Richard Knerr was one half of Wham-O, the company that marketed the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop with astonishing success in 1950s. They weren't original ideas - college students were already using empty pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company as flying discs, it is said, and Egyptian children were playing with hoops made of dried grapevine 3,000 years ago - but their reinvention in durable plastic caused a sensation. Richard Johnson wrote in his book American Fads (1985) that the Hula Hoop was “the standard against which all national crazes are measured”.

Richard Knerr was born in San Gabriel, California, in 1925 and studied business at the University of Southern California in the late 1940s. When he graduated he went into business with his boyhood friend Arthur “Spud” Melin. They began to train falcons, using a home-made slingshot to fire meatballs into the air. One customer was more interested in the slingshot than the falcon, so they started to manufacture them in the garage of Knerr's parents, and to sell them, as well as boomerangs and crossbows.

The business grew rapidly, and after a few years they moved to a new building where they developed other ideas. When they saw Fred Morrison playing with a plastic flying disc he called the “Pluto Platter” they bought the idea from him, modified the design and, as the Frisbee, it sold in millions in the late 1950s. A “professional” model was developed in the 1960s, and the team sport Ultimate Frisbee is still popular among students in the US and the UK. The Frisbee Dog World Championships were inaugurated in 1975.

The Frisbee was followed by the company's most famous success. Hoops had been popular in England in the 14th century (and even caused a rise in the incidence of heart attacks and bone dislocations, it is believed) and the word “hula” had been added in the 18th century when sailors went to Hawaii and noticed the similarity between hula dancing and hooping. Bamboo versions were still in use as exercise hoops in Australia, and when Knerr and Melin heard about them they began to manufacture their own in plastic. They were not able to patent it because of its long history, but they were able to protect the name Hula Hoop as a trademark.

The Hula Hoop went on to the market in 1958, Knerr and Melin feeding the buzz by giving them away to primary school children and telling Wham-O executives to carry them with them when travelling. Soon the company was producing 20,000 hoops a day, in at least seven countries, and 25 million hoops were sold in four months. In Tapei about 14,000 people crowded into a 7,000-seat stadium to watch a demonstration, leading to anxiety about rioting, and three cities in Japan banned hooping in the streets because it contributed to a rise in traffic accidents.

But the craze passed almost as quickly as it arrived: “In April of 1958, people were standing around the block at department stores that were waiting to get their shipment,” Knerr's son told one reporter recently. “By September, you couldn't give them away. Once every household had two or three, it was over because they lasted forever.” The company was left with thousands of hoops on its hands, and the addition of metal bearings inside the tubes - giving a shoop-shoop sound - and of a peppermint scent in the 1970s did little to perk up sales. They picked up on their own in the 1980s, though, possibly thanks to health-conscious people looking for a simple form of low-impact exercise.

But the company threw itself energetically into new ideas, looking for original ideas with the “wow” factor. There was the Wheelie Bar (1964), which was attached to the back of bicycles to stabilise them as they rose on to one wheel, and was compatible with the Schwinn Stingray bicycle popular at the time , and the Air Blaster (1965), which could blow a candle out from 20 feet. There was also the Bubble Thing, a bubble wand that could make bubbles “as long as a bus” and the “Huf'n Puf” blowgun, which shot rubber darts.

Their next big success was the Super Ball in 1965, a bouncy ball that rebounded with unusal energy. (When a giant promotional version was dropped from a hotel window it bounced back 15 floors, and on its rebound destroyed a parked convertible.) They also capitalised on passing fads - they produced a limbo dance kit in the early 1960s and plastic shark teeth to coincide with the release of Jaws (1975) - aiming to maintain a portfolio of up to a dozen cheap and simple products suitable for a wide variety of retailers.

They had their flops too. On safari in Africa in the early 1960s Melin saw a species of fish that laid eggs that hatched only when the rain came, and Wham-O created an aquarium kit - the Instant Fish - which included some eggs and some mud. But the fish could not produce enough eggs to supply the (enthusiastic) market, so the product was dropped. The $119 do-it-yourself bomb shelter was another product quickly forgotten. Despite set-backs, Knerr remained upbeat, saying: “You can't tell whether the fish will bite if you don't drop a line in the water.” In 1982 Wham-O was bought by Kransco Group Companies.

Melin died in 2002. Knerr is survived by his wife, Dorothy, whom he married in 1979, three children from his first marriage and two step-children.

Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O toy company, was born on June 30, 1925. He died on January 14, 2008, aged 82