Duncan Yo-Yo

Throw it down, bring it back up - then try Walk the Dog. Duncan helped make the yo-yo a classic.

Down was usually easy - but getting the yo-yo to come back up took a little more practice. Slip the string loop over a finger, throw it down, and try to get a clean return. Then watch somebody else do Walk the Dog or Rock the Cradle and realize there was still quite a bit more you could learn.

The yo-yo has been around forever - an ancient Greek vase appears to show a child playing with a yo-yo. In the U.S., in the 1920s, Duncan helped make the yo-yo a popular toy once again, with demonstrations by yo-yo pros performing seemingly impossible tricks with the simple disc-on-a-string toy. A national television advertising campaign brought another surge in yo-yo popularity in the early 1960s.

Basic yo-yos were popular when I was a kid, and for me, the butterfly yo-yo was a game changer - way easier to do sleeper spins (where the yo-yo stayed at the bottom until you flicked your wrist to bring it back up) and around-the-world (where you would loop the yo-yo around in midair). The wider “track” of the butterfly yo-yo acted like a guide to direct the string back to the center so you didn’t have to be perfectly aligned to still successfully do those tricks. I also recall adjusting the string loop around the axle to let the yo-yo spin more freely at the bottom - much easier to walk-the-dog with that extra slack.

Duncan still offers its familiar classic and butterfly designs along with some new improvements and variations, including a soft beginner yo-yo for younger kids, an LED light-up yo-yo, and the Butterfly XT Ball-Bearing Trick Yo-Yo for the ultimate spin and tricks.