A New Spin On The Yo-Yo

Never has the phrase "what goes around, comes around" been more apt. The yo-yo, that child's toy dating back to the ancient Greeks, is all the rage again. But this time, with a new spin. CBS Correspondent Mark Phillips reports.

Whether at shopping center competitions or in the schoolyard, the yo-yo revolution is happening. In the words of enthusiastic children the yo-yos of the 90's are "really cool".

Yo-yos have been cool before, of course. There was a post war craze and then one again in the early 70's.

Now the fad is again sweeping around the world. In Great Britain alone they're selling 150,000 a week.

What's behind the craze? It's technology.

The yo-yo's been re-invented. Now it has a brain. An automatic clutch lets it spin and then grabs the string to wind it back up.

Even the kids will tell you the added "brain" is sort of cheating.

Reporter: "Is that fair?"

"No, I don't think it is," admits one youngster.

And the new yo-yo is also addictive.

Reporter: How much of your life is yo-yoing now?

"Most of it," says one player.

The thing about child toy crazes is they come and they go, sending the fortunes of the companies involved up and down like a yo-yo.

What's different about this craze is there's an American company at the center of it, whose fortunes have only gone up.

Yo-yo central is the Yomega Corporation in Fall River, Massachusetts. They invented the yo-yo with a brain and created this money-spinner.

"It's the kind of thing you can play for a short while, or you can play over a lifetime," said Joyce Amaral, Yomega Corporation.

Which brings us to Don Robertson, who won the one and only ever European yo-yo championship in 1953 and who now has a new lease on life.

"Life's been up and down, but it's been a living," says Robertson.

Which goes to show you, some fun never goes out of style.

Reported By Mark Phillips