The Kazoo Museum facts for kids

A fun image from The Kazoo Museum

The Kazoo Museum is a super cool place dedicated to the history of the kazoo. It's located in Beaufort, South Carolina. This museum has one of the biggest collections of kazoos in the whole world!

The museum first started in 2007 in Seattle, Washington. It then moved to its current home in Beaufort, opening its doors on October 6, 2010. You can find the museum right inside the Kazoobie Kazoos Factory. It's packed with kazoos, recordings of kazoo music, and other interesting kazoo items.

Discover the Kazoo Museum!

Have you ever played a kazoo? It's a simple musical instrument that changes your voice into a buzzing sound. You just hum into it! The Kazoo Museum celebrates this fun instrument and its long history.

The Museum's Journey

The story of The Kazoo Museum is quite interesting. It moved around a bit before finding its perfect home.

Kazoobie Kazoos: The Home of the Museum

Kazoobie Kazoos is one of the largest companies that sells kazoos around the world. Rick Hubbard and Gayle Andrus started it in 1997. They first sold kazoos online.

The company used to be in Hilton Head Island and Florida. In 2009, it moved back to South Carolina. It settled in Beaufort, which is the hometown of co-owner Steven Murray. Kazoobie Kazoos grew into a large building with a showroom. In 2010, they added a gift shop and welcomed The Kazoo Museum.

How the Museum Started

A TV personality and kazoo fan named Boaz Frankel created an early version of The Kazoo Museum in 2007. It was first in Seattle. Later, in 2008, the collection moved to Portland, Oregon. At that time, you could only see the kazoos online.

The collection had about 100 kazoos back then. It included some of the very first kazoos ever made. There were also books, old patents, music sheets, and records. By 2010, the collection had grown to about 200 items. The Kazoobie Kazoos factory invited the museum to move to Beaufort. It officially opened there on October 6, 2010. A special ceremony was held with local people, curator Boaz Frankel, and the owners of Kazoobie Kazoos.

What You'll See Inside

When you visit the museum, you can learn all about the kazoo's history. This includes everything from its invention in the 1840s to today. You can also take a tour of the factory. There, you can see how modern kazoos are made.

The museum has almost 200 kazoo-related items. This makes it one of the biggest private kazoo collections anywhere. All the items are kept safe in glass cases. They are in a special building at the Kazoobie Kazoos factory.

Some cool kazoos in the collection include one used on the TV show The Partridge Family. You might also see kazoos shaped like famous cartoon characters. There are even electric kazoos and some that are over 100 years old! The museum also shows an old machine used to make kazoo parts. You can also find kazoo music sheets and other fun items.

Images for kids

Explore More

• List of music museums