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Moment Of Um

How do Magic 8-balls work?

Moment Of Um

Lemonada Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.41.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Have you ever played with a Magic 8-Ball? They’re black and white toy balls – but with a twist! People ask the Magic 8-Ball a question, shake it, and it gives you an answer!   How do these toys work? And when were they invented?  We asked Chris Bensch, head curator of the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY to help us out. 


Got a question that you’re toying with?  Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll shake up an answer.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.

0:05.0

Moment of Um, um,

0:10.0

moment of um comes to you from APM Studios.

0:13.7

I'm Mark D. Snark, the Pool Shark.

0:17.0

U.S.

0:18.0

U.S.

0:21.0

Yes, I'm an actual Tiger Shark, but I'm also a Pool Shark, and that means I'm very, very good at playing Pool, aka Billiards.

0:30.0

You know, that human game where players try to use long sticks to knock colorful numbered balls into holes on a table.

0:38.0

You can find me six days a week at my establishment, Marky Sn Snark's underwater pool palace.

0:45.4

We have some mint-conditioned pool and billiard tables that came from a capsize cargo boat.

0:50.9

We're always finding stuff that humans drop in the ocean. They seem like a very accident-prone species.

0:57.0

And just the other day, one of my guys, Frankie, he comes in and he says,

1:02.0

Hey, Boss, look what I found one of them eight balls like from billiards

1:06.9

But this one's big in plastic and it answers questions

1:10.8

So I take a look at this big eight ball and sure is squids. There's a

1:15.6

floaty triangle with words on it. I shake it. The triangle flips around and now

1:21.2

there's different words. what you humans come up with and

1:26.0

Lillian was just asking the other day how do magic eight balls work I think we need a toy expert to help us answer this one. The Magic 8-8-Balt is essentially a liquid-filled sphere with one lens on the side and it is filled with a dyed blue alcohol

1:59.1

solution. My name is Chris Bench. I'm chief curator at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

2:07.0

The biggest museum of Toys Dolls, games, video games in the world.

2:12.0

The Magic Eight Ball actually started in Cincinnati, Ohio as a device to contact people beyond the grave.

2:24.9

It was a little spooky, and its original name,

...

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