As a kid growing up in the 90s’ there always seemed to be a certain must have toy that dominated the neighborhood from season to season. Laser Tag, Super Soakers and Nerf Turbo were a few of my favorites,  but to my knowledge there was only one toy that playing with could have put me on the fast track to securing a Guinness World Record. That’s right boys and girls, I’m talking about the Aerobie.

The Pink that Don't Stink

Dubbed “The Astonishing Flying Ring,” the Aerobie was flying high right around the time Boyz to Men “End of the Road” was the hot jam in my cassette player and the Buffalo Bills were perennial Super Bowl contenders. Living in a suburban neighborhood dominated with elementary school children there wasn’t a street in the subdivision you could drive down without seeing a neon Aerobie laying flat on someone’s roof like an abandoned holiday decoration.

The problem I had with the Aerobie (aside from it being neon pink) was that in trying to differentiate itself from the “wimpy” Frisbie, the Aerobie turned a backyard game of catch into a game of fetch.  Sure throwing for distance was fun but going to get it after your buddy launches it over your head was another thing entirely. There is a reason why you don’t see hippies playing “Ultimate Aerobie.” You’d really shoot yourself in the foot when you owned the Aerobie you were playing with and had to come to the realization that after you threw it into the next area code it logically made more sense for your friend to walk home to enjoy a Capri Sun than to go and retrieve your property. Even if you tried to toss it gently to a partner, the thin rubber made it tough to catch and your best bet was to get your arm through the ring in the center and let it spin like a hula hoop. The bottom line is unless you had a well trained Golden Retriever as a pet, playing with the Aerobie was going to be a short lived activity and eventually another short lived fad of the 90s’.

World class thrower Erin Hemmings broke the Guinness World Record of the “longest throw of an object without any velocity-aiding feature” on July 14, 2003 using an Aerobie Pro ring. The distance? 1,333 feet (406 meters).

Nothing says I'm a man like throwing a children's toy 1/4 of a mile

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