Do you remember playing a “hot potato” game as a young child called “The Wonderball” in which a ball is passed from person to person, while a rhyming passage is recited aloud, and you try to avoid being the last to hold it? More importantly, do you recall a melody that accompanied the verse? I can answer that one for you: no.
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I was taught this game as an adult in the late 1980s by the fabulous dance & fitness educator, Patricia Sears, who instructed other schoolteachers how to incorporate movement activities into traditional classroom settings. At the time, Sears was only able to convey the lyrics to “The Wonderball” — melodically, we were on our own.
Kristin C. Hall, on her website, acknowledges some simple chord changes – but does not specific any particular melody line. Also, some kind soul has posted a home-spun version on YouTube that includes something along the lines of a melody, however one that likely exists in that household and nowhere else.
Fortunately, the long national nightmare is over. Zero to 180 – as a public service to future generations – has crafted a tune for all of humanity to use freely:
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*[Pssst: click triangle to play “The Wonderball” arranged by The Recess Committee]
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The wonderball goes round and round
To pass it quickly you are bound
If you’re the one to hold it last
Then for you the game is past
And you … are … out!
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Can you identify which early 60s television sitcom theme was thieved for the opening line of the keyboard solo?
Today’s special post celebrates Zero to 180’s fourth birthday in grand fashion and encourages parents all around the globe to keep children physically active. As Sligo Creek Elementary School PTA‘s Recess Committee points out in its 2018 slide show – The Role of Movement in the Daily Curriculum – “there is a growing body of research focused on the association between school-based physical activity, including physical education, and academic performance among school-aged youth.” At the risk of stating the obvious, this means that movement is fundamental to education’s bottom line (i.e., academic achievement).
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Zero to 180 Milestones:
The Preschool Years
- Inaugural Zero to 180 post that established a bona fide cross-cultural link between Cincinnati (via James Brown’s music recorded and distributed by King Records) and Kingston, Jamaica (i.e., Prince Buster’s rocksteady salute to Soul Brother Number One).
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- 1st anniversary piece that featured an exclusive “Howard Dean” remix of a delightful Sesame Street song about anger management (with a special rant about how WordPress’s peculiarities made me homicidal the moment I launched this blog).
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- 2nd anniversary piece that refused to acknowledge the milestone but instead celebrated the under-sung legacy of songwriter/session musician, Joe South – with a link to South’s first 45, a novelty tune that playfully laments Texas’s change in status as the nation’s largest state upon Alaska’s entry into the Union.
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- 3rd anniversary piece that revealed the depths to which Zero to 180 will sink in order to foist his own amateur recordings onto an unsuspecting and trusting populace — the brand his never really recovered.
