The surprising history of inflatable tube men
How the flailing tube man went from an Olympic opening ceremony to car lots everywhere, and the simple physics that makes it dance.
Few objects are as instantly recognizable, or as easy to laugh at, as the inflatable tube man waving outside a car dealership. He has many names: air dancer, sky dancer, tube man, fly guy, and the gloriously long "wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man" popularized by the cartoon Family Guy. What most people don't know is that he started out as art, on one of the biggest stages in the world.
From carnival art to the Olympic stadium
The tube man's story begins with Peter Minshall, an artist best known for his work in Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival. Minshall has spent decades designing huge costumes and performance pieces for the Carnival, where scale and motion are everything and a costume is meant to come alive when it moves.
When he was brought in to help create the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Minshall wanted tall figures that would move on their own, filling the stadium with energy. He worked with Doron Gazit, an Israeli artist and designer known for his work with inflatable structures, to make it happen. The result was a set of towering fabric figures driven by fans, which Minshall called "Tall Boys". They swayed and bent and flung their arms around in a way that looked alive, and an enormous television audience saw them.
From stadium to sidewalk
After the Games, Gazit developed the idea commercially and patented a version of the design. Smaller, cheaper versions followed, and within a few years they had become a familiar sight outside businesses, sold under names such as Air Dancers and Fly Guys along with plenty of generic copies.
The shift from art to advertising is part of what makes the tube man interesting. Minshall's figures were meant to express joy and celebration. On a roadside, the same motion became a way to shout "Over here!" at passing traffic. Minshall has reportedly had mixed feelings about how his creation is now mostly associated with sales events, and it's easy to understand why. Still, the idea that a piece of performance art ended up on countless street corners is a remarkable legacy.
How an air dancer works
An air dancer is surprisingly simple. There are two main parts:
- A blower at the base, usually an electric fan in a sturdy housing, that pushes a constant stream of air upward.
- A fabric tube, typically made of a light, tough material such as ripstop nylon or polyester, sewn into a long body with arms. It's open at the top and often at the hands, so air keeps flowing through instead of simply inflating it like a balloon.
Because the air escapes, the fabric is never rigidly full. It's held up only as long as the airflow supports it. That's the secret of the dance.
The physics of the flail
Imagine the tube standing straight with air rushing through it. Any small disturbance, a breeze or an uneven seam, makes it bend a little. Where the tube bends, it partly pinches closed, like kinking a garden hose. Less air gets past the kink, so the part above it loses support and folds over. Meanwhile, pressure builds up below the kink. When there's enough, it forces the kink open, the tube snaps back upright, and the whole thing starts again.
That loop of bending, pinching, collapsing and recovering never quite repeats the same way twice, because each fold depends on exactly how the last one happened. Small differences in airflow and wind add up to motion that looks random and lively. Engineers would describe it as a kind of flow-driven instability. Everyone else just calls it flailing.
The arms add even more chaos. They're lighter and narrower than the body, so they whip around faster and react to every surge.
Tube men today
Air dancers come in all sorts of sizes and colors, with printed faces, logos and slogans. Some have lights for night use, and some come in shapes other than people. They're used at sales events, grand openings, festivals and sports events. Some farmers have tried them as bird scarers too, since a sudden, unpredictable movement can startle animals as well as people.
They also have critics. Some towns treat them as temporary signs and limit where or how often businesses can use them, often as part of rules meant to reduce roadside clutter. If you're thinking of putting one up, it's worth checking local sign rules first.
How Tube Dude borrows the idea
Tube Dude's hero is simulated in a similar spirit. The game models him as a chain of joints in a fabric tube, with air arriving in pulses. Every couple of seconds a kink forms, the top folds over, and the next surge snaps him upright. Learning to time that rhythm is the heart of the game, as the guide to controls and the art of the flop explains. For a look at why that motion grabs attention so well, read why air dancers catch the eye.
If you'd like to try keeping one of these unruly characters under control yourself, Tube Dude is ready to play.