Sit ‘n Spin: A Call to Fans – Do You Remember the Vertigo-inducing Riding Toy?

I would love to have seen this thing being pitched to the company brass:


“A riding toy… that goes nowhere?”

“Yep. But it goes ‘round.”

“‘Round what?”

“Itself, like a top.”

“Uh-huh. Let me ask you this, does it include flashing lights or make interesting noises?”

“No, no it doesn’t. But it can produce severe nausea.”

“Why didn’t you say so! We’ll introduce them for the holiday market!”

That’s how one of my favorite childhood toys, the Sit ‘n Spin, was born (give or take a whole lotta facts). For some reason, spinning myself into oblivion turned out to be a lot more fun than it must have looked.

The premise was simple: Allow children to whirl like dervishes in the privacy of their own homes, and while seated, at that. The child would sit on a large disc that had a steering wheel-type-thing anchored to a post in the disc’s center. Because the disc rotated independently of the steering wheel, the child was able to control the speed at which he/she spun by “steering.” The object, at least for me, was to achieve ever-increasing heights of centripetal velocity (i.e., go real fast). Everybody was a winner!