Silly String is brightly colored, plastic string propelled as a stream of liquid from an aerosol can. The solvent in the string evaporates in mid-air and creates a continuous strand. It has various knock-offs called Whacky String or Party String or similar.
Silly String is often used during festive occasions such as weddings, birthday parties, carnivals and other events such as baby gender reveal parties. That’s right. Some couples who know the sex of their baby will buy a bunch of cans of Silly String in pink for girls or blue for boys depending on the sex of the baby. The cans are wrapped so no one can see the color of the contents and using a count down everyone squirts the Silly String into the air revealing the baby’s sex. Yippee!
The military uses it to detect tripwires in places like Iraq. Talk about multi-functional eh?
According to Wikipedia a United States Patent was issued to the founders of Silly String, Leonard A. Fish and Robert P. Cox in 1972 as a “foamable resinous composition”. The partners initially wanted to create a can of aerosol that you would be able to spray on a broken/sprained leg or arm and turn into an instant cast. The invention was a success. But when it came down to packaging the can, the founders had to go through a box of 500 different kinds of nozzles. The article goes on to say that after going through about 30 or 40, Fish pressed one nice string that shot about 30 feet across the room. From there Fish came up with an idea to make the string less sticky and add different colors. Sort of like with Silly Putty, a fun toy came out of a sort of failed experiment.
Eventually Wham-O signed a contract with the founders to license what we now know as Silly String.
Basically it is just fun to squirt each other.
Raise your hands if you like playing with Silly String.
Yeah, me too. It always makes me smile.
Have you had the chance to play with Silly String or use it for some sort of other activity? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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