Hoops&yoyo
This article is in a work in progress.
Hoops&Yoyo is a franchise starring a pink cat, a green bunny and a blue critter. These characters are the stars of the E-Cards, Littlelife, Homepages, Podwalkin', Manners, The Studio and games of the franchise.
Originally a franchise made by Hallmark Cards, all these characters were made by Bob Holt. He made Yoyo as a character first, but he changed him to Hoops, since a certain 4th of July e-card was in production.
These were popular since the 2000's and 2010's, since they were mascots of Hallmark. Their declines were in 2015, by Bob Holt being fired, because it didn't fit the "humor" that Hallmark wanted.
History
Early Days
The franchise was first created in 2000/2001, a small test animation named The Adventures Of The Green Bunny, Bob really liked the green bunny that he repurposed for Yoyo.
Bob Holt was challenged to create a 4th of July e-card animation using only a firecracker. Bob started with a little green bunny he had already created at home; then the green bunny transforms into Hoops, a pink kitty with enormous eyes and an unusually large head plunked on an unusually small body. When Hoops eventually needed a pal, the original green bunny came back to life as Yoyo.
And hoops&yoyo debuted in 2001 on a Fourth of July e-card on Hallmark.com. They were born of the mind of Hallmark artist and voice actor, Bob Holt.
Eventually, fellow artist and voice actor, Mike Adair began working with Bob Holt to develop the characters’ personalities.
One of the first ever E-Card's that features speaking, was What Friends Say E-Card, Hoops being voiced by Mike Adair, which began the voice acting.
The first ever merchandise, was a Innocence Roses with a Pink Kitty plushie, in 2003.
Popularity
2004
Their own site, (hoopsandyoyo.com) debuted on May 24th, 2004 and quickly built a dedicated following. By 2005, 3 million visitors had come to the hoops&yoyo home page, and the numbers continued to increase since then.[1]
More merch started to be produced in 2004-2005, such as luggage tags, T-shirts, plushies and etc.
2005
In 2005, Mike Adair, started animating E-Cards, which the first ever E-Card animated by himself, was Just a Fly By Hi!, and designing some hoops&yoyo contents.
Also that same year, the Jingle Wiggle Wiggle! CD was produced, featuring Makuza and released in December.
2006
Starting in 2006, hoops&yoyo started gaining more popularity because of a certain million of thanks e-card was being widespread, and it was the year when they first appeared on YouTube, and the official creation of the channel in that same year.
In the same year, Hallmark Cards created physical cards that had speakers that spoke and sang to the recipient. Hoops & Yoyo became a popular subject for these sound cards until being discontinued in 2015. Of course, several of these cards are still sold in stores, but no new ones are being produced.
Briefly collaborating with the 2005 founded company Smilebox, Hallmark Cards made custom E-Cards where users could insert their photos into a Flash Interactive photo album in 2006. This continued until the mid 2010s. Smilebox is still active to this day.
2007
In 2007, Celebrations, a collaboration between the Celebrations chocolate bar and hoops&yoyo started. Celebrations is a popular brand offering mini versions of iconic chocolate bars like Mars, Snickers, and Twix. This collaboration took place in the Netherlands back in 2007. It had pin buttons, and of course, candy.
In that same year, Hallmark introduced its first collection of hoops&yoyo gift products in the United States, which are sold in Hallmark Gold Crown® stores.
2008
In 2008, the hoopsandyoyo.com landing page, was overhauled. It now featured updated homepages from 2008-2015, new series called the studio.
A brief period in time where Hallmark Humor promoted jokes and humor on their site centering around comedians like Chris Rock, cartoon characters like the Simpsons, and even US Politics. Hoops & Yoyo hosted this part of the website and were even featured in commercials. This went on from early 2008 until sometime in 2010.
The UK site (hoopsandyoyo.co.uk) was introduced to the public. It had games, contests, and UK E-Cards.
The Russian site, (hoopsandyoyo.ru) was also introduced where you could send e-cards and photos.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
The last podcast happended in 12th of February, 2015.
2015 was also the year where Bob Holt was fired from Hallmark in July. No reason was given other than that hoops&yoyo did not fit into the "humor" that Hallmark wanted.
2017
The last ever official piece of HYY content was released in 2017, a 2017, 12 month calendar.
2018-2020
2024
Nothing much has happended, but the You are Wonderful is the only remaining greeting card available on Hallmark's site, still available in 2025.
Popularity
"Hallmark: A Century of Caring"
"The popular characters hoops&yoyo got their start in Hallmark artist Bob Holt's basement in 2001, with Bob fiddling around on the drawing of a little green bunny. Bob liked his funny bunny. For a Hallmark.com e-card, Bob made the bunny pink, gave it a kitty's ears, and the green bunny became Hallmark's pink kitty, which Bob eventually named hoops. When hoops needed an e-cards sidekick, Bob brought back the green bunny and named it yoyo.
Thus from wacky origins the duo's on-line popularity grew and spawned plush characters, profitable sound cards, and a crazily popular web site that launched in 2004. Much of hoops&yoyo fame lies in their hilariously unscripted gab-fests.
Their voices are recorded (and speeded up) in a Hallmark studio, with Bob as yoyo and artist pal Mike Adair voicing hoops.
There's something subversive in their wisecracking anarchy, but wholesome too. From the heap of fan letters and email, Bob says his favorite points to hoops&yoyo's innocent appeal: "I come to your site because you guys make me smile, even on bad days."
Voice Actors
Hoops is voiced by Mike Adair.
Piddles is voiced by Bev Carlson.
Trivia
- hoops&yoyo e-cards are never scripted. Their dialogue comes spontaneously from the minds of Bob Holt and Mike Adair.
- According to Bob Holt, The Pink Kitty name was already being used so he tasked himself to come up with a name for the two of them. The reason he mainly picked the names because both names had two O’s in they. He was obsessed with the font, Futura. The O’s are perfect circles and he liked the way both names looked in the font.[2]
