World on a String

Bradley Frye wants a Brain.

And with the UPS truck running a few minutes late, the 6-year-old is getting anxious.

Around him, half a dozen other school kids are crowding the counter at Harbor Kite and Toy Store. They are getting anxious too.

They want their Fireballs, Power Spins, Raiders--and Brains. And they want them now!

Store manager Buz Wilburn reassures the kids. The yo-yos will be here any time.

But, see, there won’t be enough for everybody.

“First we take care of who’s here,” Wilburn said. “If they have preordered.” He pulls a stack of orders half an inch thick.”Then we call these people. In an hour they’ll be all gone.”

For the last two months, this has been Wilburn’s midafternoon routine.

“There is an absolute yo-yo craze happening right now,” Wilburn said. “Every day when the UPS truck arrives there are kids lined up outside.”

The fad began in late February among kids up to sixth grade, and has spread through Balboa, Cabrillo and Anacapa middle schools. Yo-yos are the rage at Junipero Serra and other elementary schools. And on Wednesday at Wilburn’s store, kids from Loma Vista, Mound, Blanche Reynolds, Juanamaria and Ventura Missionary are lining up for the up-and-down toys.

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While yo-yo business is up at stores in Ojai and Thousand Oaks, nowhere in the county is the surge in sales as dramatic as in Ventura. Wilburn said he has sold more than 1,000 yo-yos in the last six weeks. “We can’t keep them in stock,” he said.

Throughout the country there are yo-yo hot spots in places like Honolulu, Vero Beach, Fla., Gloucester, Mass., Grand Haven, Mich., and Moraga, Calif. In Honolulu, one store has sold more than $300,000 in yo-yos in the last year. And overseas, yo-yo sales are really hot in Tel Aviv.

Today’s yo-yos are more than up and down. The high-performance Brains, Fireballs, Power Spins and Raiders, made by Yomega Corp. of Fall River, Mass., are equipped with axles, clutches and ball-bearings. Ranging from $9.99 to $24.99, these models deliver record-breaking spins. Yomega sells spare strings and even a lubricant to keep the yo-yos well oiled.

The “brain” behind the Yomega is its clutch. Not only does the yo-yo spin longer, but as it slows down, a spring is triggered by the diminishing centrifugal force and engages a clutch that makes the yo-yo bounce back.

If you can spin--or sleep--the yo-yo, you can move on from there to do the cool tricks, kids say.

But even with these fast spinners, a little technique comes in handy.

“You can roll it off the middle finger,” said Kacie McDaniel, a fifth-grader at Junipero Serra School. “Or you can use two fingers.”

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But the wrist action is critical. “Just like when you are pitching underhand, you have to learn to flick the wrist just the right way,” Kacie said.

That’s Step 1. With the yo-yo sleeping, kids quickly create figures with the yo-yo string--the Eiffel Tower, the star and the Confederate flag.

They also go around the world--a 360 degree yo-yo trip. Or rock the cradle--with the yo-yo swinging back and forth inside a string triangle.

“I’m still learning to rock the cradle without having the yo-yo hit me in the face,” Kacie said.

For classmate Danny LaBare, the school’s yo-yo king who said he got his yo-yo to sleep for a record 74 seconds, rocking the cradle is child’s play.

“I can rock the cradle and throw the baby out the window,” Danny said. He quickly gets his yo-yo to rock the cradle. With a flick of his hand he sends the yo-yo flying into the air. Three full circles later, the yo-yo is down and back in his hand. He looks up with pride. Danny follows with a triple Confederate flag. His peers watch in awe.

Experts disagree as to the origin of yo-yo fads, but there is no doubt yo-yos are going through a revival.

“For the last year and a half sales have skyrocketed,” said Joyce Amaral, director of sales and marketing at Yomega Corp. “Nationally we are having the biggest year we’ve ever had.”

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Amaral, who is part-owner of the family run business, said exact sales figures are a company secret. But she said that Yomega sells “several hundred thousands of yo-yos” every year. This year’s sales are up 75% over the previous year, she said. And this quarter, Yomega saw a 200% increase in sales over the same quarter last year.

“I’ve asked retailers, but they don’t seem to know where it comes from,” Amaral said. “A kid gets ahold of one, they get good at it, and they bring it to school. Then the whole school wants it.”

Frank Martin, a Los Angeles-based sales representative for Yomega who attends trade shows, said the company does not advertise.

“It’s all word of mouth,” Martin said. “We say a community is on fire and the fires are local.”

But Mike Coffrey, national marketing and sales manager for Duncan Toys, the largest yo-yo maker in the United States, tells a different story.

“What happens is that Duncan runs television ads,” Coffrey said. Duncan yo-yos are sold at mass-market stores like Toys R Us and Wal-mart for less than $3, Coffrey said. “The craze starts with Duncan yo-yos. In the second wave of the craze, kids go to Yomegas.”

Yomegas are easier to use and Coffrey is not shy about singing the praises of his competitor’s yo-yos. After all, he helped start Yomega Corp. and holds the patent for “the yo-yo with a brain.”

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Yo-yos were introduced in the United States by Donald Duncan in 1929, Coffrey said. Since then yo-yo sales boomed twice--during the Great Depression and in the 1960s. After falling for two decades, the yo-yo market began to pick up in the early 1990s, prior to this year’s boom.

In Ventura, it is unclear what sparked the current yo-yo fad. Some kids say it was a Simpsons episode that ran early this year. But a publicist for the animated show said the episode, in which all the kids in town play with yo-yos, was a rerun. She didn’t know what had come first--the recent yo-yo fad or the “The Simpsons” episode.

Other kids say it was Thomas Beneke.

The Balboa Middle School teacher brought a yo-yo to class during a lesson about China, where the toy is said to have originated. The yo-yo caught on.

“It keeps kids busy at lunchtime,” Beneke said. “They’re not getting into mischief.”

The yo-yo has brought recognition to some kids. For others, who struggled with academics, the yo-yo has been an incentive to come to school, Beneke said.

At Balboa, the yo-yo fad peaked a few weeks ago. But it has spread to other schools and is not about to stop.

Wilburn plans to organize a competition before the end of the school year, and he is getting help from the Honolulu store owner--the one who sold $300,000 in yo-yos.

Just after 4 p.m., the yo-yos finally arrive at Harbor Kite and Toy Store. Wilburn tells the kids to form a line.

“Who’s got Brains?” he asks. “Who is in for a Fireball?”

The cash register rings. Kids buy yo-yos. For some, it’s their second one. Or third. More kids run into the store, cash in hand. One is in for spare strings.

The phone rings. Wilburn’s assistant, Barbara Capute, answers.

“Do we have any extra Brains?” she asks.