My mum calls them "happy flappy whiplash men," but they rose to fame as "wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men" on Family Guy. It's disputed whether they have an official name, but we all know what they are.
Chances are you have encountered these figures in used car lots or anywhere else aiming to catch your attention. They are tall, tubular, with a face and a pair of arms, energized by a fan blowing air into their bodies, making them wave and flail in the wind in a garish way. You may find them funny or simply too much. Houston went as far as banning them, referring to them as “visual clutter and blight.” No matter your opinion on these tubular figures, you may have asked yourself who thought of them.
Surprisingly,it all begins with Peter Minshall, who originated from Trinidad and Tobago.He was a well-known mas man, designing artwork for carnivals, including huge puppets that moved to the rhythm of the music. In 1995, he was asked to create something for the opening of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. After a few attempts, he created inflatable tube characters that would boogie when linked to a source of air from the bottom.Nicknamed "tall boys", these figures were made a reality with the assistance of Doron Gazit, an Israeli artist from Los Angeles.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Minshall's "tall boys" performed differently than their later versions, as they had two feet instead of one stem.
Post Olympics, Gazit secured the patent for the tall boys, naming them “flyguys” – this led to some tension between him and the fabricator. Despite that, people had already begun copying the design and the tall boys/flyguys were soon seen everywhere, performing their amusing dance. Gazit's company licensed the patent to multiple companies, resulting in a spike in the undulating tube man population. One company calls them “Air Dancers."
Not only do the tube guys catch your attention in the hopes of selling you a used Ford, but they have a surprisingly practical purpose as well: they work wonders as scarecrows. They may not be as aesthetically pleasing as the classic straw-stuffed kind, but they have been highly successful in driving off birds.
They are known as the "Air Rangers," and they are a modern-day take on scarecrows. To differentiate them from the more pleasant "Air Dancers," these have a more intimidating face and reflective strips on the ends that make them even more effective.