After experimenting with various shapes for kazoos, I finally went with our old stand-by .... a turning. Like several other toys, I was inspired by some odd parts that were mixed in with some other turnings that came in regularly from W.J.Cowee. Mixed in one bag of turnings were several that seemed to just scream Kazoo to me. I contacted our sales person, and asked if I could buy some of those parts to make into kazoos. The answer was No. "Those are Playskool hammer heads for their Nok Out Bench", and that is their design." He added that if we designed our own turning, they would be glad to make them for us. I designed a turning that would seem symmetrical with the plastic cap on one end. We were very pleased that our friends at Brimms in Tonawanda, NY, who owned The Kazoo Company in Eden, NY, were more that willing to sell us their little circular kazoo "buzzers" - actually a little three layer thing .... two cardboard rings with a cellophane layer in between. They also sold us the little plastic "caps" that held their "buzzers" in their plastic kazoos.
We sold a lot of these little wooden kazoos over the years. Using the turnings from Cowee, let us make them at a very competitive price, and while I don't have definite numbers, I would guess that over the years these were probably one of our top 5 sellers, and definitely our 2nd best non-spinning top item!
We did a lot of customized products over the years for a wide variety of customers. I found this custom wedding kazoo in my closet a few days ago..... customized for our friends John Dodd and Lorrie Frear, and their Leap Year wedding. Next year will be their 6th anniversary!
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