POGO STICK

A 'pogo stick' is a device consisting of a pole with a handle at one end, footpads on the other and a spring which supports the stick and user when on the ground. Usually considered a children's toy, it is used for hopping up and down by use of the spring. It was designed in 1919 by George Hansburg, an Illinois toy designer. Earlier designs were manufactured in Germany. It is said to have been invented by a poor Burmese farmer who made one for his shoeless daughter, Pogo, so she could hop all the way every day to pray at the temple. [1]
The pole juts down some distance below the footpads and has a rubber cover at the bottom end for traction. The operator places his feet on the footpads while balancing on the pole, then jumps or presses down on the footpads to compress the spring. When the spring has been fully compressed, the operator lifts his weight, aided by the recoil of the spring, being launched several inches or feet into the air. This process is repeated to create a hopping action. The pogo stick can be steered, with some difficulty, by shifting one's weight; and becomes an interesting form of locomotion.
Later, improvements on this concept have been made, including the Vurtego, Flybar, and BowGo, which allow operators to jump much higher than with a regular pogo stick.
The name is derived from the name of manufacturer "'Po'hlmann & 'Go'ppel" from Springe in Lower Saxony, which produced many pogo sticks and exported them to the United Kingdom.

Contents

TV shows

Video games

Related terms

Songs

Patents

See also

TV shows

★ In ''Popetown'', the Pope uses his rod as a pogo stick.

★ On the 100 greatest toys countdown on VH1 called ''I Love Toys'', the pogo stick grabbed the #38 spot.

★ On the Jackass TV show on MTV, a pogo stick was used to jump over Dumpsters, waterfalls in city parks, over concrete retaining walls, among other things.

★ On ''Sesame Street'', one of Telly Monster's favorite hobbies is jumping on his pogo stick.

Video games

Video games featuring pogo sticks or pogo-action include:

★ ''Pogo Stick Olympics''

★ ''Pogo Joe''

★ The ''Commander Keen'' series

★ DuckTales and DuckTales 2 have Scrooge McDuck using his cane as a pogo stick.

★ Tekken's demonic samurai of the woods Yoshimitsu uses his sword as a pogo stick.

★ In the Super Smash Bros. series, the Hylian Link has an attack where he comes down with his sword, and bounces up again if he hits an opponent, mimicking a pogo stick. He also has this move the Gamecube version of ''Soulcalibur II''.

★ In ''Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel'' and the sequel '', the player can transmute material into a pogo stick.

★ In the SNES game ''Earthbound'', there are enemies near the beginning named Pogo Punks who ride pogo sticks and attack you with them. They tend to fall down a lot.

★ Hasbro released a pc game "Dog on a Stick" about a pogo sticking dog.

★ In ''Mega Man II'' and ''Mega Man V'' for the Nintendo Gameboy, there's a boss named Quint which fights using a pogo stick.

Related terms

In rocketry and aerospace design, there is a type of hazardous oscillation named Pogo oscillation, in reference to the motion of a pogo stick being used. Large rocket propulsion systems are especially prone to it.

Songs

★ The UK band Supergrass has a song "Late in the Day" which features the band pogoing around.

★ The US Band System of a Down has a song "Bounce", which features a pogo stick.

Patents

★ ''Pogo stick'' — U.S. — H. H. Hohberger

★ ''Pogo stick'' — U.S. — G. B. Hansburg

★ ''Combustible gas powered pogo stick'' — U.S. — G. Spitzmesser

★ ''BowGo'' — U.S. — Brown, Jr.; H. Benjamin (Pittsburgh, PA); Nourbakhsh; Illah R. (Pgh, PA); Zeglin; Garth John (Pittsburgh, PA)

See also

★ Pogo pin

★ Vurtego