Happy 25th Anniversary, hoops&yoyo!

Posted on May 22, 2026 by cyan

Today is a very special day. Today, May 22, 2026, officially marks 25 years since hoops&yoyo were first introduced on Hallmark.com. The first ever e-card featuring Hoops, a 4th of July themed e-card, was released on May 22, 2001. Back in 2001, Hoops was known as Pink Kitty, and he was all alone for a short while until Green Bunny was reintroduced in No Heart as Big, an e-card released on October 22 of the same year. For a very long time, the exact date of initial publication was not known, until the very first copyright registration was found.

First of all, I am excited to announce the hoops&yoyo archive will be receiving a (long overdue) redesign. The goal of this redesign is to make the site more user-friendly, make browsing more intuitive, and rebuild it from the ground up to make it easier to update later down the line. The way I initially designed the archive was incredibly tedious, and it was not at all something I ever intended to touch again. This redesign will fix all of that, and I am going to be working on it over the summer.

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Posted in Updates | 8 Comments

The importance of “Listen Up, Troops!” in the hoops&yoyo community

Posted on May 14, 2026 by ExplosiveClownNose

During 2013 to 2015, Hallmark.com slowly began to phase out Flash-based content on their website, primarily the eCards that ran on it. hoops&yoyo heavily relied on the software, as it is what allowed it to be interactive. Letting people play with the homepages, eCards, and “funimations” all had played a large factor into what made it stand out and kept users on the website.

In 2015, hoops&yoyo stopped production after a series of mass lay offs at the company during the summer of that year. In these lay offs was the original series creator Bob Holt, who was told that hoops&yoyo did not fit into the “humor” that Hallmark wanted. During this time, a lot of other animation-focused projects were cut or ceased production, and the focus was no longer on eCards. All future hoops&yoyo merchandise was made reusing/editing renders or prints already produced, and was limited to print only cards.

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Posted in Articles, History | 2 Comments

Meet ExplosiveClownNose!

Posted on May 12, 2026 by ExplosiveClownNose

Hey, I’m ExplosiveClownNose, I’m an artist, game developer, and a contributor for Piddles.net. 

I am one of the authors for the Piddles.net blog, here I’ll post some of my opinion pieces about hoops&yoyo, details about important moments in the communities history, and whatever else I can ramble about regarding eCards and Hallmark in general.

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Posted in Introductions | 2 Comments

Meet Lani!

Posted on May 11, 2026 by candylani18

Hi, my name’s Lani!

I’m a friend & contributor to the piddles.net site, where I primarily catalog Hoops & Yoyo content. From lost content to news reports, there’s a lot to find!

I’ve been a fan of the Hoops & Yoyo IP since I was a kid in the late 2000s, and my love for the franchise hasn’t died out since! I plan to share some fun memories I had with Hoops & Yoyo content over the years, obscure media that interests me, and more!

You might also see some of my ridiculous drawings of the characters from time to time, hehe. 😉

Posted in Introductions | 3 Comments

Welcome to the piddles.net blog!

Posted on May 10, 2026 by cyan

Hey everyone,
Welcome to the piddles.net blog. Here, you can expect to see update logs, plans, articles from our contributors, and much more.

In particular, we have many plans for future updates to the site, and here we will discuss them in depth. The 2nd anniversary of piddles.net is coming up on June 24th, so we have lots in store for you all.

You can call me Cyan – I am the founder and webmaster of piddles.net. Since 2021, I have been an avid archivist of 2000s Hallmark media, of course with a primary focus on hoops&yoyo. I don’t have much to say about myself; I am really passionate about running this site and ensuring that this content will perpetually remain available to the public.

You will see posts from me, along with ExplosiveClownNose, and candylani18.

Also, comment below what kinds of posts or topics you’d be interested in reading about, any and all suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks for visiting 🙂

Posted in Introductions | 8 Comments