Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

Australia, which gave the world the benefits of the Hula Hoop, last week was exporting a new craze--the wobble board. Made of Masonite. the 2 ft. by 3 ft. board, when wobbled, gives off a gloop-gloop sound, like water going down the drain. With it youngsters can keep the beat to a wacky lament of a dying rancher called Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.* Australian parents are wobbling under the board's gloop. The craze has spread to Great Britain, where already 100,000 records have brought the resonant beat of the wobble board. Last week there were signs that the wobble-board craze was threatening to catch on in the U.S., as Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport began turning up on jukeboxes across the nation.

The wobble board is the discovery of a beat-bearded Australian named Rolf Harris, 30, a cabaret and TV singer who also has aspirations to become a painter. One day in 1958 Harris propped an oil portrait on Masonite board on top of an oil heater to dry. When the board got too hot, he grabbed it by the edges and wobbled It back and forth to cool it off. As he did, out came a resonant twang like the sound of a tight-skinned bongo drum. Harris decided the sound was just the background he needed for his kangaroo song. Harris recorded the number, and soon Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport rocketed to the top of the Australian bestseller list.

Shortly after, the young son of the general sales manager of the Masonite Corp. (Australia) Ltd., an affiliate of the U.S. company, saw Harris wobbling his oil painting on a TV show, told his father about the "man making a whooping sound with a piece of Masonite." The Masonite people enlisted Harris in a promotion stunt, turned out 200 boards as giveaways. "We never dreamed what a mad flap was in store for us," says Sales Promotion Manager Bob Jones. Demand was so great that the company began selling the boards, had to hire extra hands for the increased production. In all, more than 55,000 boards have been sold in Australia.

Just in case the craze catches on in the U.S., the Masonite Corp. has already set up a production line for kangaroo-stenciled boards in its Elizabeth (N.J.) plant. The company does not expect to make any money on the boards (it lost 2-c- per board in Australia) but it does expect rich rewards in free advertising --even if it means adopting a kangaroo as a corporate image.

*Sample verses:

Watch me wallaby's feed, mate,

Watch me wallaby's feed.

They're a dangerous breed, mate,

So watch me wallaby's feed.

Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred,

Tan me hide when I'm dead.

So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde,

And that's it hanging on the shed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.