Synopsis of Toy

The dog doesn’t particularly like playing catch with the Koosh Ball, and you won’t like playing with the dog, to tell you the truth, after you get a load of the way your canine’s saliva can weave itself into the Koosh’s rubber spikes. So let Biscuit sit this one out. The Koosh is best left to us humans, for hours and hours of spit-free fun.

In the late 1980's, an engineer named Scott Stillinger was trying to teach his kids how to catch a ball, when an idea swooshed through his physics-inclined brain. How about a ball made of soft rubbery strands that small hands could easily latch onto? A little porcupine-looking number, but with none of a porcupine’s prickliness? Stillinger tied rubber bands together for his first creation, and came up with the name “Koosh” because that’s the sound it made as it landed in his hand. Maybe it’s not in the same invention league as the wheel or sliced bread, but it’s up there.

Kooshes come in a rainbow of colors and sizes. For those of you who like to be familiar with the things you’re glibly tossing around, there are television tie-in Kooshes (a Rugrats character, Scooby-Doo, etc.). If your throwing arm doesn’t pack the wallop you’re looking for, there are slew of other ways to launch a Koosh Ball: Koosh Catchers and Koosh FlingShots among them. We don’t advocate aiming above the neck, but even if you do happen to catch one with your face, the soft Koosh won’t do much damage—it takes thousands of fibers to make just one ball, so there’s a lot there to absorb impact energy.

Recently, there was a line of Koosh jewelry for pre-teeners and on up, a part of the Koosh Cosmic Club line. There are different colored Koosh Horoscope Balls and Karma Koosh Balls, which reflect the changing emotions of owners. Maybe the school election and the winning badminton point really are matters of fate, but surely a good-luck Koosh in your pocket could only help things.

If you take a close look around, the Kooshes of the world will start to reveal themselves—they’re pretty much everywhere, you just never knew what the heck to make of that porcupine-looking thing before. They’re out there on corporate desks for stress-relief, they stuff Christmas stockings, they hang at the end of toy store aisles, they perch loyally by recliners so that frustrated television viewers can throw them at the screen in lieu of their not-so-resilient remote controls. They’re an alternative to regular old balls, they’re great for teaching kids how to catch, and they don’t hurt too much if your catch partner gets a bit zealous. Once you’ve got one in your palm, it’s hard not to toss it around a little, and enjoy the Kooshness that spit-happy Biscuit the Dog cannot.

Release History of Toy

1987 - Koosh Ball

Sub Categories of Toys

sports
tv tie-in

Toy and Game Manufacturer

Oddzon Products

Other Toy Links