FAO’s toy auditions
By Tina Benitez -- Gifts and Dec, 3/9/2006 1:56:00 PM
NEW YORK —The judges were not as harsh as American Idol’s Simon Cowell at the 2nd Annual FAO Schwarz Toy Auditions this morning, but the desire to succeed seemed much the same. More than 20 fledgling manufacturers came from New York, across the U.S., and even Mexico City to showcase what they believe should be the next toy sensation .
The Toy Auditions, held at FAO's Manhattan flagship store, was a chance for artists, inventors, manufacturers to present their products to a team of FAO execs, including CEO Ed Schmults, president and chief marketing officer David Niggli, and vice president and senior buyer Claudia Sandoval.
All products were judged by design, quality, originality, fun, safety, health and environmental impact. Winners will be carried in FAO Schwarz’s New York and Las Vegas stores as well as FAO catalogs and on the Web site.
Most presentations lasted longer than the five minutes allotted, but were worth the extra few minutes.
Horse trainer Patricia Friend Douglass was ready for her presentation. When she found herself driving her car with one hand and using her other hand to pick up her baby daughter’s doll in the backseat about a year and a half ago, she knew “there must be a better way.” Her company, Casey and His Friends,Rye,N.Y., will launch five plush dolls that strap on to child car seats and strollers and are crash tested and government approved. The dolls allow kids to play and never drop their toy while in car or out for a stroll.
The first wave of plush dolls includes Casey, the main character, which will be available to ship this April. The company has manufactured 10,000 of the dolls for the initial launch as well as several specialty retailers who have already expressed interest in the product already. The next doll, Denis the Dragon, will be launched mid-April with with the rest of the line—Merlin the Dog and horses Jill and Three-Step—ready in June.
According to Douglass, another dog, Kiki, would be added to the line by end of year, followed by hypo-allergenic sheep and educational DVDs by 2007. Douglass says that she will only sell to specialty stores. Some proceeds will benefit a Wild Horse Sanctuary in California .
“It’s a great product, so I want to maintain its integrity and not jump to the big markets by keeping it specialty,” says Douglass.
Barbara Briggs Ward stepped foot in FAO for the first time. She remembers reading the FAO Schwarz Christmas catalog with her cousins growing up in upstate New York and dreaming about all the toys. To her, FAO was about quality, or the “cream of the crop,” of toys. Her doll, Snarly Sally, was first created more than 20 years ago, influenced after Ward’s daughter who never wanted to have her hair brushed. She soon developed a book around the character, The Really, Really Hairy Flight of Snarly Sally and Snarly Sallys Garden of ABCs, and left the project behind for several years. Now Ward is ready to bring Snarly to market. Ward believes most little girls can relate to Snarly and her distaste for hair brushing and hopes that the character's story will also add more to girls’ imagination.
Ward, too, does not want her product in mass. She prefers Snarly Sally to remain “top of the line,” as she refers to FAO product. “I don’t want Wal-Mart,” she tells playthings.com. “She’s special, and I want to keep the quality behind her as well as introduce other characters later on. She’s the Charlie Brown [of a potential gang of Peanuts-style characters], and I have to go one step at a time.”
New York City Transit Authority artist and Astoria , N.Y., resident, Clif Militello, showcased several game ideas, one of which was a checkers game with double the pieces.
Lori Christian, CEO, Southern Dreams, Owings , Md., presented her Crayonics line of crayons that have an MP3 chip attached. Kids can color with the crayons along with Crayonics books and listen to sounds that correspond with each color or letter. The product was created one day while Lori was at a diner with her then 5-year-old daughter and found the regular crayons provided by the restaurant "boring." The MP3 chip attached to the crayon and can attached to other crayons or replacements for self-teaching.
“People only use MP3 players for music,” she says, “But it can also be a study aid. It can teach kids a language, geography, phonics. Some crayons can be the shape of a country, and they’re cheap.”
Sylvia Ryne, actress and doll maker, wants to provide her custom-made services to FAO Schwarz. Her ornate dolls have been customized for weddings, birthdays and other events. Ryne, who has been designing dolls since she was 10 years old, is currently finishing up a doll, which she will present to Oprah Winfrey as a gift for her helping to bring The Color Purple to Broadway.
“It’s been a childhood dream of mine to fulfill everyone’s imagination,” she tells playthings.com. “I want to give people a customized design that they can’t get anywhere else. I was always disappointed in the dolls I had, so I started creating my own dolls.”
FAO’s Schmults thinks the program is already a success and is looking forward to future auditions. “Just look at the turnout! It’s been a terrific morning so far,” he tells playthings.com. “I love the passion of some people. That’s what the toy business is about. It’s a great time for us to find unique products. As a brand, we’re in a unique position to get it out there. It’s a chance for us to get in all the artists, thinkers and inventors.”
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