Sunday, July 02, 2006

Wham-O Superball Disaster

Wham-O SuperballAn OCThen reader submitted the following comment to our About Us page, wondering if anyone had more information to provide...

hey, i was wondering if anyone in the fullerton area remembers something that DID wind up in the register around 1987 or 88.. apparently wham-o had stored maybe MILLIONS of superballs in a warehouse by the train tracks near commonwealth.. somehow they wound up all over the place.. there was like a lot 2-3 feet deep with them.. i still have a few left, but i used to have a few hundred.. for weeks you'd see guys with boxes full of them at the la mirada swapmeet.. man.. i sure wish someone else remembered that....
I never heard about this! But it intrigued me so much, that I posted it here for your consideration.

24 comments:

  1. yeah,that was me who asked.. what happened was that one day while taking the 25 home from fullrton college i met this kid whith a huge box of superballs.. they were all dated 1965, as someone interested in old toys i asked about them and he gave me a s many as i could carry and told me wher they were. that sunday my father and i went out to the train tracks, and we did find alot of them scattered around , but not the "mother lode" the next day i walked over with some freinds from fcc and what we saw was amazing.. a sea of superballs, mostly greenish blue ones, and all sizes, some red ones too.. there were people standing knee deep just filling boxes and boxes with them. the next day it was in the register, and i remember the picture...but i can't remember what they say had happened..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Finally! The answer to a mystery I've wondered about for years.... I went to Acacia Elementary School to play tennis against the backboard and found HUNDREDS of Super Balls all over the playground, of all sizes, all marked 1965. These were just like the ones we had growing up, not the wimpy wannabees that followed. I went home and got a brown grocery bag (from Alpha Beta, natch) and picked up as many as I could find and took them home. What a find! Remember just having ONE of the giant Super Balls as a kid was such a treat. The bag has long ago disappeared.... lost in a divorce I suspect. I've always wondered where the windfall came from... kinda like Pennies From Heaven! thanks for clearing up the mystery.

    ReplyDelete
  3. =)

    that was amazing,,, i am 29 years old right now and when the super ball factory blew up in fullerton i was in 5th grade or so ,,, iit was amazing , i went to school one day and a bunch of kids had a bunch of superballs ,, and then after school we went out searching and we found them all over the east fullerton neighborhood near brookhurst and commonwealth ,,, thousands of them in the street gutters, all over the rail road tracks, we ffilled a shopping cart full of them,,, it really was amazing,,, i mean the super ball factory exploded,,,, truthfully i dont know if it was a factory or if it actually exploded , but there were massive amounts of superballs all over the neighborhood,,,,, and can you imagine what the play ground looked like the next day.... boing everykid at fern drive elementary school had an unlimited supply of free 2 inch green superballs ,,, they were flying everywhere ,,, and then i remember the school banned having super balls at school ,,, these were big and heavy for the most part , really did have some serious bounce,,, and they were flying all over ,, i am sure some kids got nailed with them ,,, but for the most part it was amazing , and i will never forget that chapter in my childhood,,, THE SUPER BALL FACTORY EXPLODED,,,,,


    that is amazing...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. holy cow i remmeber this happing too! my brother and i climb all over the traintracks by the old hunt branch library going down into the beranka i think it was called! holly cow i remmeber when fern drive ban thouse suckers

      Delete
  4. I went to Troy High School when this happened. I remember one of my friends took his Ford F250 over and filled the bed full of the superballs. He pulled into the quad just before lunch and dumped them all. It was the craziest day with superballs flying all over. We must have found them for the next few months in the bushes and all. I still have one and am waiting for my son to be old enough to give it to him.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey guys... maybe this will help :)

    http://superballs.com/my_superball_history.htm

    Rick / Superballs.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was there, and I still have a whole bag of them.....the factory didn't blow up......it was demolished......they tore it down with bulldozers......barrels and barrels of superballs.......Like I said, I've got atleast a couple hundred in my attic....

    ReplyDelete
  7. I remember this, too. I had heard that there was an explosioin, too and later heard about the demolition. I must have been in grade school at the time as well. Funny how news like that traveled back then without the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's your lucky day. I definitely remember that superball business by the railroad tracks. I wouldn't have even known about it, probably, except that my older brother pointed it out to me back then, in the 1960's. We visited, on the railroad side of the lot. We peered in, and there they were. I think I can probably find at least one of those balls, in the garage, to this day. I still live in the same house I lived in then. For years, I'd find one of those balls in the garage, and I wouldn't give it much of a thought, but that's what it was from. My brother got his hands on some of them. I even got in a fight with a boy on my street over one of them, back in that era. I was bouncing it in the street, and something got into my "friend," and he took it, and then he started beating me up, pounding my head against the pavement. The guy had a mean streak. That family moved off the street years ago. His brother, years later, died in a car crash. That was many years ago, too.

    Steve (Yes, my name is "Steve" too.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I just realized that we're talking about more than one superball event in Fullerton. The one I just discussed, above, was back when I was in St. Mary's School, to the best of my recollection, in the 1960's. I presumed those balls were new, at that time. The balls my brother and I recovered from that were all the standard color, blackish blue. That's the only color of super ball I've ever seen. Presumably the place my brother and I saw those balls at was the same place that had the later mishap. Maybe they had a history of repeating explosions of super balls.

    Steve (again)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi,

    I used to love playing with these crazy things. We used to slam them on the sidewalk and sail them over the 3 story grade school building. If you chipped them they would sometimes crack or break apart! That was 34 years ago... I would be grateful to the person with the bag in the attic to contact me if you would like to sell me a couple of balls. You may contact me by email,ted.may@techni-lux.com .It would be nice. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  11. I would appreciate it if the person with the bag of Superballs could possibly contact me at alecsix@rocketmail.com, because I might be interested in buying a few off of you. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I grew up in Buena Park and my dad worked for the railroad and when I was 9 he showed up with a couple of boxes of superballs, this must be where they came from.
    Mystery solved. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Seeing how much SuperBalls are going for these days, I wonder why Wham-O does not re-create the origional formula and large size molds and colors, including multi-colors & Firetrons and start selling the REAL FOMULA and SIZE official SuperBall???
    Stop the Chinese Crap that does not sell and put some people to work in the States! At about 10 bucks a ball, they could make some money!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I HAVE SUPERBALLZ AND I RELEASED THE SUPER POWER OF THE BALLS TO THE MASSES...quote from ONE OF THE SUPER BALL HERO'S!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yes, I'm sure people still remember this. When I graduated from high school in '89 at Sunny Hills, the last day of school, it was literally RAINING superballs (I'm guilty for bringing a box of them myself). Our center quad area was evacuated as superballs were bouncing in the thousands all over the place. Some people got hit in the face! I remember I had a box of those for months but eventually ran out as I kept using them for hitting practice with my baseball bat over my backyard. And just as everybody said, that old warehouse was abandoned and you could go there and just collect as many as you could like some easter egg hunt (I believe it near Lemon St. in Anaheim).

    ReplyDelete
  16. It was Raymond and Santa Fe - in Fullerton:)

    http://superballs.com/my_superball_history.htm

    ReplyDelete
  17. i think why they don't use the original formula is beaus of all the houses and cars back then their weren't many houses and cars around

    ReplyDelete
  18. I remember it well. I lived in Fullerton at the time. Going to Fullerton High I was a freshman. The streets full of supper balls mostly gray blue. I went down to the place and went into a house with the walls half crushed in and it was full of balls. Large piles of balls in a field every where also. I still have a few in a box after all the years. I live in seattle now and people don't believe me about this. There was a guy I know his brother filled his truck bed with the supper balls and dumped them all on the street while moving. Crazy. I also found a lot of deformed supper balls lots of fun. Glad people recall this strange time.

    ReplyDelete
  19. "alec" put it nicely and I have the same sentiment-
    I would appreciate it if the person with the bag of Superballs could possibly contact me at josiahmcmillen2@hotmail.com, because I might be interested in buying a few off of you. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  20. OK, we know how much these go for on Ebay. Why the Hell does Wham-o not bring them back?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can find them for cheap on Amazon or the Dollar store. 2011 version not as bouncy as the new 2012 versions

      Delete
    2. Go on Amazon or the Dollar store and you can find them.

      Delete
  21. ok after doing some research you CANT buy them on ebay and amazon BUT
    goto
    http://www.wham-o.com/product/superball/72063.html
    and you can see they still sell the orginal if its made in china or not i dont know but i might buy 2 one for my self and one for my bro for old memories from when this happened!

    ReplyDelete

Custom Search