August 1965: Super Ball

This invention relates to a toy and more particularly to a ball or sphere having extremely high resilience and a high coefficient of friction.

     -- "Highly Resilient Polybutadiene Ball" (U.S. Patent Office; filed August 25, 1965; patented March 22, 1966): @

Here's the new SUPER-BALL that bounces like nothing you've ever seen before. Its strange, lively antics will distract classrooms and disrupt the dignity of business offices. Everybody is fascinated by SUPER-BALL, the handball-sized black ball that mysteriously leaps high into the air, darts this way and that, or bounces back in unlikely directions with a new twist.
     -- Advertisement (Family Weekly, November 14, 1965): @ 

Note: The earliest ad I could find was dated August 4, 1965.

* Wham-O product site: @

* www.superballs.com (tribute site): @

* "Kinematics of an Ultraelastic Rough Ball" (Richard L. Garwin, Columbia University, published in American Journal of Physics, January 1969): @

* "How Super Balls Work" (www.howstuffworks.com, 2011): @

* "A Boom with a Bounce" (Life magazine, December 3, 1965): @

* "Can You Invent a Million-Dollar Fad?" (Popular Science, January 1966): @

* "Corny Name, 'Super' Game" (Associated Press, January 6, 1970): @
* Entry from "Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia" (Sharon M. Scott, 2010): @

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