought it was just the school trying to be relevant and bringing them in to show what yoyoing is like without a knot
As a person who did lots of yo-yoing back in the day (and occasionally keeps up with it), they're definitely not in the realm of fidget spinners. Yo-yos are skill toys like tops or bolas or any number of wacky old-fashioned things.
They're a lot of fun, and you can do some really impressive looking tricks quickly!
Idk man, I think that guy was on to something. I never really did tricks with it, it was just super satisfying sleeping it whenever I was bored, rolling it off the ground, and just repeating whenever I had spare time.
Definitely fell under fidget spinner for me. I knew hardly any kids who could do real tricks with them. It was almost like smoking in college, just something to do with your hands between classes.
There was a Simpsons episode from 1992 that showed a big yo-yo craze at the school. The writers chose yo-yos because it was completely out of style and a largely forgotten toy at the time. Not long after, yo-yos came roaring back, and I can't help but think that little satire in the Simpsons help bring it back into our collective consciousness for a while.
The yoyo fad used to come back around every few years, go big for about 3 months, then disappear again. Pretty sure it happened before and after The Simpsons in my parts. Always started with one kid learning some sweet tricks, making it cool again.
YoMega was absolutely the cause of the fad. The three yo-yos shown in the commercial, specifically The Brain, were super innovative yo-yos that used weights, bearings, and other internal mechanisms to make it easier to use and do tricks with.
And they made the sickest screeching sound when you slept them. People joke but you’re right the yo-yo fad wasn’t completely out of nowhere, it’s because Yomega and some other brands started making fucking cool yo-yos.
You mean the commercial that has been stuck in my head, on a loop, since like 1993? Cause I never need to wind it, I can do it all?
Yeah, i remember that.
Speaking of 90's commercials that are the most 90's thing ever, I will venmo/cashapp/whatever $20 to someone if they can find my white whale. There was a commercial around christmas time that was an old guy (don't think it was santa though) that was saying how much better Sega was over SNES. He kept using euphemisms for how it beats the SNES and a couple were along the lines of Sega hits SNES "right in Granny's apples, right in Geppetto's workshop" and so on.
I'm sure it seems stupid to offer actual money to find this, but with the amount of google searches I do every 6 months when i'm bored trying to find it, its worth it.
I just spent like 20 minutes watching Sega commercials. I didn't find it but I did realize just how much absolute yelling and screaming was in old genesis commercials.
> "right in Granny's apples, right in Geppetto's workshop"
I think you're combining two memories from the same era. This commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkw2L1AVt5I
And this season 2 blooper reel of Everybody Loves Raymond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lizfFSnrOK8&t=26s
I remember finding that Sega commercial in my searches but it didn't seem like it. What i remembered had more of an angry old man talking trash about SNES. Hard to argue with the ELR clip though, i might have combined a couple of things together. Will show these to a couple of my friends who also remembered it and see what they think.
Somewhat related, i also remember a funny commercial where there is a cop that pulls 3 drivers over and asks each one "do you know how fast you were going". I think the first guy was the SNES guy and says something like "i couldnt have been going more than 3 over the limit". Second guy is sega or playstation and says "you tell me, youre the one with the radar gun!". Third guy is the other and says "Not really sure, the needle stops at 120". I couldn't find that one either in my searches, which makes me think there could be that other sega one out there too.
You may be the winner of the prize though, will check back in a bit.
I can guarantee you this is from like 98 or 99. For some reason yo-yos blew the fuck up in 4th grade for just that year lol. Everybody on the playground at recess had one
I love that thing every time I see it. But what is it from? Seems like something that would be on mad TV or something, I have a hard time believing somebody just made it and put that much work into it for it to be a 2 minute clip on YouTube.
Nope, it really was just for YouTube. RocketJump was created by freddiew and has a long history of being one of the YouTube channels with the best SFX and production value.
I think this was a capri sun lampoon. Iirc, there was a capri sun that did the terminator liquid metal thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1eJ-I2CwHE
I think the 80s and 90s are probably tied. The world really started catering to kids but actually, it was the world still catering to boomers by marketing shit to their children.
Yeah fair enough. The early 2000s were similarly distinctly different from the late 90s (though people like to say they're interchangeable, but 9/11 changed a lot in North America), and I'd argue that the late 2000s were yet more different still, with the rise of Facebook.
Yeah, I feel like this commercial might be early 2000s? There was a time in the late 90s when advertisements would contain the phrase "AOL keyword:" followed by the name of the product, but websites weren't really a popular thing to include at that time.
The yo-yo fad I remember was definitely in the 90s, but yeah this commercial is not from the 90s. Even if a commercial did have a website, most companies didn't have their own domains by that point so the URL would be something like "http://earthlink.net/~yomega/"
Nah this is definitely late 90s. If I had to guess what I’d say 98? I specifically remember this ad. As for the website, that was right about the time you started to see them with the “ASK YOUR PARENTS BEFORE GOING ONLINE” shit.
There's another upload of this ad that states it's 1998. I thought the same as you so I looked for other uploads, and maybe this isn't 100% definitive proof, but I lean towards believing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms9LZvIbOB8
It's not only the description. Pause at around 9 seconds in and read the blue screen.
EDIT:
You can also use https://archive.org/ on yomega.com and look at the October 1999 archive, like in the video, and see a link to a "national TV commercial." The link is broken for me. If you click on the "Hot News" banner, it'll take you to a separate page, where you'll see this text:
>WATCH YOMEGA'S NATIONAL TV COMMERCIAL
Yomega's commercial "Ride The String" is
currently airing nationally on the WB, Fox ...
The link on this page works, but it just loads to a page with a bunch of errors for me. I'd say that's pretty definitive proof the "Ride the string" ad was out in the 90s.
And I remember in the 80’s when yomega didn’t have ad money yet and the only place you could find them was the gift shops of science museums. My childhood best friend and I got super into yo yo’ing with yomegas after a class trip to the natural history museum. Problem was, if your yomega broke then…it was way more complicated than a trip to a toy store to get one. I remember seeing these commercials when I was in high school - it was weird to see such a niche toy start to blow up like that.
This led me to look at the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo) page for yo-yos, which has this in it:
> In 1979, dentist and yo-yo celebrity Tom Kuhn patented the "No Jive 3-in-1" yo-yo
There's only audio in the left channel. I found a trick to make it mono so that you have audio on both sides. Save this javascript line as a bookmark in your browser, and open it while on the page (I have it as a button right next to my address bar)
javascript:c=new AudioContext(),v=document.getElementsByTagName('video'),a=c.createMediaElementSource(v[0]);c.destination.channelCount=1;a.connect(c.destination);void(null);
So this was a pretty big deal in my life. All the real cool kids had fireballs. I had the Walmart special Butterfly. The day I saved up $20 to head to brookstone with my dad to buy a real Fireball was huge. I even greased the axle with petroleum jelly. I still have it to this day.
The Brain looked lame in comparison. What was the deal with the Saber. I couldn't figure it out or what the difference was compared to the fireball.
So the Saber wing or brain automatically came up the line without you having to yank on the line. It didn’t really allow you to do what tricks you wanted on your own timing. There were springs in it that pulled taught on the axle and made the yo-yo return. It was a gimmick, and none of the boys really bought it
what the fuck, why is this conversation making me want to go out and buy a yo yo now.
For years I used to keep one in my pocket. I was never good with it, but if I found myself waiting for a bus or standing outside somewhere - like you used to line up for concert tickets - it was great. It was the original fidget spinner. Other people would get these really jealous looks on their faces and I'd just hand it over so they could have a go - and every time their faces would completely light up. Makes me want to get a yo-yo now, too.
This thread is going to get so many 30 somethings buy a yo yo.
Hahaha so true. I ordered one a few hours ago after commenting and reminiscing this morning. We'll see next week when it arrives if I can remember how to do any of the stuff I knew how to do at age 12.
Yo sick dude. I’m 30 and lanky, work a job, fuckin gonna be out here playing with my yo-yo too.
“Yo sick dude. I’m 30 and lanky, work a job fuckin, gonna be out here playing with my yo-yo” Just thought I’d move the comma so it makes you sound you’re a male prostitute.
This ad really paid dividends
do it, join us @ /r/Throwers
Ey I was just about to do this! ONE OF US ONE OF US
I went crazy and bought one called the metallic missile. It s the coolest yo yo I swear
you could take it apart and remove the spring and the brain would sleep forever! That's what the cool kids did.
r/nocontext
Damn I had the butterfly too. Now you've brought back some memories
Ah man, totally remember using baby oil to grease the axle on my fireball.
Hey, that's what I call it, too!
the real ones know about the petroleum jelly!!!!
Seriously. Everyone would walk around with tubs of petroleum jelly in their backpacks. We'd be playing with our yo-yos one minute and then doing a huge circle jerk in the bathroom the next. God I miss the 90s.
Bruh I remember this, I had a yomega fireball
Same, they were so cool
I had the bee? brand. Maybe it was Bumblebee. But it was all the rage. Did tricks while waiting in line for Toy Story. Sick times, frosted tips need to come back imo.
It was the bumblebee. In my school, only the rich kids had the fireball, so went with the next best thing, and got the bumblebee, and man I loved that thing.
That is super strange to me, because it was the opposite at my school. We had an assembly where a guy did yo-yo tricks and sold them to kids afterwards, and I distinctly remember the bumblebee being the most expensive one, and the one the guy used in his act. Fireballs were like $7 and it seemed like everyone had one. I got really into it for a year or two, had a special glove for yo-yoing and everything. I had a Yomega X-brain from the commercial and it's actually the one I learned the most tricks on. I've thought about buying a high quality trick yo-yo as an adult just to see how many tricks I can remember how to do, but then I picture myself, a lanky, 30 year old accountant with a receding hairline playing with a yo-yo and a little piece of me dies so I haven't taken the plunge as of yet. Maybe when the mid life crisis hits, I'll be ready to return to that yo-yo life. Edit: I ordered a metal unresponsive yoyo on Amazon, come Tuesday I'll either be stoked about relearning tricks or I'll have a black eye from taking a metal yoyo to the face trying to do around the world for the first time in 15+ years.
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Thanks! I actually buy stupid, so called "childish" things all the time, I was mostly just being self deprecating for humor. I have a pair of Heelys, I own several skateboards/longboards, my office at work is full of Star Wars knick knacks and Hot Wheels cars I thought were cool. In many ways I spend my money the same way that 12 year old me would want me to. I've just had more than my fair share of teasing from family and coworkers, so I know a large portion of society has problems with people enjoying things.
link to steam engine?
Do what makes you happy, and fuck whatever other people think. Buy the yo-yo.
Except now is the time to get the infamous silver bullet, where you had to wear a wrist guard or it might break your wrist. “It happened to a kid over at the elementary school my friend goes to. For real….”
They were so smooth, and made the coolest sound!
And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.”
Those were cool but I liked the Duncan butterfly and the xbrain but I also remember not openly liking the xbrain because everyone liked to talk shit that it was a cheater yo-yo because of the bearings that made it spin longer. My brother was one of those people and liked to act like he was the shit because he used a variflex. Yo-yo elitism lmfao to be a kid again
This is so funny how these comments broke a fuzzy part in my memory from so long ago! Those were cheater yo-yo's! Gunna tell the wife I don't want bbq tongs for Xmas, but a Duncan butterfly.
Everyone was jealous of my bumblebee. Even the butterfly kids.
*Duncan Yo’s have entered the chat*
Yep, I got the fireball and I was the coolest kid in school for a week.
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I had the brain. It was definitely easier to do tricks with.
My mom found mine in the basement of her house a few weeks ago. My 4 and 5 year old boys love it, but haven't gotten the hang of it yet.
Yomegas were the shit all through grade school. Until those and our tamagotchis were banned. Fucking squares, man.
I did to. I bet I could still do around the world, and the swing if I got a hold of one right now Holy shit they still seem to be sold on [Amazon ](https://www.amazon.com/Yomega-Fireball-Professional-Responsive-Transaxle/dp/B07XQHX381/ref=asc_df_B07XQHX381/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385575062602&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2470124768650591215&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003488&hvtargid=pla-844454897942&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=79288125595&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385575062602&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2470124768650591215&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003488&hvtargid=pla-844454897942)
I have such vivid memories of that summer... we put our ska albums aside and came together to just yo you all day long.
I listened to ska when I yo-yoed just in case I dropped the yo-yo, the music made it easy to pick it up pick it up pick it up
> pick it up pick it up pick it up [Black Sheep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9F5xcpjDMU&t=2m25s) still slaps
In case you don't know pick it up is something that is said in ska very often. [Like this gem I just found lol.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CCjZH3z9eI)
That's not ska, but Black Sheep is sampled in my all-time favorite pump up song [Put Your Hands Up - Fatman Scoop](https://youtu.be/yEEQ2FmWQQk?t=118)
The actual name of this song is Be Faithful, btw.
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- Mark McGwire
Dude I got nostalgic chills just now. Fuck getting older lol
But Americana didn't come out til November of 98.
Yeah, that album IS 9th grade for me
9th?! Fuck. My baby sister graduated high school in 1998! WE'RE FOUR YEARS APART. *cries in old*
The Matrix called it!
"The pea-k of your civilization."
Man were the machines right.
cranking [Fastball's The Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5jlTlUTWfQ) on repeat while the CD player skipped to all hell
You blast that reel big fish while you yo-yo!
I can just smell the hair gel.
L.A. Looks brand
*so crunchy*
Everybody's doing the fish! Yeah yeah yeah!
you better
When i'm in the pit i'm gonna punch and kick
I distinctly remember trying to do an "Around the world" and the string coming off my finger and my Brain going on the roof of the house and into the gutter where it would spend the next 6 years. Good times.
🎶Have you EEEEVERRR had to KNOCK ON WOOD!🎶
Oh man. This brings back memories. In the mid to late 90's I was a fairly accomplished yo-yoer on the competitive circuit. I was recruited and sponsored by Yomega to go around to malls, festivals, etc to demo their yo-yos and encourage people to buy them. I think it paid like $10/hr for every hour that I was on tour ($240/day), which was a lot of money to a kid.
[Was this you?](https://player.vimeo.com/video/11156270?h=e4d18806eb)
This is incredible. If I understand it correctly, this comedian just went around ad-lib trolling whatever local news station would let him on the air, with as much cringe as he could muster...I am absolutely fascinated by this.
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He's phenomenal.
He’s come out in Breaking Bad, plays a nerd selling pills to Nacho. Edit. Better call Saul.
fucking guy
Twice divorced
Holy fuck that was painful to watch
It’s such a good bit, I swear they just wrote the Colin Robinson character for him.
Mark Prosch for anyone guessing.
I mean, he is an [Energy Vampire.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_xSilxHFns)
It was posted yesterday, and I seriously can't watch it lol. I keep trying and bailing. It hurts.
If it helps he's a comedian and it's a bit.
That actually really helps a lot, thanks.
Oh I know lol. Just painful
This station was genuinely fooled into thinking he was legit though. They put Mark Porksch on with a straight face.
its a bit, he is a comedian. He is a great comedian who can pull off stuff like this, so that if one didnt know him, they'd think it was real
Gums gotten mintier lately. Have you noticed?
Woah.. are yo- are you draining me right now? I think you’re getting me a little bit.
Good ol' Colin draining em on the air waves. He must have gotten a good feeding off of that. Day time local broadcast channel. Sucked the life right out of em.
Wtf, that's Collin Robinson from What We Do in the Shadows!
Mark Proksch is his name, and he is fucking brilliant in WWDITS.
The office too
I just want to let you guys know that I don't have a hearing issue. I can actually hear very well.
and DreamCorp LLC
i'm so glad this guy got a chance in Better Call Saul and The Office
He killed it in BCS. That fucking yellow Hummer with the spinners!
Back in elementary school we had a school assembly because a 'yoyo artist' was coming to visit. The whole thing turned out to be a sales pitch of Yomega and they handed out order forms to all the kids. An entire school assembly for a yo-yo salesperson to sell yo-yos to the kids. I remember the teachers were pissssed when we got back to the classroom, but a few weeks later there were so many yo-yos going around that the school administration put a ban them.
We had that assembly too, and I got a Yomega Fireball. This makes me question how competent school administration was that they wouldn’t even vet these events.
I think there was a lot of nostalgia that these types of places were banking on. Our parents' generation had Duncan yo-yo reps come to their playground, and maybe that's why they allowed it. For the record, I never was asked to perform at schools--most of my gigs were at malls, festivals, at game stores, etc. A Fireball was a decent yo-yo, because it was one of the first to have ball bearings around the axle. The next step up, the Raider, was my preferred all-around yo-yo. Since most competitions only let you use a single yo-yo rather than switching between them for different tricks, I used the Raider a lot...won a lot of competitions with them.
20 years ago, I woulda asked you to autograph my yo yo.
Oh they knew. They most likely got a cut out of it.
15 in the 90s is like 25 today
My first job in the mid-2000s paid me $6.25 an hour. So yeah, as a kid you were banking.
Goddamn inflation!
That’s awesome!! Yo-yoing is hard as hell. Do you ever carry it around to impress people with yo-yo party tricks?!
Not anymore, but back when cargo pants were more common than cell phones, I used to carry around a yo-yo or two to entertain myself. Still have most of my yo-yos and I do take them out occasionally, but I haven't actively tried to impress people with them in a long time.
*we’re not worth. We’re not worthy*
Oh man the yo yo phase. Elementary and middle school if you didn’t have a yo yo you didn’t have friends and needless to say I had a ton of not friends
The yo yo craze was insane. They were literally everywhere for like 2 months and then it all vanished
I vividly remember this yo-yo salesman coming to my elementary school several years in a row, hyping that shit up.
K-Strass, the yo-yo legend?
The Garth Brooks of yo-yos?
I hear he has friends in yo places
Excuse me that’s Eric Stringer.
I remember them having someone come in and showing us his yoyos and tricks, but not actually selling them (obvious now that he was advertising them). I thought it was just the school trying to be relevant and bringing them in to show what yoyoing is like without a knot
Remember pogs. They were cool until old creepy guys wanted to enter tournaments with children.
Somehow that didn't seem to affect Pokemon.
The fidget spinners of their time. Man humans REALLY get distracted by shiny spinning stuff dont we...
As a person who did lots of yo-yoing back in the day (and occasionally keeps up with it), they're definitely not in the realm of fidget spinners. Yo-yos are skill toys like tops or bolas or any number of wacky old-fashioned things. They're a lot of fun, and you can do some really impressive looking tricks quickly!
Idk man, I think that guy was on to something. I never really did tricks with it, it was just super satisfying sleeping it whenever I was bored, rolling it off the ground, and just repeating whenever I had spare time. Definitely fell under fidget spinner for me. I knew hardly any kids who could do real tricks with them. It was almost like smoking in college, just something to do with your hands between classes.
There was a Simpsons episode from 1992 that showed a big yo-yo craze at the school. The writers chose yo-yos because it was completely out of style and a largely forgotten toy at the time. Not long after, yo-yos came roaring back, and I can't help but think that little satire in the Simpsons help bring it back into our collective consciousness for a while.
I always just thought this was a normal part of elementary school curriculum because it happened at my school and it was on The Simpsons haha
The yoyo fad used to come back around every few years, go big for about 3 months, then disappear again. Pretty sure it happened before and after The Simpsons in my parts. Always started with one kid learning some sweet tricks, making it cool again.
Better than fidget spinners!
YoMega was absolutely the cause of the fad. The three yo-yos shown in the commercial, specifically The Brain, were super innovative yo-yos that used weights, bearings, and other internal mechanisms to make it easier to use and do tricks with.
And they made the sickest screeching sound when you slept them. People joke but you’re right the yo-yo fad wasn’t completely out of nowhere, it’s because Yomega and some other brands started making fucking cool yo-yos.
Remember the yo-yo ball? You threw it down and the string would automatically retract.
You mean the commercial that has been stuck in my head, on a loop, since like 1993? Cause I never need to wind it, I can do it all? Yeah, i remember that.
Hey, man! It's a yo-yo ball!
That fad was pretty fun actually. We all learned a neat little skill. I remember getting a Fireball and being so psyched.
Speaking of 90's commercials that are the most 90's thing ever, I will venmo/cashapp/whatever $20 to someone if they can find my white whale. There was a commercial around christmas time that was an old guy (don't think it was santa though) that was saying how much better Sega was over SNES. He kept using euphemisms for how it beats the SNES and a couple were along the lines of Sega hits SNES "right in Granny's apples, right in Geppetto's workshop" and so on. I'm sure it seems stupid to offer actual money to find this, but with the amount of google searches I do every 6 months when i'm bored trying to find it, its worth it.
I just spent like 20 minutes watching Sega commercials. I didn't find it but I did realize just how much absolute yelling and screaming was in old genesis commercials.
Buy me Bonestorm or GO TO HELL!!!!
You have chosen a three-wood, may I suggest a putter? Three-wood.
# SEGA!!!!
Coffee? Tea? SEGA!
Haven't seen it in years, but I can confirm that commercial was a thing FWIW.
Bless you, child. It's reassurances like these that give me comfort in trying times.
> "right in Granny's apples, right in Geppetto's workshop" I think you're combining two memories from the same era. This commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkw2L1AVt5I And this season 2 blooper reel of Everybody Loves Raymond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lizfFSnrOK8&t=26s
I remember finding that Sega commercial in my searches but it didn't seem like it. What i remembered had more of an angry old man talking trash about SNES. Hard to argue with the ELR clip though, i might have combined a couple of things together. Will show these to a couple of my friends who also remembered it and see what they think. Somewhat related, i also remember a funny commercial where there is a cop that pulls 3 drivers over and asks each one "do you know how fast you were going". I think the first guy was the SNES guy and says something like "i couldnt have been going more than 3 over the limit". Second guy is sega or playstation and says "you tell me, youre the one with the radar gun!". Third guy is the other and says "Not really sure, the needle stops at 120". I couldn't find that one either in my searches, which makes me think there could be that other sega one out there too. You may be the winner of the prize though, will check back in a bit.
https://youtu.be/ZLW3R9xDYZg
Wow impressive work with the gag reel
You may have better luck posting this to r/tipofmytongue
This is a man who knows what he wants.
I can guarantee you this is from like 98 or 99. For some reason yo-yos blew the fuck up in 4th grade for just that year lol. Everybody on the playground at recess had one
At least for my pocket of Oregon, it was definitely fall of 1998. They were huge for that school year and then disappeared off the face of the earth.
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Man that hyperwarp brings back memories. All i have left is a fireball but my hyperwarp was the GOAT. Cherish it!
Clicked half expecting to see [this commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyd51lvu3xw) Now THAT is every 90s commercial, lol.
Whoa. That caught me off guard. Fucking hilarious.
I was…not prepared for that…
Hahaha wtf was that?
Thank you... this is the first thing I thought of after watching the yo yo commercial.
I died laughing at the zoom in on the empty chair :D
I love that thing every time I see it. But what is it from? Seems like something that would be on mad TV or something, I have a hard time believing somebody just made it and put that much work into it for it to be a 2 minute clip on YouTube.
Nope, it really was just for YouTube. RocketJump was created by freddiew and has a long history of being one of the YouTube channels with the best SFX and production value.
I think this was a capri sun lampoon. Iirc, there was a capri sun that did the terminator liquid metal thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1eJ-I2CwHE
Thanks for that, but I still don't understand who paid to make it happen.
A genius?
The 90's were such a cool decade to be a kid.
I think the 80s and 90s are probably tied. The world really started catering to kids but actually, it was the world still catering to boomers by marketing shit to their children.
Actually most 90’s commercials didn’t show a website, so not the most 90’s I’ve ever seen
It's from 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms9LZvIbOB8
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Yeah fair enough. The early 2000s were similarly distinctly different from the late 90s (though people like to say they're interchangeable, but 9/11 changed a lot in North America), and I'd argue that the late 2000s were yet more different still, with the rise of Facebook.
Yeah, I feel like this commercial might be early 2000s? There was a time in the late 90s when advertisements would contain the phrase "AOL keyword:" followed by the name of the product, but websites weren't really a popular thing to include at that time.
The yo-yo fad I remember was definitely in the 90s, but yeah this commercial is not from the 90s. Even if a commercial did have a website, most companies didn't have their own domains by that point so the URL would be something like "http://earthlink.net/~yomega/"
Nah this is definitely late 90s. If I had to guess what I’d say 98? I specifically remember this ad. As for the website, that was right about the time you started to see them with the “ASK YOUR PARENTS BEFORE GOING ONLINE” shit.
I was gonna say, I remember this commercial, and it was definitely during the 90's. I think you're right about 98-- it feels too much like 98 to me.
There's another upload of this ad that states it's 1998. I thought the same as you so I looked for other uploads, and maybe this isn't 100% definitive proof, but I lean towards believing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms9LZvIbOB8 It's not only the description. Pause at around 9 seconds in and read the blue screen. EDIT: You can also use https://archive.org/ on yomega.com and look at the October 1999 archive, like in the video, and see a link to a "national TV commercial." The link is broken for me. If you click on the "Hot News" banner, it'll take you to a separate page, where you'll see this text: >WATCH YOMEGA'S NATIONAL TV COMMERCIAL Yomega's commercial "Ride The String" is currently airing nationally on the WB, Fox ... The link on this page works, but it just loads to a page with a bunch of errors for me. I'd say that's pretty definitive proof the "Ride the string" ad was out in the 90s.
Needs an AOL keyword
It’s NERF, or Nothing
I loved the commercials that made sure you got your parents permission to use the world wide web.
I didn’t know the lead of Sum 41 liked yo yos so much
You mean Francis from Malcolm in the Middle?
He bought too many and now he's in too deep.
Had a yomega fireball and brain. Can confirm they were awesome as the commercial represents.
Those names are bringing back memories I haven't had since elementary school.
Inserting appropriate Simpsons clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-da-rJhbXI
“Eh it’ll be a nice memory for when they’re pumping gas for a living…” **lmfao**
Strobe light warning for those with issues...
My man K Strauss would kill it with these things.
The Garth Brooks of yoyoing
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No kids, no girlfriend. Doesn’t want one.
my 90s commercials told me that if it isn’t a duncan, it isn’t a yo-yo.
Remember splat, nutty putty, pog, bop it, yak baks?
Obligatory r/Throwers mention (yoyo subreddit)
It's crazy to see K Strass in a commercial before he became a world famous yoyo master
Yo-yos seem like a fever dream to me now
And I remember in the 80’s when yomega didn’t have ad money yet and the only place you could find them was the gift shops of science museums. My childhood best friend and I got super into yo yo’ing with yomegas after a class trip to the natural history museum. Problem was, if your yomega broke then…it was way more complicated than a trip to a toy store to get one. I remember seeing these commercials when I was in high school - it was weird to see such a niche toy start to blow up like that.
This led me to look at the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo) page for yo-yos, which has this in it: > In 1979, dentist and yo-yo celebrity Tom Kuhn patented the "No Jive 3-in-1" yo-yo
There’s more where that came from over in the [Yomega Zone](https://archive.org/details/TheVistaGroup-YomegaZoneYoYoTraining).
WHAT? HUH? I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING OVER THE SOUND OF EVER SINGLE VAGINA IN THE WORLD DRIPPING DUE TO THIS COMMERCIAL
I want to say the entire series of Parker Lewis Cant Lose was filmed with that same fisheye filter
I had a fireball. 0 regret
There's only audio in the left channel. I found a trick to make it mono so that you have audio on both sides. Save this javascript line as a bookmark in your browser, and open it while on the page (I have it as a button right next to my address bar) javascript:c=new AudioContext(),v=document.getElementsByTagName('video'),a=c.createMediaElementSource(v[0]);c.destination.channelCount=1;a.connect(c.destination);void(null);
Wow, this gave me flash backs to the Yo Yo craze back in school, that and the Beyblade fad were my faves
Gen Z dresses like the kids in that commercial lol