The whole vision was absurdly well executed. You don't really see much of anything that have this level of well thought out, cohesive vision now, it seems that most things are subjected to the bean counters before they're ever off the ground.
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'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.
> 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
You Made me realize how gambling Is pretty popular among new generations. It's not only toys But for example, FIFA or online games in general. It feels rewarding to invest Time, effort and sometimes money and get something that you want. In the case of not getting what you want, the idea of getting something that you want or something better for "free" or for the price of something worse has you gripped.
My only take away from this is that Boomers probably killed Cuponk because of rigid gender norms, and hearing that in 2023 both makes way too much sense and also feels really stupidly closed-minded in hindsight.
@@dracocrusherit's not about boomers and gender norms, it's that little boys literally don't want pink toys. This isn't a problem and has reasons beyond boomers. Trying to insist little boys should like pink toys is toxic, it's changed from kids being allowed to like whatever they like, which was good, to insisting everything should be gender neutral, which is toxic
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.
@@SinsteelDid you watch the video though? The consumers _did_ want it, it was the _purchasers_ that didn't. That's the perennial problem with marketing to a demographic that doesn't buy their own things: yiu have to appeal both to who's buying it and who's using it.
Right?! When he said they didn't buy the pink cup I was confused because I didn't know what cup he was talking about at first because I didn't remember there being a pink one. There's just some pink accents on a wrestling themed cup.
"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?
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
That’s the difference between american “drinking games” and european/ german ones: drinking is not the punishment. I usually play beerpong so I almost loose on purpose while having a side beer or two just because it takes forever to get back to drinking 🤣🤣 ever heard of flunky-ball ? It’s two teams standing about 15 feet away from a plastic bottle armed with a ball - the team that hits the bottle in the middle has to chug till the other team resets that bottle - lots of “punishment beers” later the one team that finishes their pints first has won - drink as much beer as you can as fast possible is a reward and a challenge 🤣🤣
@@LeutnantComanderData I haven’t been in my early 20s for a while, but when I was younger the way we did it was to buy gross alcohol for the punitive element of our games. We’d all drink what we wanted to while playing, but no one wanted to be “forced” to drink a cup full of King Cobra Malt Liquor.
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!
I'm glad you mentioned that. I never had one so never would have known. Feedback is so important from a design perspective, and getting sound feedback as well as visual with the lights does more to fuel that dopamine hit and keep you coming back for more, almost like Pavlovian style conditioning. It makes more sense to me now why kids wanted this toy instead of just DIYing their own with a plastic cup and ping pong ball.
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”
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.
Or at least Monopoly variants that did something besides give us slap new names and images on the exact same stuff. The darn thing is that Hasbro makes Clue too, whose variants sometimes *do* offer something new to the gameplay. The classic expanded 'Master Detective' version is a favorite of mine; I'm glad to see it being sold again, though disappointed it doesn't have Ravensburger-style wooden pawns anymore.
"Or at least Monopoly variants that did something besides give us slap new names and images on the exact same stuff." Yes, that's true - if you only look at stuff like that one TLOTR Monopoly game then you could see it as a reskin. However, there are also somewhat unique takes like cheaters edition @@henrysokol3466
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
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!!!"
It really says a lot about someone when they take time out of their day to recognize and say something nice about your work. Thank you so much for your comment. It made my week and I'm so glad you enjoyed the video!
I honestly think the game came a few years too early - it could really have capitalized on how entrenched social media is now, especially with short-form viral content. This toy would have been a natural fit for Tiktok.
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!
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:
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
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!
peaople saying shit like this is why more and more is not free :/ instead should be saying buy merch and support and donate if just want to help and don't want merch.
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🎉
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!
RU-vid 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!
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
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 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...
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.
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.
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!
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
As someone who also worked at Hasbro during this time (different department but still), I appreciate your research and presentation of this! Nice work!
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.
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.
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.
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.
It came in the mail, I love it. It doesn't work (YET) but it's got We Have Gorillaz At Home on it, which is mostly what I wanted it for anyway. EDIT: I got it working! the contacts just needed to be cleaned.
But.... but a yellow whatsit that looks like a steroidal tribal Spongebob Squarepants recreating the end of 'Total Recall' or technicolor zombies bouncing eyeballs off brains into Solo cups makes a child's tastes look so sophisticated and grown up!
Wow. I was only three years old in 2009 and had never heard of this thing in my life… But yet this was one of the best 40 minutes and 50 seconds of my life… Good on you sir for making this incredible documentary about such a random thing
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 😊
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
What a pleasant surprise to see a new upload! I admit I’m too old to have experienced this oddity so I guess in a way I’m a perfect viewer for this content!
Sorry, late to the party, was at Disneyland with the family. You are showing yourself to be a Renaissance man of RU-vid video production. First straight forward history and communication, then inserting genuinely additive and funny humor, now putting together interviews and weaving a coherent story with so many exclusive viewpoints. Your view/summary at the end was so well said and gave me such joy to consider how happy everyone in this video was about working on Cuponk. As someone who was living outside the country when Cuponk happened, you successfully gave me a new exciting story to get lost in for 40 minutes. Slow, you have consistently impressed me. Bravo again.
Apostate it means so much that you always take the time to say such nice commentary about my videos! Thank you for always being a fan and supporting my content! Love ya!!!
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!
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
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.
Never been so excited to see a video! I had the Let it RIP cup and I remember loving the design of the box and cup. Pretty sure I only used it for a month but I did keep it just for the art. Wonder what happened to it
Honestly, if they included 9 y/o boys in the commercials, I imagine that would be incredible. There's a bunch of skater bros and older teens chanting "little man" as this kid pulls off the most insane trick shot you have ever seen. Also the creators of Cuponk have the opportunity to really stick it to Hasbro by rebranding an entire skill based toy line, call it Cup Punks or something.
Well shoot. I vividly remember all the TV commercials for these things. This really unlocked some old dusty memories for me. Thank you so much for uploading.
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.
I love youtube videos that make me remember vague stuff from years past. I remember that marketing push and seeing one of those cups when I helped a friend move. :,D Never played it myself but that is a neat little memory you unlocked there.
You brough back a memory from the deepest corners of my brain with this video. I 100% remember Cuponk and I always wanted to play it but found it weirdly expensive for cup and ball game.
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.
im bad with time, im not sure if this was in my generation, i just turned 30. but i never paid much attention to commercials or wanted much, i largely fought with my friends or played videogames,so i might've just missed it or just cared soooooo little i literally forgot.
@@bloodlove93 Hmmm, you would've been, what, 17 in 2010? That's probably a little too old for it, it looks like it was marketed mostly for tweens and early teenagers at the time.
Great job on the Cuponk video with Derek doing the product Marketing dicussion and Dan doing the game play development and Design development discussion. My name is Dennis McCulley and I was the Project Manager/Project Engineer and lead the Cuponk team in the development and design of Cuponk. It was my great pleasure to lead this great team and design and develop the cup to meet Dan game specifications and packaging specifications. I would like to give special thanks to Alan Roach, Dans boss, who design original game design concept. It is an honor and a privilege to have my name next to Alan on Cuponk patent. Also I do have Royal Flush Cuponk game. Thank you for all your hard work and time doing this video. Feel free to contact me if you are ever interested in the design and product development of Cuponk. Its quite a story. Cuponk almost didnt make it to market. Cuponk, one of a kind!
