Wham-O was the unquestioned king of kid fads during the 1960s. They started hot with the Hula Hoop and finished even hotter with the Frisbee (a fad that never, ever went away). In between, they gave us the SuperBall!

The SuperBall was a compact little piece of toy dynamite. When dropped, it rebounded to nearly 100% of the original height. When thrown with a little (or a lot) of force, it could sail over houses and even reach high enough to shatter lights in school gymnasium ceilings. The ball will also bounce in crazy ways if you put spin on it.

The ball was invented by chemist Norman Stingley in 1964. He created a complex batch of synthetic rubber he named Zectron. He offered his invention to his employer, the Bettis Rubber Company. They couldn’t see much use for it and told Stingley he was free to shop it elsewhere.

He found a buyer at the Wham-O toy company, who instantly saw its potential. They worked with Stingley to improve his formula and created compact bouncing balls about 2” in diameter under 3,500 pounds per square inch of pressure. When Wham-O first released their SuperBall in 1965, it was an instant hit. By December of that year, the company was cranking out 170,000 of the little devils a day!

Wham-O quickly expanded their line of SuperBalls to include different colors – and especially – different sizes.

Believe it or not, the little ball also gave our biggest sporting event its name. Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs noticed his kids playing with a SuperBall and wrote a letter to the committee supervising the newly created championship game between the NFL and the AFL suggesting they use the name "Super Bowl." They turned him down. But reporters loved the name and began using it in their stories. The name caught on with the public and by the 3rd year, pro football officially adopted "Super Bowl" as the name of their big game!

Meanwhile back at the fad, SuperBalls had two drawbacks – irate parents tired of seeing household item smashed (and kids with bruises and black eyes) from getting in the way of a SuperBall and the fact that SuperBalls had a tendency to suddenly shatter after only a few days of play.

Other competitors jumped in with their own versions, although Wham-O has a patent on the exact formula for their ball, and the company claims the ones they manufacture today last longer than the 1965 model. But like most fads, sales of SuperBalls fell off as quickly in 1966 as they rose the year before.

That’s just the way the SuperBall bounces!

Okay, you know nobody in the band was named Herman and that the lead singer, Peter Noone, is still active and performing today. But here are a few facts you may not know about those British Invasion fave raves:

It was Peter Noone’s resemblance to JFK that got them their first recording session – The group’s management had been trying unsuccessfully to get British super producer Mickey Most to record the boys. Finally, Mickey said, “Send me a picture” of the group. When the photo arrived, Most thought Noone looked like a young JFK and so decided to take a chance on the group.

“I’m Henry the VIII” was written in 1910 – Their fastest-selling single was the catchy and hyper-British ditty “I’m Henry the VIII” (or “Henery” as Noone would sing it). The song was actually first performed in English music halls as far back as 1910. The Brits themselves thought the song and Noone’s overdone Cockney accent were a little too corny, so the song was never as big in the UK as it was in the USA.

Half of Led Zeppelin played on lots of Herman’s Hermits’ records – You probably know that Jimmy Page was one of England’s most sought-after sessions musicians. And yes, he’s the one playing lead guitar on many of the group’s hits (like “Silhouettes”). What you may not know is that the band didn’t think much of their own bass player, Karl Green, and so he was replaced on nearly ALL of the group’s recording by John Paul Jones who also did double duty arranging the music for most of the group’s sessions.

“Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” was actually a cover song – The tune was written for a 1963 British TV show called “The Lads.” The original version was recorded by the show’s star Tom Courtenay, but it never went anywhere.

As we age, many of us develop cataracts. However, many of us aren’t even aware it’s happening. Here are a few tips to keeping your eyes healthy:

1.) Cataracts most typically become a problem for people in the 60s and 70s, but doctors say they can develop much earlier, so be mindful of that once you get past 50.

2.) Because cataracts develop slowly, most people don’t realize how cloudy their vision has become. Make sure your see your optometrist regularly.

3.) One of the key symptoms that indicate you may have a problem with cataracts is if you see halos around lights. Again, always check with your optometrist.

Finally, cataract surgery has made tremendous strides in recent years. It is not painful. It may feel a bit uncomfortable because we’re hard-wired not to like anybody messing around near our eyes, but 4 out of people who’ve had the surgery say it was easier than they thought it would be.

Medical researchers are proving something the Italians have known for centuries – cooking in olive oil can be the healthiest choice!

Studies show that extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) can help clear toxins from the brain that contribute to Alzheimer’s and other dementias. However, be careful when shopping as most oils marketed as “extra virgin” don’t really get the job done. Expert recommend buying your olive oil from California growers because that state has imposed a stricter standard for labelling olive oil “extra virgin.” They also recommend buying oil in darker bottles as light can breakdown the healthy components in EVOO.

They also recommend a small taste test. If the olive oil produced a slight burning feeling at the back of your throat – that’s good! It means that oil is high in the stuff that helps keep you brain clear.

While you’re at it, it’s also recommended that when you cook with oil, make it olive oil as it produces less harmful chemicals than other oils (like canola and peanut)when subjected to heat.

They're all adorable when they’re young! Like this future rock & roll troublemaker...

Rock & Roll had only gotten a toe-hold on American television until the debut of Shindig, the first prime-show dedicated solely to rock music and Baby Boomers!

Prior to this, the only time you’d see a rock act in prime time was on The Ed Sullivan Show, but Ed would keep rock quarantined to a single act per show – and always intermingling with opera singers, plate spinners, Borscht Belt comics and singers who appealed to your mom and dad.

Yes, we had American Bandstand, but that aired in the late afternoon along with other “kid shows” like Huckleberry Hound. Shindig was the first time an entire 30-minute block was given over to appealing to the Baby Boom generation on a weekly basis.

Read on to discover more fascinating facts about this ground-breaking TV series!

Put together by British entrepreneur, Jack Good and L.A. deejay, Jimmy O’Neill, the show was launched on September 4, 1964. It was an immediate hit. By January, the program expanded to 60 minutes. The show never took a break or aired a rerun. They cranked out 52 editions of the show in that first year!

The style of the show came as close to Top 40 radio as they could get. Songs slammed into each other at a breakneck pace without any announcing in between – the name of each act simply appearing on screen. The end of the show generally featured all the artists from that episode joining together – creating some once-in-a-lifetime pairings (like Sam Cooke and the Everly Brothers as you can see in the picture to the left).

When the second season started in the fall of 1965, they made their first mistake. They broke the show into two editions, running for 30 minutes on Thursday and Saturdays. The big problem was – there were damn few teenagers who were staying home on Saturday nights. That edition of the show had terrible ratings.

Shindig also got almost immediate competition when NBC launched Hullabaloo in January of 1965. 90 minutes of rock music a week proved to be too much of a good thing. Shindig was cancelled in the middle of its second season – ironically replaced with another 2-night-a-week show, Batman! Hullabaloo held out for a few more months but was also cancelled at the end of the 1965-66 television season.

While Shindig featured incredible performances by legendary singers and musicians, the show had only a few “best of” VHS tapes released and, to date, no DVDs – although there are some grainy bootleg sets floating around, if you know where to look.

Here are some more interesting facts about Shindig:

The show simply couldn’t book enough big-name talent each week to fill up each show. Instead, they relied on a stable of “house artists” who contributed to every show by singing covers of other people’s hits. Pulled from the ranks of L.A.’s top session singers and musicians, they included several performers who found fame a little later:

• The Righteous Brothers
• Bobby Sherman
• The Blossoms (whose lead singer was Darlene Love)
• Leon Russell
• Glenn Campbell
• Donna Loren (who went on the be featured in the Beach Party movies)

Because rock was so new, while the British Invasion acts were the show's main focus, Shindig featured lots of the Founding Fathers of Rock, even though most were already past their peak in teen appeal. These included:

• Chuck Berry
• The Everly Brothers
• Roy Orbison
• Del Shannon
• Neil Sedaka
• Gene Pitney

There was a pilot episode filmed but never aired that featured Little Richard. Little Richard never appeared on the show was it went to broadcast.

The Shindig Dancers became almost as popular as some of the house singers. Terri Garr and Toni Basil danced in some of the early episodes and one dancer, Carole Shelyne, became extremely popular when she was given a pair of horned rim glasses to wear while performing (she didn't really wear glasses). Her popularity was so great that she recorded a song “The Girl with the Horned Rim Glasses” to capitalize of her noteriety. She went on to a very successful acting career after the show ended, changing her name to Carolyne Barry and including a memorable role on the first Star Trek series.

The show really took off when the Beatles appeared on the 4th episode. Although their manager, Brian Epstein, appeared on Shindig’s competitor, Hullabaloo, the Beatles never did.

We all remember the Stridex pimple cream commercials that Jimmy O’Neill did. What we didn’t know then was that those “typical teenagers” all came from central casting. In fact, a young Tim Matheson (still a few years away from Animal House) was one of the kids who discovered that his pancake make-up would indeed wipe off on the Stridex pad, making it look like it could really do a job on zits!

Because the show ran on ABC, the network used it to try and promote the singing careers of young performers who were appearing on other network shows: like Patty Duke, Paul Petersen and Shelly Fabares.

Especially in its early episodes, the show would often mix in undiluted gospel and country music next to the rock acts.

Turns out the popular confection was invented by two women who worked for the Kellogg’s!

Malitta Jensen and Mildred Day came up with the recipe while working in the Home Economics department of the Battle Creek cereal company in 1939. They originally conceived of the recipe as something they could bake for a fundraiser for their local troop of Campfire Girls. They shared the recipe with their bosses and their bosses shared it with the world, simply hoping to boost sales of the cereal.

That’s the way it went all the way until 1995. By then several manufacturers were already marketing their own pre-made knock-offs of the treats. Not wanting to be left out, Kellogg’s finally began producing their own pre-made Rice Krispies Treats that year.

Here’s a photo of Mildred Day. Alas, we could find no photograph for her co-creator, Malitta Jensen.

BTW – no truth to the rumor that Howdy Doody developed a Treat addiction so bad he sold his left leg for firewood to support his habit.

When choosing a credit card, here are some things to consider:

If you use your card for everyday purchases like gas & groceries: Use one of those cashback/rewards cards.

If you have big credit card balances: Take advantage of those 0% introductory card offers or balance transfer. A word of caution, make sure you can pay off the balance of your transfer before the introductory period ends because that balance will be accruing deferred interest you’ll have to pay off in full if you don’t clear the balance in the required time period. Also, destroy or lock up the cards you are transferring the balances from – no sense running them up again while you’re still trying to pay down your previous balance.

If you have less than perfect credit: Use a secured card. This type of card requires you to put money in an account to cover your credit limit. This type of card will hold your card purchases to a level you can afford while helping you rebuild your credit score.

If you use your card only for big purchases or emergencies; Find a cashback card with no annual fee.