The Factory That Manufactures One Million Kazoos A Year

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Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. This is Our American Stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show and sometimes we like to just get a little silly and we love tracking down museums. Quirky ones, good ones, fun ones, serious ones. In Beaufort, South Carolina, there's a place called the Kazooby Kazoo Factory and Museum. That's right, Kazooby Kazoo Factory and Museum. Today we have Sarah Barnwell telling us the story of the factory and giving us a little kazoo history.

Here's Sarah. We do have a vintage gold kazoo. It's plated in 24 karat gold. I love this little one mostly because it has a like a to me a jazzier sound to it I guess uh so but it it's kind of my favorite. Rick Hubbard was an entertainer and you know he would go and perform and you know he plays many instruments and things like that and I think he just liked the kazoo. He had a kazoo that was kazoo that he kind of held on to for a long time that he had as a kid and it just basically was something that I think you know as an entertainer and things like that he saw you know gosh I'd really like to I wish there was more kazoos where I can get a hold of these there's not like everywhere and um so it really just started as something a small kind of project that he did and um and then it just grew from there so it's it's you know those kind of stories where it starts off very small and surprising and then it turns into you know a kazoo be kazoo factory.

We've been around for about 20 years. We manufacture about a million kazoos a year and we average about 5,000 a day. Our kazoos are dishwasher safe. They're not one-time use plastic kazoos. You hand let them hand dry.

They're good as new. Our kazoos have you know gone to Hong Kong for a marathon, done DreamWorks animation for movie premieres, lots of things, Trader Joe's, things that people are familiar with and down to people using them as business cards or a gift or Circe for weddings and they're really popular for birthdays but the most common birthday age we get is actually 80 years old. We have done kazoos for all kinds of things uh Burning Man, some celebrity weddings, lots of fun things because the kazoos is meant to be fun. We've also done kazoos though for more somber times uh funerals and things like that so it's kind of an odd mix of where our kazoos are going. What what separates us from all of these kazoo manufacturers that we find around the world there's there's really not there's like three of us uh is um we imprint on ours so if you you know want your face on on a kazoo that's that's where we come in that's kind of what we do uh but the kazoo is it's pretty cool instrument it's one of the few American-made instruments um it came out of the mid-1800s in the south about the same time I believe it's like the banjo kind of similar stories where we think they derived from um slaves that were making these instruments and um you know kind of bringing some of their culture over to here and that's what we think the kazoo was based from.

In Africa they uh would have a merlotone drum sort of thing or they would take bone and gourd and hollow it out um sometimes they would use leather. My favorite is they would use the egg sac of spiders as their membrane that resonator to make it vibrate and they would just kind of stretch that over that object that had the hole in it and they would kind of hum into it so we think that's where the kazoo kind of originated. There is a legend but it is just a legend we can't say for sure if it's true or not but the story is is that a German clock maker named Thaddeus von Clegg and a freed slave named Alabama Vest got together in the 1840s and they came up with the modern design of the kazoo.

They debuted in 1852 at the Georgia State Fair in Macon and it took off from there. We're not really sure where the word kazoo came about we know the gentleman that first patented it but as far as where he got that word we're really not sure. I bet it has changed shape size and sounds over the years and different materials and kind of taken on a life of its own. So we are actually mostly a factory as far as assembling and shipping our kazoos all over the world and putting those pictures and company logos on them but we do have a gift shop and a museum and we do give kazoo tours here. So we have factory tours they come in we watch a couple of videos there is everyone's favorite video is the second one and that's the history of the kazoo a favorite from all just because we literally have little kazoos like dressed up like little people telling you the story so it's cute and funny and people love it. We start in the mid 1800s when we first see the legend appear of Alabama Vest and Thaddeus von Clegg and we start seeing patterns and blueprints of different designs of the kazoo and each time you change the design and the material it's going to change the sound a little bit. So then you kind of get and we kind of go through times and decades you get into the turn of the century these are some of my favorite kazoos actually are in the ones between like the 1900s 1930s start seeing them kind of geared more towards kids so they're adding really pretty colors on them. You know there's been books about kazoos I love looking for kazoo artwork so some of those things we've put in our museum that we found. Then I think kazoos take a little silly turn which is my favorite as we get further along and we do actually have the Partridge family kazoo in there one of the original kazoos from the Partridge family but when you start to get like 70s 80s and today I kind of love the kazoos that come in those eras only because they get a little more fun and exciting so one of them is the fish collar you can look this up there are little novelty vintage items you can find now but someone had the idea of putting a kazoo and it's attached to a rubber hose and then a funnel and so you're supposed to put the funnel in the water and then scream like yell into the kazoo and call the fish. I always tell people not to suck in because they're gonna take in some water and then we have like a sasquatch kazoo where they you know it sounds very it's a kazoo but it kind of makes more sasquatch sounds. The 80s you know is the kazoo kid Brett the famous kazoo kid and then you know we get to advertisements the kazoos started being used as advertisements as well so we have some older kazoos that you know we first started seeing in the 40s where they're using them for toothpaste advertisements things like that.

In today's time when they first made the first few versions of Minecraft all the animals in Minecraft on the game their noises are made from kazoos so weird little places they they end up. I think it's the instrument for everyone I think there are a lot of us that you know would love to pick up an instrument and be able to play maybe as easily as some others you know some just can can catch on a little bit quicker but this is an instrument that you don't have to spend years developing a skill you can just kind of pick it up and immediately have fun and start to connect with other people. You know it's a way of being silly and kind of drawing yourself out and I think it kind of breaks the ice in a lot of ways and just you know kind of brings people together it's always fun to have people together with kazoos especially adults I sometimes think adults have more fun with kazoos than kids. I also love seeing the change and we get people come in with teenagers or kids that are grouchy or older people that are with a group and they don't necessarily want to be here but the other parts of the family do and by the end you know you can't help but smile and chuckle when you're sitting there humming and and making noise and singing into a kazoo it's kind of one of those that instantly kind of puts a smile on your face. Our kazoos you can accessorize we kind of went Dr. Seuss on a little bit so we have our kazoo you know but then we accessorized we wanted to make sure there was more air coming out the wazoo so we put a horn on our kazoo so now it's a wazoo now we took a bugle bell trumpet and now we have a wazoo I didn't take your horn off and now you have the kazoo we have the kazobo as well the kazobo is been around for over 100 years and it's basically just a larger kazoo it's got double resonators and a longer horn and we're the only place in the world that makes a plastic version of the kazobo so if you want to get the loudest kazoo out there the kazobo is the instrument that you want to get so it's a little bit loud we've got accessories for our kazoo and our kazobo and we have all kinds of little instruments and you know literally bells and whistles we always tell people it's the perfect place to buy gifts for someone else other than your kids you know we even have one that has the instructions on it this one um maybe it's for older people it's supposed to be funny but it says hum don't blow because you've that's the most important thing with the kazoo is you have to hum a lot of times people will want to blow air into it that's not going to give you that vibration so it's really important that you make noise so you can get that resonator that membrane to vibrate around and give you that sound so lots of lots of fun things come from the kazoo plus it's always you know fun to try and explain someone when you're like i work at a kazoo factory and they're like no you don't and i'm like no really that's a thing and a great job on that faith and thanks to sarah what a delight what fun the story of the kazoo because ooh factory and museum here on our american stories it is ryan sea crest here there was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music no movies no entertainment but a better trend would be going to chumba casino.com it's like having a mini social casino in your pocket chumba casino has over a hundred online casino style games all absolutely free it's the most fun you can have online and on a plane live the chumba life at chumba casino.com sponsored by chumba casino no purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law 18 plus terms so many of us believe in something far beyond ourselves and now there is a special place for us fox faith on fox nation with exclusive original premium content that lifts us up sustains our spirit and fills us with hope exciting series like god family football martin scorsese presents the saints streaming november 17th at jesus crown of thorns streaming december 8th fox faith is only available by subscribing to fox nation so go to foxnation.com and sign up today hey i'm here to tell you about up faith and family the leading streaming service for uplifting entertainment this christmas cozy up with the ones you love and experience movies that not only inspire but bring people together enjoy festival of trees where holiday competition brings unexpected friendships and the heartwarming family movie a bluegrass christmas starring sean johnson from the popular series heartland discover the magic of the season and baby in a manger a touching story about finding hope in the most unexpected places looking for something cozy and romantic christmas and rockwell brings small town charm and holiday romance to life it's all commercial free and you can stream anywhere plus it's just a fraction of the cost of other streaming services start your free trial today and experience the magic of christmas go to up faith and family.com that's up faith and family.com this message comes from green light ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy meet green light the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn save spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place with green light you can send money to kids instantly set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on green light sign up for green light today at greenlight.com slash i heart hey order up small business saturday is right around the corner and so is that shop you've been meaning to check out on november 30th support your local community by shopping small on small business saturday founded by american express