This iconic toy was invented by a naval engineer named Richard James in the early 1940s and first sold at Gimbels department store in November of 1945. I loved having a new slinky when I was young and it was great fun, as long as you could keep it from getting twisted.
While I was on a prop search for another project this past summer, I saw Slinkys for sale in a store, and I could not resist getting one. OK, I went back for a second one (to have as a spare in case of a kink, of course). I had this idea of shooting it in slow motion and crawling across a flat surface. After a bit of mental problem solving and design time, followed by a few hours of shooting, here is our little short visual experiment called “Slinky”.