Let's all be like the yo-yo man Rockin' the bass from the palm of your hand
Around the world, man, do it again All the falls you know you can
Round the corner, baby in the cradle Loop the loop, now do it if you're able
Shoot the moon, it's not too far In a flying saucer you'll find yourself
It's a little bit hard but never say die Cha-cha, baby in the player's eyes
Don't ever give up, don't ever get low Keep on trying and just say yo
Hi, I'm Dick Smothers. That's a picture of me when I was just a little boy.
Now I've grown up to be the voice of yo.
I'm here to tell you how my brother Tom, after many years of searching
and long hours of practice, became the yo-yo man
and how you too can attain that lofty state of yo.
We started out with a normal family life, with Mom, Tom, and me,
and we had a healthy and happy childhood.
That is until Tom talked me into joining the Army.
After an honorable discharge, Tom and I went off and pursued the truth of life,
which ultimately led us to the state of yo.
People have asked me, where did the yo-yo come from?
Very good question. Where did the yo-yo come from?
Well, no one knows for sure, but according to the yo-yo man,
the evolution of the yo-yo first began a long, long time ago
when a man was caught observing a frog.
He looked at that frog. He noticed the frog had a very unusual tongue.
He thought maybe that tongue could be used for a lot of other things
than flicking flies and insects.
He said the tongue went real far out, back and forth.
He held the frog by his long tongue and bounced him up and down.
Then he tried around the world.
Around the world worked pretty well, too.
The yo-yo man looked at the frog and said,
it's great fun, but not for you, right?
The frog agreed, and we finished with the frog.
Now, the next step, isn't that right, yo-yo man?
He said yes, of course.
Now, the next step in the evolution of the yo-yo came one night
as a man was caught studying a spider
working its way up and down a silk and thread.
So, of course, he thought to himself,
I wonder what if I...
Yes, I think I'll try around the world with this handsome spider.
And that worked pretty well.
Then he said, I think I'll try loop-the-loop.
Loop-the-loop worked real well, too. That is until...
Ah!
I need to get the coin.
No one knows when or where the yo-yo made its first appearance on this planet,
but legend has it that it goes way, way, way back to near the beginning of time,
or possibly just after the discovery of string.
But one thing for sure, the yo-yo has remained very popular ever since.
For centuries, the young and old, rich and poor,
the famous and powerful have all pursued the same goal.
They have searched and searched and searched and searched
for the pure and supreme state of yo.
Do you know how the state of yo can give you new life?
Do you know how the state of yo can lift your spirits?
Do you know how the state of yo can change an ordinary dullard
into someone special?
Well, take a look at this man.
Here's an example of a man before he discovered
and achieved the mystic state of yo.
Not a living thing could stand to be in his presence.
Flowers would wilt, food would spoil, animals and insects would find him
and bite him and then die gladly.
For instance, witness this encounter with a small child.
Hello, small child, he said.
Ooh!
You see, even the child recognizes this man's apparent lack of yo.
Pardon me, miss, I'm a stranger in your town.
Could you please show me the way to your house, he said.
Ooh!
And even disagreeable, sour, old political losers found him quite annoying.
Well, this is getting me nowhere, he said.
And that's when he discovered, that's when he discovered the yo-yo.
He saw the light.
He heard the music.
He found the groove.
It's yo-yo man!
Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
No, it's something even more special.
It's the yo-master.
My brother Tom could not believe his eyes.
I want to be a yo-yo man, he cried.
Make me a yo-yo man.
But the yo-yo master did not answer.
He just kept on yo-ing.
Well, can you at least help me get started, please?
Yes, he said, but first you must learn the basics of yo.
The basics, stringing the yo, tying the knot, creating the loop,
placement on the finger, twisting and winding, throwing and retrieving,
string tension and replacement.
Let's start off by stringing the yo.
Slip the yo-yo through the loop of the string.
Now give it a twist to the right.
That's clockwise.
That's right.
Now hold the yo-yo between your feet and stretch the string up to your waist.
Hold it taut there and clip off the string.
That's right, yo-yo man.
Ooh, watch out, yo-yo man.
That's not where you're supposed to put the scissors.
The reason you want the string at that length is you don't want it so long
that the yo-yo keeps banging the ground.
Now that's right, yo-yo man.
Tie a nice little knot right there at the top of the string.
Now tie a loop, a little loop around the end of the string.
You want the loop too small so that it binds on the loop
and when it's around your finger it cuts off circulation.
So have it a nice loose loop like it shows right there in the diagram.
That's good.
Now place the string of the loop around your middle finger
just behind the first knuckle right there.
That's good.
Now put it tight and you're ready to go.
Let's start off by spinning the yo-yo to the right to twist the string tight.
Sounds like a simple thing to do,
but sometimes you'll find that the yo-yo string keeps slipping around
and you can't wind it very easily.
Winding this yo-yo should be easy, but here's what the yo-yo man does.
See his finger?
There, he slips it right across the yo-yo, makes an extra loop,
then slides the finger out,
and now you can start winding a little tighter and a little tighter.
And that's perfect. Now the yo-yo is ready to go.
Notice which way you're winding the yo-yo.
See the arrow there?
The yo-yo string is wound to the outside towards the end of the fingers.
The reason it's wound towards the end of the fingers
is that when you do an overhand release, palm up release,
the yo-yo just naturally rolls off the hand down to the sleeper position.
Do it again, yo-yo man.
See the palm is up towards the yo-yo man, facing the yo-yo man,
and a nice natural roll up into your fingers.
See, the reason you do that overhand roll is that you get a lot of power in the spin.
Tell you what, try just dropping the yo-yo from the underside of the palm of the hand.
You see how lazy it spins? It doesn't spin very good at all.
You see the problem the yo-yo man has there is the string is not twisted enough.
It's too loose, so twist it right for tight.
That's right. Now, ooh, see, now here's the opposite problem.
It's too tight.
So what you do is spin the yo-yo to the left for loose,
which will untwist the string a little bit, and then there's no problem.
It's a little bit of trial and error.
So just wind it too tight one time, wind it too loose another, and you'll get what I mean.
Uh-oh, you know what? Yo-yo strings don't last forever,
and no one really knows how long one will last.
So if you're worried about it sometimes, take off a string after it's been on a while,
see a few days, and throw it away.
It's important never to aim the yo-yo directly at anybody,
and make sure you have plenty of room for tricks,
because you never know when you might lose that state of yo.
When Tommy was just a little boy, his hero was a traveling professional yo-yo man.
And as Tommy grew up, he never lost his love for the yo-yo.
But when you approach the yo-yo as an adult,
it has a whole different dimension than when you were just a child.
For instance, there's a philosophy of life of which the yo-yo is the center.
It goes like this.
We're all warm and secure in our homes like a yo-yo is in the palm of the hand.
Then when the yo-yo is flung out into space like this,
that's what we do every day when we leave our homes and go out into the world.
We're out there trying to impress our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones.
We're out there trying to get ahead in life,
we're out there trying to look groovy.
Hey, look groovy, Tom.
That's it.
That's my brother's groovy look.
Now we'd like to teach you the nine basic yo-yo tricks.
Notice that each trick has its own color.
That's so that when you want to refer to a particular trick for review,
just fast forward your VCR until you see the flashing color of your choice.
Press play and your VCR will start.
Press play and you're ready to go.
Okay, palm up release, yo-yo in the sleeper position,
spinning at the bottom of the string at a high rate of speed.
Now the yo-yo master has his hand up in the air, the arm.
You don't have to do it like that.
You can if you want, but it's not necessary.
Now see the finger there?
Little tug of the finger, yo-yo back up to the palm of the hand.
Hey, yo-yo man, why don't you try it?
That's right.
Back up to the palm of the hand. Very well done.
Now notice it's a palm up release, smart release with lots of spin,
yo-yo spinning at a high rate of speed at the end of the string,
and when you're ready, just sort of bring it up to the palm of the hand.
This trick is for animal lovers.
Now throw a real fast sleeper just like the one you learned.
Let it spin at the end of the string for a few beats,
then gently lower the yo-yo back towards your heel,
gently to the ground.
Now keep slacking the string by moving your hand away from your body
following the yo-yo.
Then end of the run, jerk your hand up just a little tug,
the yo-yo comes back up to the palm of the hand.
Now it's real important that you do a fast spin, overhand release,
really fast spin, stabilize the yo-yo there for a few seconds,
lower it towards your heel, follow it out.
That's right.
Now jerk the hand, little tug, back to the palm of the hand.
If you want to go for a walk with a dog, that's okay too.
Breakaway is a little different from the other tricks
in that the release is to the side and across the body.
See, up and out, down and around and across the body.
Yo-yo man says he'd like to try it by himself.
Okay, yo-yo man, let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Okay, yo-yo man, let's see if you can do it.
Now bring the arm up, down and out and across the body.
That's right.
Let's try it once more.
Slow motion this time.
Hand comes up, palm in, then down and out, across the body.
And right there, little tug of the hand brings the yo-yo
right back to the palm of the hand.
Let's watch the yo-yo man do it a couple more times.
You're in the groove, yo-yo man.
Ah!
Over the falls is a pretty fancy trick.
You fling the yo-yo straight out, then back over your wrist
straight down, then back up to the palm of the hand.
Let's try it in slow motion.
Rear release, straight out, over the wrist between the arm
and body, straight down, then up to the palm of the hand.
Let's watch it in stop action.
Arm back, wrist cocked, straight forward release,
and come right back over the wrist between the forearm
and the body, straight down, up to the hand.
Around the world is the yo-yo man's favorite trick
because it best illustrates his philosophy of life.
He thinks of us as the yo-yo in the
palm of the hand, and as we live life, we go out into the world
spinning around and around, seeing new places
and making new friends.
Let's watch the yo-yo man do it in slow motion.
Arm comes back, down and forward, around,
now a slight tug on the string, back to the hand.
Let's watch it in stop motion.
Now the yo-yo man brings his hand back,
wrist cocked, down and forward, yo-yo's way up,
yo-yo's way out there, now watch the hand,
stays very quiet in the center, hardly moves at all.
A yo-yo man's going around twice,
because he has a lot of spin on it,
but you just try one revolution to start.
Good going, yo-yo man, nice trip.
Let's watch around the corner.
Yo-yo man says he'd like to try it.
Let's watch it in slow motion.
Arm comes back, down and forward,
around, now a slight tug on the string,
good fast sleeper position, bring the yo-yo string
gently behind the arm, midway between the elbow
and the shoulder, cock the wrist back a little bit,
and sort of wave the hand, a little tug,
over the arm, straight down, back up to the palm of the hand.
Let's try it once more.
Now, overhand release, good fast sleeper,
then very gently bring that string back,
over the arm, back to the palm of the hand,
over the arm, now try to get the elbow,
wrist and shoulder approximately the same height,
cock your wrist back, and then wave your hand forward,
just a little wave, the yo-yo will come over the arm,
straight down, hold your hand about waist high,
then a little tug, back to the palm of the hand.
Let's watch the yo-master.
Now, here's a variation on around the corner,
it's called kick around the corner,
everything's the same to this point,
then you bring your left leg back,
and you fake a kick at it, see, just don't quite touch it,
but at the same time, wave the hand,
yo-yo comes up, down, and back home again.
Nifty trick, yo-master.
Rocking the baby is one of the most famous
of all the yo-yo tricks.
The yo-yo man gets more requests for this trick than any other.
Here's the yo-yo man rocking the baby,
builds the cradle with his left hand,
rocks the baby with his right, back to the palm of the hand.
Now, let's try it in slow motion.
Yo-yo down and a fast sleeper,
now a little more than a third down with the left hand,
you grab the yo-yo string, then with the right hand,
a few inches above the yo-yo, grab the string,
now spread the fingers of the left hand,
turning palm up, build the cradle,
rock the baby with the right hand.
To release from this position, release with the right hand,
bring the left hand up, and back home again.
Let's try it again, fast release, sleeper.
Now a bit more than a third down with the left hand and the right.
Now you're going to have to experiment a little bit with this
to try to get the right amount of swing for the baby in the cradle
so it fits.
You just watch this.
You could run this tape backwards and forward
because it's a little tricky
in getting the right dimensions for the cradle.
Spank the baby.
That's a little variation on rock the baby.
Here's another one.
It's called rock the baby cha-cha-cha.
It's a little fancy.
Cha-cha-cha.
Let's see you do it, yo-yo man.
Builds the cradle, rocks the baby, cha-cha-cha.
Let's watch the yo master up close, slow motion.
Now he has so much spin on it that he's going to do,
you could count them, four and a half cha-cha-chas.
Okay, here he goes.
Start counting them.
Here we go, four and a half.
Watch this release up, out, and away
and with an overhand grip, great catch.
Pretty cocky there.
Now try rock the froggy in the cradle.
And that worked pretty good too.
In fact, as you can see, the man was having lots of fun.
Here's the yo-yo man doing his loop-the-loops.
And now the yo master in slow motion
will show you how to do it.
Hand back, forward release,
and then with your wrist and finger,
bring the yo-yo back between the arm and the body
and then fling it out again.
Watch the timing on this trick.
Hand back, between the arm and body, and out again.
When you first try this trick,
just try one or two loop-the-loops.
Now here's a good shot on the wrist and finger action
on loop-the-loop.
See how it comes back?
Watch that string in relation to the hand action.
This particular trick, the yo-yo never sleeps.
And actually, if you do these loop-the-loops right,
you could build energy and go faster and faster
and do as many loop-the-loops as you want.
And that's loop-the-loop.
This last trick is dual purpose.
Not only is the flying saucer fun to watch,
but it also adjusts the twist
or the tension of the yo-yo string.
See the yo-yo comes out,
takes an angle in the sleeper position,
continues until it's spinning absolutely flat,
and then you bring it back to the hand.
Now the reason it does this is, unlike the other tricks,
the yo-yo release is not straight down, it's to the side.
See that?
Yo-yo man just flung it to the side about 45-degree angle,
boom, back to the palm of the hand.
Now let's see how we do this trick.
You take your overhand release to the side,
see, right from the start, 45-degree angle.
Now watch, in the sleeper position,
the yo-yo is cocked a little bit.
See it?
Now it's even continuing until it's absolutely flat.
Now take your left hand about midway on the string,
slide it down to about 4-6 inches above the yo-yo,
hold it out there until you're ready to bring it home,
then a slight lift with the left hand,
a tug with the right, and back to the hand.
It's very important with this trick
that you release the yo-yo easier,
that is, with not as much power as you would with a front release.
The yo-yo cannot accept as much power with a side release,
it'll just pop right back up.
See the yo-yo man's release nice and easy.
Now with the left hand, he pinches the string,
holds it tight, and watch the string untwist.
That is the Flying Saucer.
Nice fly on, yo-yo man.
In honor of the yo-yo man's completion
of the nine basic yo-yo tricks,
did he ask for gold, silver, or other material goods?
No, he did not.
He simply asked for and received his very own suspenders.
That's right, suspenders.
I have no idea why he wanted these suspenders.
But then again, they made him so happy.
Congratulations, yo-yo man. Congratulations.
Here's a tiny baby in a little cradle.
And now the Eiffel Tower.
Monkey up a string.
The Texas star.
The man on the flying trapeze.
Well, I want to be like a yo-yo man
To spread my yo all over the land
With a goofy dance and funny clothes
He's making me laugh wherever he goes
The two-legged man on the flying trapeze
He's making me laugh wherever he goes
The two-handed loop-the-loop.
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Here comes the motorcycle.
Yes, I want to be like a yo-yo man
Just yo-ing all day and night if I can
Riding the horse.
Never say nothing don't matter to him
He's telling it all with his yo-yo win
The brain twister.
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
The baby in the Eiffel Tower.
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
The dog bites man.
Ooh, that hurts doesn't it, yo-yo man?
Now this is a real nifty trick.
It's called dog jumping through hoop.
Let's watch that again.
Through the hoop.
One more time, yo-master.
Here comes the scary spider web.
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Ooh, scary.
Loop the loop.
With around the world.
He's a yo-yo man
Milk the cow.
I want to be like a yo-yo man
Catch a little spine in the palm of your hand
But never give up and never give in, oh
Just keep on trying and just say yo
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Life is like a yo-yo string
Just throw it all out and give it a fling
Around the world to find the stars
Wear suits for the moon, it's not too far
The pinwheel.
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
Monkey on a string
Now let's all be like a yo-yo man
Shooting the moon from the palm of your hand
Loop the loop, then do it again
Two at a time, you know you can
It's a little bit hard but never say die
You can criss-cross baby in the blink of an eye
Don't ever give up and never give in, oh
Just keep on trying and just say yo
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo
He's a yo-yo man
Yo-yo, yo-yo man
Giving the group yo-yo man
That's right, he has been transformed by the power and the spirit of yo
Right, yo-yo man?
Yes, he says it's right, I am a new person
I am the spirit of yo
Now, now when he meets a small child
The child is enchanted
Look at that
Mercy me, look how enchanted that child looks
He's becoming very enchanted
Very good yo-yo man
It's working
And when the yo-yo man meets an attractive young woman
She's enchanted as well
Look how enchanted she looks
Oh, yo-yo man
That will straighten your strain, won't it?
Stay here yo-yo man, you have more to prove
And now when he meets that sour old political loser
He's also enchanted, watch this
Wait a minute, no he's not enchanted
It's not working, try it again yo-yo man, please don't fail
Try it again yo-yo man, go a second time
Look, it worked, he's a success
The yo-yo man did it, congratulations yo-yo man
You've gotten them all into the state of yo
So everybody remember, just stay loose, stay cool, stay on the groove
And of course, just say yo
Yo, alright
Alright yo-yo man
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