Word: crazes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Labor Day weekend, a pop lyricist named Charles Grean (The Thing, Sweet Violets) was placidly cruising Long Island Sound in his 26-ft. skiff when he was struck by an inspiration. "With this hoop craze," he thought, "there's bound to be a song. Somebody ought to move fast!" Grean raced ashore and started to move. Next day he took his already completed lyrics around to his pal, Composer Bob Davie, and within an hour the two of them had batted out "a simple little teenage song with a good rock 'n' roll melody," named it Hoopa...
...Imperial Records actually brought out the first hoop disk (Hula Hoop) on the West Coast last June, but the craze had not yet reached its shimmying climax, and the record failed to take...
...three dozen other toys and gadgets to their production, now employ 670. Last year they hit their first jackpot with a lightweight plastic platter, the "frisbee." They have already sold about 2,000,000 Hula Hoops (93? wholesale, a 16% gross profit), hope to sell millions more before the craze dies...
Following the 1950 rediscovery of Haniwa sculpture by U.S.-born Isamu Noguchi (TIME, Jan. 10, 1955), who spotted the archaic objects as prize examples of primitive sculpture, Haniwa blossomed into a collector's craze from Japan to Manhattan. A rare piece brings as much as $10,000 today, and a good one worth $10 in 1952 currently costs $1,000 or more. Counterfeiters, doing a thriving trade, have learned to duplicate the primitive process of coiling ropes of clay into the rough form, then smoothing it into shape. They even grind up old Haniwa fragments to powder...
...vintage auto clubs also help to keep the craze alive by emphasizing authenticity and quality. The Classic Car Club recognizes only blue-blooded autos of "fine design, high engineering standards and superior workmanship." Regardless of age. it blackballs all Chevrolets, Plymouths. Xashes. Dodges, Pontiacs, Buicks. Oldsmobiles and De Sotos. even turns down some Cadillac models. Recently the club even refused to admit Ford's modern Continental Mark II as a "classic...