Toobee's

I was looking in a closet for something today and came across a few Toobees. I had forgotten I had those. Boy do they bring back some memories. For those that may not know what a Toobee is, here's a photo of one of mine and here's the website for Toobees.

Back around 1980, while living in Dallas and just newly married, I saw an article in Sports Illustrated about this new flying can called a Toobee. Man did that thing look cool. It was basically a cut-off beer or coke can with the top cut out. But when you threw it, it'd fly over 50 yards! Boy was it sweet!

Thinking I was onto the next hula-hoop or frisbee, I quickly contacted the inventors out in California and asked if I could be their distributor in Dallas. I figured I could get all the stores in the area to sell them and I'd get rich! They said they'd give me an exclusive for Dallas, so I bought a few hundred and hit the street. How many did I sell? Nada, zippo, nothing! What I learned the hard way was that there just wasn't enough markup available in them to make it worthwhile for any of the retailers to buy them. The only way I could sell any was to go to the park and throw them around. Everyone would gather around and I could sell a few, but I ended up having a box of them left over. So much for getting rich quick.