"Dan and his team quickly learned that boys are very okay with the idea of constantly failing as long as the possibility of enormous success is at the end" You're- You're telling me that Cuponk has the same kind of appeal as a Dark Souls game?

the internet needed a definitive Cuponk documentary. thank you.

I can't believe that Cuponk was literally "nerfed"

This was one of the best times I had creating commercials in my almost 30 years in advertising. Definitely a career highlight.

ngl these guys were genius for finding a way to sell a ping pong ball and a cup to kids. it's all about imagination, and getting the kid in the mood.

a 9 year old in an oversized slipknot shirt saying "that was total ownage" is the rawest thing ive ever seen

> parents and grandparents didnt buy the pink on for their kids, > so the pink ones stuck around on store shelves, > and because they had unsold product, stores didnt order more i wonder if this is a contributing factor to the rise of mystery box type toys

I mean i gotta give hasboro credit. They really made my mom go out and buy a cup for 30 dollars for my 12th birthday. We couldve easily done at home with no extra stuff. It just landed in the cuponk better, full placebo

I think it's hilarious that people didnt want the "pink" cup - it has like 20% pink over the entire design!

I was addicted to cuponk as a kid. I went to a party this weekend and won four games of beer pong without taking a single drink. Cuponk saved my mid 20’s

I'm surprised there wasn't more emphasis on collectibility. The cups looked cool, but the balls were surprisingly drab. "Collect them all" is timeless but especially huge at the time... Tech Deck Dudes, Gogos Crazy Bones, Roxx, Zibits, etc. I wanted a reason to collect ping pong balls but they were so colorless and simple. Dagedar was also short-lived but promoted 120 different balls to collect. (They only made 40, but still.) The balls were weighted and the playsets were construction tracks a la Hot Wheels. Great video, no doubt.

The artwork for the cups and balls were immaculate. Almost like if they were inspired from Santa Cruz and Toy Machine skateboard decks.

Excellent video my guy. I'll show it to my mom who never bought me this toy, so I can prove to her that its more than just a thinly veiled attempt to sell beer pong to kids, it's an attempt to sell kids the idea that you can do anything if you try hard enough, and persist long enough.

holy crap, this only lasted a year? i had such intense nostalgia for seeing the commercials once this video came up.

You actually spoke to the people who worked on this?! Man this channel in a hidden gem.

If only we lived in a world where we had Cuponk competition's instead of 8 billion version of monopoly

the packaging and design of cuponk really drew me to it as a kid, the only thing stopping me from getting it was my mom saying “it’s just a cup and and ping pong ball… we have that at home”

The gorilla sound effect when you got a trickshot is burned into my brain and I’m honestly surprised there wasn’t any substantial discussion about that aspect. Excellent video, this was one of my favorite toys as a kid and I can’t remember what happened to it!

This channel's quality is on a different level for one so new.

this story is giving massive ub funkeys vibes. Passionate team tasked with making a new toy ip with infinite creative liberties in the late 2000s, personality gushing out the wazoo, discontinued way to soon and often overlooked in toy history. Amazing video man.

Hasbro getting Kids College ready for Frat life

I think if I ever saw the Gorillanator design, I'd have bought it immediately. Instead, I saw all of the other "edgy" stuff that I was less interested in. I am now looking at it on eBay and mulling over whether I should or not. EDIT: I bought it. $12 including shipping.

18:53 I love seeing people get so excited about their work like this, that's always such a positive thing to see in the design process of any product :D

My guy put the Yu-Gi-Oh Life Point counter sound on the cup pong scoreboard. Finna summon the Beer Goggles White Dragon or smth Great video as always, king!

Thank you for making such a fun and informative documentary for a toy I never owned but vividly remember seeing all over TV when I was growing up. It’s such a shame how the project ran out of steam and it makes me wonder if Cuponk could have lived longer if it had been developed by a smaller company than Hasbro. Considering the pitch was to create the next big idea for a similar demographic to what Nerf had already conquered, it’s bonkers that they pushed so hard to merge the two… You should be proud to know that each video is managing to improve its production quality from the last and that your hard work on the small details really shows! It's insane that the algorithm hasn't picked up on it yet but I’m hoping it becomes a hit for you in the months to come! I honestly didn't see myself watching the whole thing in one sitting but your presentation and flow of the video kept me hooked! Just like you were landing those trickshots back in 2010, this video "Was just total ownage!!!"

I love oddly specific deep dives like this. Like "no ive never gave this a thought, but in 40 min im about to have opinions"

Up next: Funkyjuice, the time hasbro tried selling alcohol to kids.

I don't know if people really noticed what a big jump this video is in terms of quality compared to your previous videos. They were also fantastic, but with this one having interviews with the original creators and everything flowing so smoothly... I'm super impressed

Gosh, this was a fun documentary for a fun toy! The coverage feels pretty full and I enjoyed the theming to be taken back to the time period where Cuponk was a thing, from you wearing the headband to the Cuponk merch and graphics shown throughout the video. c:

Wow, the art, photography and editing of this video is amazing. Well done bro, you've become the explainer of our childhood.

what i remember is that my little brother's cuponk would play a couple different apple garageband guitar samples and then make monster noises

the video i didn't know i needed. this was awesome, personally as a kid i thought cuponk was dumb but always thought the designs on the cups were amazing, and i felt they were more geared towards older teens then so never bothered to ask for one.. this was an awesome watch!

Up until today, I had totally forgot about Cuponk, but just by hearing the name I immediately remembered the art style it had because that was what got my attention the most. If only I had gotten the golden cup when I had the chance, lol

I always wondered why they named it after the weird thing commander worf says

I definitely remember the commercials and artwork for Cuponk, but I had no idea it was actually popular. I had just become a teenager at the beginning of the 2010s so I was aging out of the demographic and the aesthetic wasn't my thing either (interestingly, I find those unreleased third wave designs way more appealing) but looking back, I really like the idea of this toy. There's really no reason beer pong has to be a drinking game; at the few college parties I went to, I enjoyed finding the one other sober person to play on a team with in the night's bracket. Anyway, great video. Passionate mini documentaries on niche topics are a joy to watch. I'm actually considering buying a Cuponk on eBay now...

Hey I was a part of a focus group for this toy! I was like 10 or 11. My mom used to drag me to these groups once a week where I'd be testing out some new toy or pencil and sometimes picking out designs I thought were cool. I didn't like the Cuponk because it was too difficult to set up some of the shots they wanted you to attempt during the testing. I was put in a room with 5 or 6 other people and we had to basically just try and make shots while a bunch of people in the corner sat around and watched us but not saying anything. We were given a box of household objects like pots and pans but there were also pieces of cardboard and folding chairs we could use to set stuff up. There was one kid in my group, I think his name was Adam or Alex or something like that who really hated it and would throw a fit every time he missed a shot. One of my friends eventually got one after it was fully released and if I remember we only made one really cool shot before giving up and deciding it was boring and too tedious. I probably still have a video of our attempts on tape somewhere because I stole my dad's video camera to film it, but I don't remember if the try where we made it was actually recorded or not!

i feel like i should be paying to watch this. it’s seriously so cool that you were able to gather all this information (and even conduct interviews) on such a niche topic and pack it into such an informative, yet also interesting doc. keep up the good work!

It’s crazy, I never heard of this toy, even though I grew up in this era. My friends and I got really into cup speed stacking during that time, but somehow never knew about cuponk.

26:52 I forgot about the word ownage until now. God it's been so long since I've heard it.

Haven't heard about the game in ages, excited for the vid! Edit: watched the vid, it was epic and so cool how u got to interview most of the team! Always top quality content, amazing stuff, slow🎉

Definitely one of the best channels in recent times

You're content is really great, reminds me of that "toys of made us" netflix show I used to watch. hope this blows up it definitely deserves it.

Got a feeling this channel will blow up. Looking forward to watching you for years to come.

I never heard of this one. I was in high school at that time, so it was incredibly easy to not notice it. If it had come out in 2003 or 2004, I would have been all over it. I can imagine my parents handing me a ping pong ball and an old plastic cup from Hoss's or something, but it would have probably been a good few weeks with it.

Great video, very thorough and well done. I remember having this toy at our house, my 12 year old younger brother was into it (I was 19). Truthfully, hearing about Cuponk after all these years of not thinking about it didn’t hit me over the head with nostalgia like it might for other viewers. What did wreck me was the mention of Bullseye Ball, holy smokes, that game _completely_ wiped itself from my memory. I was and still am a dedicated skee-ball enthusiast. Man, I forgot how much I played it and how much harder it got when the bounce pad began losing its elasticity from overuse lol. Thanks for a trip down buried memories lane :)

holy shit man you have really upgraded the quality of your videos, and thats saying something because they were already great! Can't wait to see more. This was the most unexpected nostalgia hit, thanks lol

I totally forgot about these!! Now I remember the time I'd spent playing this in the school library with random other kids I no longer remember and probably wouldn't've ever interacted with otherwise, feeling so happy to be included in something so cool and popular. Good times.

It really does seem like cuponk was a masterclass in marketing, but as a toy, something you could literally do with items around your house, it wasn't enough to keep it popular.

dude even growing up AFAB i had this toy and seeing this video just brought back so many memories. i STILL have this toy!! i went to go look in my old room. i had the wrestler one. idr where i got it it mightve been an xmas present but i remember playing it.

BABE WAKE UP NEW SLOW START VIDEO‼️‼️‼️‼️

This video is so good bro! The wave of nostalgia for a toy I didn't even have is testament to that.

Can you do a deep dive on Tech Deck and fingerboards? They turned 25 this year.

Can you do a deep dive on the Kookys Kollectibles pens?

Holy fuck, I didn't think anybody else remembered Cuponk. I had ALL of these.

It’s wild how high quality this documentary is we didn’t know we needed. Very well edited and so cool you found and interviewed members of the team. I only remember Cuponk because I got it as a Christmas gift one time. It’s sitting on my shelf and hasn’t been played with at all.

I JUST saw one of these cups at a thrift store a few days ago!! Wish this video had been recommended to me beforehand

As someone who also worked at Hasbro during this time (different department but still), I appreciate your research and presentation of this! Nice work!

KZfaq kept recommending me your videos and I finally clicked one... then another... then another... and have been watching a few every couple days. I love the content you're putting out! Thanks for these videos! It was a bit surprising to see Bulls-Eye Ball in this video. I thought it was something that nobody remembered and never went anywhere. As a kid, I *loved* playing it and am glad to hear it's still around, even if it's got a new paint job and some of my nostalgia would be gone because of it. So you might not have hit me in the nostalgia with Cuponk, but you got me with that!

I had about 7 of these cups. I lost a majority of them overtime but it was so cool getting another with a new sound and ball combo.

Your videos have become one of my favourite forms of entertainment. The amount of effort and research put into them makes them so fun to watch and it just feels like a high-end documentary but about these nostalgic, “silly” topics that can bring comfort

both me and my boyfriend had a nostalgia wave seeing these again

I never got into Cupponk. As a begleri fan who started with thumbchucks though, I have some fascination with "baby's first skill toy." I've gotta admit, there were some cool cup designs there, I only ever remember seeing the lucha one

Man i watched hours of commercials in 2003. That bullseye ball commercial just gave me a HUGE rush of nostalgia

Thank you for this documentary. I hope you do more in the future. You also gave me memories of toys of the 1990s and 2000s unlocked!

I was JUST wondering when you'd upload your next video. Excited for this one

I love your channel for this felling: "idk, what is this shit, but it would be interesting till the end". I don't know, how you're doing it, but it's ultracool.

As a kid I thought this thing was weird and pointless, and I didn't have the complete conscious awareness of marketing strategies at the time but even then I felt like it was trying too hard to seem cool. _However,_ I now have a new-found respect and appreciation for the work that went into making it and the history behind it. Great documentary and I look forward to more stuff from you.

great video, loved the explanation on the backstory

The quality of these videos is impeccable! Keep up the great work :)

Great video, I remember this so vividly despite not having one, I’m surprised it’s considered “forgotten”. Needs so many more views!

Never even heard of this one but what an interesting story. Really cool of those folks from Hasbro to share their experiences too.

I still have the pink one with the wrestlers on it from when I was 8. I did play with it for way longer than anyone else probably did lol I was still trying to do some of the tricks on the cards well into my middle school years

How is this channel not bigger. I'm binging these videos. Good work man

Love this! The concept is great and the editing is solid. Huge fan of Cuponk, so many memories

Your closing paragraph here reminds me a lot of my own experience with the folks who worked on the mid-1990's Godzilla line by Trendmasters. Over the years I've gotten into contact with many of them, and without exception, they are all thrilled to know that there are adults today who fondly remember their childhood in large part due to their hard work. Toy designers do NOT get enough credit for the joy they bring into this world.

I remember my mom buying me this, me learning every trick included in the package within 2 days and never touching it again

amazing video, please never stop, you have to keep this momentum going

I never had one of these, but I remember seeing them on the shelves back in the day! Always thought it was such a weird product, so it was really nice to hear your genuine experiences with it! Thanks for seeking out the original creators for this too! I think you made something real special here that likely made all of them happy 😊

Please cover the Hasbro ouiji boards designed for kids the pink one became infamous online and sells for a pretty penny now it even has a adorable little pink case to keep everything in

Back at it again making another hood classic

I forgot these existed, but I did have one as a kid. The art on Let it Rip was just so memorable for me, really digged the zombies. Thank you for this video!

Your videos/documentaries are fantastic!!! I wish I found your channel sooner!!

Man, this was extremely well put together and you actually found something that wasn’t done to death. I think you have a future in media.

I like how your channel reminds me of The Toys That Made Us but takes the opportunity to go into a niche product that was sitting in the back of our memories and tell us everything about it

I didn't notice this was 40 min until it was over

i never owned this but i swear just once back in 2010 i saw an ad or something of this, i think you unlocked a deep cut memory of mine man

Wow, this was not my generation and I had never heard of this. I also have a rather dim view of marketing admittedly...and yet I couldn't stop watching this and it's absolutely wonderful. I can't relate to the product but the interviews with the people behind it and their recollections and the behind-the-scenes look at developing the product are just fascinating.

I absolutely love your videos man. I really hope you continue to make this great content going into 2024. Thank you.

your videos are great man, i've binged like 8 of them today haha

Oh my god I totally remember this!

hey great video man fun watch i thought it was gonna be more ranty but was really light and funny

Nowadays, Hasbro won't even give 30 year old household names the respect they deserve.

I was 7 when I got a Cuponk. I had the pink wrestler one. Coolest thing ever, don't know what happened to it.

I have fond memories of this obscure little toy! I was eight or nine years old when one day, completely out of the blue, my uncle stopped by for a visit and handed me my very own Gorrillanator Cuponk. At first I was confused, but once he explained both its function and the appeal of trick-shotting to me, I quickly became obsessed to say the least! Back then it was so easy to just live your day to day life completely removed from the popular trends of the internet. Long story short, when trick shots became an online phenomenon I really had no idea! It was my cool uncle Marko, then 37, who thought it would make a great gift for me and blew my mind in the process. I think I spent the rest of that day attempting to land the most ridiculous trick shots! From the couch to my stairs, it was a really simple yet satisfying game. Sure, I almost always missed, but it felt really good when the cup finally lit up and made the sound of an explosion or some other silly noise lol. One thing I think you really got right was your discussion regarding the design and aesthetic of the Cuponk. Fringe is a very fitting way to describe it actually. It totally looked and felt like something I wasn’t supposed to have at that age, and I felt so grown up playing with it (maybe because that was also the day my uncle explained beer pong to me lol). This really enhanced the “cool-factor” of the Cuponk, which became evident when I brought it to school the next day and everyone was excited to get a turn with it. Unfortunately I lost my Cuponk ages ago, but in hindsight look back very fondly upon this obscure toy. I hadn’t thought about it in years until I saw the thumbnail and had quite the visceral reaction lmao. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Bruh this is extremely high quality!!! Can’t wait for you to hit a million subs

This is criminally underrated.

Great vid! Been a long-time toy collector, and while that space tends to be full of people who will wax poetic about a given toyline or figure or era of products, there's rarely much attention paid to the actual people working on toylines and all the drama and creative processes behind the curtain. Corporate greed and office politics aside, there are still designers, researchers, and marketing folks working hard to make these things a reality, and hearing from them every once in a while is a treat. I remember seeing Cuponk commercials and seeing them on shelves back in the day. They never quite caught my attention as the mostly action figure focused nerd that I am, but dang did that artwork and the concept stand out. You could tell that someone, somewhere was really trying to get you into this edgy, underground world with this mysterious ball and cup sport. It's so interesting hearing from the folks who workshopped and fought so hard to give that vibe to what is, at the end of the day, such a simple but fun toy. A good reminder that it really does take a village when it comes to making a toyline, and to see the team still remembering it fondly makes me smile. Great research and great vid.

Good research and interview into this new game.

Great Video. Your videos are always so nicely edited and put together.

Just wanted to say I really like your videos! Keep it up!