A mechanical bull, also known as a rodeo bull or bucking bronco

Bronco

Bronco, or bronc is a term used in the United States, northern Mexico and Canada to refer to an untrained horse or one that habitually bucks. It may refer to a feral horse that has lived in the wild its entire life, but is also used to refer to domestic horses not yet fully trained to saddle, and...

is a machine that replicates the sensation of riding a bucking

Bucking

Bucking is a movement performed by a horse or bull in which the animal lowers his head and raises his hindquarters into the air, usually while kicking out with his hind legs. If powerful, it may unseat the rider enough so that he falls off....

 animal, such as a rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

 bull

Bull

Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...

 or horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

. It is usually powered by a variable-speed electric motor

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

. Padded

Padding

Padding is thin cushioned material sometimes added to clothes. It is often done in an attempt to soften impacts on certain zones of the body or enhance appearance by 'improving' a physical feature, often a sexually significant one...

 flooring

Flooring

Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface...

 is often installed around the equipment in order to prevent injury

Injury

-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...

 to those thrown off it.

A "quick stop" motor allows the operator to safely control the ride and ensure safety for the rider; this feature allows the operator to stop the ride prior to a rider being thrown. The trained operator at the variable speed control box regulates the unit's Buck-and-Spin speed, as well as spin direction. The equipment has the capability of starting rides very slowly and speeds can be advanced according to a rider's ability. It can go slowly and simply spin for beginners and run at greater speed for experts.

Prior to the development of a mechanical bull, a simpler device was created by attaching ropes (sometimes a rope-and-pulley system) to the ends of a large barrel, suspending it from four points, often tall posts or the rafters of a barn. A saddle or bucking equipment would be added, and then a rider would straddle the barrel. Two to four other people would move the barrel by pulling on the ropes to emulate the movement of an animal. This "bucking barrel" is still also used as a less-expensive option for practice and entertainment.

Mechanical bulls have existed for decades as a training device for rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

 competitors, as they enable a rider of rough stock (bucking horses

Saddle bronc and bareback riding

Bronc riding, either saddle bronc or bareback bronc competition, is a rodeo event that involves a rodeo participant riding on a horse , that attempts to throw or buck off the rider...

 and bull riding

Bull riding

Bull riding refers to rodeo sports that involve a rider getting on a large bull and attempting to stay mounted while the animal attempts to buck off the rider....

) to enhance rodeo performance and refine skills without the risk and unpredictability of a live animal. Although mechanical bulls are still routinely used for rodeo training, they are also utilized as an amusement ride

Amusement ride

Amusement rides are large mechanical devices that move people to create enjoyment. They are frequently found at amusement parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.-Notable types:*Afterburner*Ali Baba*Balloon Race*Booster...

, both as a mobile rental (i.e., party entertainment) and stationary entertainment found in bars, restaurants, and clubs. There is a modified, less dangerous style used for children's parties, usually with a one-minute timer. Children remove their shoes to get on. They hold a rope or peg on the shoulder

Shoulder

The human shoulder is made up of three bones: the clavicle , the scapula , and the humerus as well as associated muscles, ligaments and tendons. The articulations between the bones of the shoulder make up the shoulder joints. The major joint of the shoulder is the glenohumeral joint, which...

 or neck

Neck

The neck is the part of the body, on many terrestrial or secondarily aquatic vertebrates, that distinguishes the head from the torso or trunk. The adjective signifying "of the neck" is cervical .-Boner anatomy: The cervical spine:The cervical portion of the human spine comprises seven boney...

 of the machine, and the person who stays on for the whole minute without falling off wins a small prize

Prize

A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise and reward actions or achievements. Official prizes often involve monetary rewards as well as the fame that comes with them...

.

As a form of entertainment, the mechanical bull often includes a saddle

Saddle

A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider or other load, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is the equestrian saddle designed for a horse, but specialized saddles have been created for camels and other creatures...

 (even though saddles are not used in real bull riding) and often a model head of a bull, complete with horns. One of the earliest uses as a form of entertainment was at Bertrand Island Amusement Park

Bertrand Island Amusement Park

Bertrand Island Amusement Park was located in Mount Arlington, NJ. It began during World War I as a picnic area. Later, during the 1920's, it was expanded by the owner, Lewis Kraus, and ultimately included a wooden roller coaster, an airplane swing, picnic areas, a dance hall, and a cafeteria...

 in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

), where a mechanical bucking bronco ride was introduced in the 1930s, under the name of "Ride 'Em Cowboy!".
The mechanical bull as an entertainment device was popularized by Sherwood Cryer

Sherwood Cryer

Sherwood Cryer was a businessman from Texas. His most famous club was Gilley's Club. It was an enormous honky tonk that lead to The Movie The Urban Cowboy Starring John Travolta released in 1980.-Biography:...

 who was the owner of Mickey Gilley's nightclub

Gilley's Club

Gilley's is a bar/honky tonk founded in 1971 by country singer Mickey Gilley in Pasadena, Texas. It was the central location in the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy.It was a huge building with a corrugated steel roof that housed multiple bars and mechanical bulls...

 in Pasadena, Texas

Pasadena, Texas

Pasadena is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area. It is the second-largest city in Harris County, 17th-largest in Texas, and 162nd largest in the United States. The area was founded in 1893 by John H. Burnett of Galveston....

. Cryer would drive around Pasadena Texas to find mattresses for the padding by the Mechanical bull.The commercial use of mechanical bulls gained popular appeal with the release of the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy

Urban Cowboy

Released as a 2× vinyl record album, re-released on CD in 1995.Side A:#Hello Texas – Jimmy Buffett #All Night Long – Joe Walsh #Times Like These – Dan Fogelberg #Nine Tonight – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band...

. In this movie John Travolta

John Travolta

John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

 and Debra Winger

Debra Winger

Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...

 demonstrated the art of riding a mechanical bull to the larger movie-going population. The mechanical bull featured in this movie was the El Toro brand of mechanical bull. This brand of mechanical bull is still in circulation, but does not carry the same safety features that are available on more current models

"Bucking bronco" or "bronc" is cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

 slang for a horse that throws a person around.

Cultural references

Mechanical bulls can be seen in the films Urban Cowboy

Urban Cowboy

Released as a 2× vinyl record album, re-released on CD in 1995.Side A:#Hello Texas – Jimmy Buffett #All Night Long – Joe Walsh #Times Like These – Dan Fogelberg #Nine Tonight – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band...

, Stir Crazy

Stir Crazy (film)

Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as down-on-their-luck friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after being framed for a bank robbery; while in prison they befriend other inmates and ultimately escape. In 2000, Total Film magazine voted it the...

, and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is a 2003 American action comedy film. It is the sequel to 2000's Charlie's Angels. It opened in the United States on June 27, 2003, and was number one at the box office for that weekend and made a worldwide total of $259.2 million.The cast again includes Cameron...

. In the movie Barnyard

Barnyard (film)

Barnyard is a 2006 computer-animated family comedy film, produced by Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures, directed by Steve Oedekerk . and produced by Steve Oedekerk, Paul Marshal, and Pam Marsden...

, in the night barn, a "Mechanical Man" is seen (as the main characters are cows). In the television show Strangers with Candy

Strangers with Candy

Strangers with Candy is a television series produced by Comedy Central. It first aired on April 7, 1999, and concluded its third and final season on October 2, 2000. Its timeslot was Sundays at 10 p.m....

, Jerri Blank's P.E. class is seen to have mechanical bull riding.