The Remote Controller

I was one of those kids who drew voraciously into the night, filling up countless pads of paper with inventions, board games, toys, and whatever else struck my fancy. Some of my inventions were too overboard to ever be produced, but when I was twenty-five I began to consider actually bringing an idea to market, focusing on useful modifications of everyday household items along with toys and novelty items--appropriately known in the industry as the Houseware, Giftware, Toy and Novelty markets.

There were tons of cool gift shops and boutiques in NYC, but the holy grail of novelty stores was Dapy, located on a tony block in the heart of SoHo. Dapy carried the usual Sharper Image-type gizmos and a slew of ridiculous novelty gifts, some more useful than others. I looked at the items featured in the huge storefront window and imagined how cool it would be to see one of my crazy inventions sitting up there.

Dapy. The Holy Grail of novelty stores.

Not knowing how to go about selling ideas, I did some research and wound up making an appointment with design agents from a firm called Creatiff. The idea was that the agents would do the footwork and meet with their industry contacts, hopefully selling an invention, for which they would take half of the agreed upon royalty payments. After looking through my portfolio, Creatiff signed me the same day and I went home on a cloud of air with dreams of selling a product at last. Only a few weeks went by when my agent called to say a major bedding company was interested in my highly ridiculous line of bedsheets and pillows, but somehow the negotiations stalled and I was crestfallen. The few designers I talked to all said much the same thing, that is to say I was in a cutthroat business and should expect to be rejected or ripped off, neither of which sounded appealing.

The Creatiff agents asked me to be patient, but after several misfires I decided to widen my opportunities by seeking out manufacturers on my own. So I would walk around the stores and malls with a notepad and pen, jotting down the names and addresses of companies who made the sort of items I felt were of the same quality and style as mine. One by one, manufacturers told me they only worked with in-house designers because of the risk involved with possible copyright claims from outsiders. Finally, Bud Goldman, President of Banning Enterprises, agreed to a meeting. Banning made a range of quality novelty and gift items, many of which seemed in line with what I was doing. So I made some fake business cards calling myself a toy and gift designer and readied my portfolio. By this time I had hundreds of inventions, but brought with me what I felt were my strongest twenty, confident Banning would jump at the chance.

One of my more ridiculous novelty ideas.

While my girlfriend waited outside in the car, I pitched my ideas to Mr. Goldman, who seemed interested enough and looked at everything carefully. "You're insane, did you know that?" he laughed. "What's going on in that head?" I laughed with him as he explained that the ideas were a little too far-out to be produced, and many of them would be prohibitively expensive.

 Flip flops that look like Popsicles? Why not?

I went back to the car dejected again. Seeing my face, my girlfriend said, "You'll do it. Next time you'll do it."

Three months later I set up another appointment with Bud, who was happy to meet with me again. I studied up on everything Banning produced and came up with another set of ideas that I was sure to knock his socks off. Bud listened to my impassioned pitches, and told me I had a lot of great ideas, but nothing Banning would be interested in. "Back to the drawing board," I laughed. Bud smiled and said, "Keep 'em simple, John. We've gotta think about cost."

I went back to my girlfriend, who again was waiting in the car, and threw my portfolio in the back. "I'm a total failure," I said. "You aren't a failure," she said. "They don't know a good thing when they see it."

So I licked my wounds and went back to Dapy for inspiration. In a week of frenzied activity, I brainstormed new inventions keeping cost in mind. I drew the proposals and called Bud Goldman to set up a third appointment. "You're a madman, do you know that?" he laughed. After my pitch, Bud removed three of the drawings from the pile. "Let me hold on to these," he said. "Might be some possibilities." Possibilities? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As I gathered up the rest of the drawings, Bud pointed at a quick sketch on the back of one sheet. "What's this?" he asked. "Oh, I never worked that one out, probably not a good one," I said. It was a rough idea of a figurine to hold remote controls: a couch potato-type figure into whose outstretched arms you could place the remotes, like he was holding on to them for dear life.

Bud rubbed his beard a few times and said, "I'm interested. We're making this."

Whaaaat?

I went back to my waiting girlfriend, threw my portfolio in the back seat, and hung my head. "I'm so sorry, John," she said. "But you tried, that's the important thing."

"You know what he had the nerve to tell me? He's interested in four ideas. He's definite on one of them."

I was excited to see a product manufactured but curious why he chose the remote holder, which I thought was weak. The other three concepts eventually got pushed to the side as Bud focused on having my remote stand ready in time for the next Gift Fair. We worked out a licensing agreement in which Banning would pay me an advance and a percentage of sales. The idea of royalties was nice, but what jazzed me most was knowing something I thought of one night would end up underneath someone's Christmas tree. That blew my mind to imagine.

I decided to call it "The Remote Controller" and Bud asked me to make a prototype to show potential buyers. If the remotes were in front like the original design, they would block the figure so he asked me to find a way to get them in back. Deep worries set in that the whole thing would be canceled because I couldn't figure out a way to keep the sense of the guy zealously guarding his remote controls.

Finally, I showed him what I thought was the most insane version in which the guy was sitting in his recliner with the remotes chained around him. "It's totally crazy," Bud said. "I like it." 

So we stuck with this version, with the guy chained to his chair and his eyes all spaced-out from watching TV. I made a clay model and plastic base and delivered it to Bud. Within two weeks, he had lined up initial sales with several catalogs including Sears. It was Sears that sealed the deal because they purchase large minimum orders, in this case they wanted a modest but decent 30,000 units.

So the manufacturing process began in earnest, with Mr. Goldman talking to factories in China that would do the mold-making and paint, and another that would manufacture the box, which Bud also asked me to design along with a logo. There was a lot of back and forth over the way the base would be built and the tricky packaging, which brought many delays and headaches. The factory guys in China referred to the project as the "fat American guy," and away we went. It occurred to me that the only real market for it would be suburban father's, and at the last minute told Bud that perhaps it would sell better if we switched it around to this:

"Don't make me second guess this thing now," Bud said. The whole enterprise was so bizarre, just knowing there would be strangers on a factory line in China assembling what amounted to a lame joke made in my spare time.

Six of the rubber figurines arrived in the mail, which Bud asked me to paint in different colors to finalize the scheme. The guys at the paint factory said it would be too difficult to do the spaced-out eyes so we nixed the idea. The original model had the figure holding a beer, but Bud thought the stereotype might be slightly offensive so we changed it to a mug.

Bud was encouraged by the Sears sale even though the initial mold cost more than forty grand to produce (!). At the following industry Gift Fair at the Jacob Javitz Center, I walked like a proud father to the Banning Enterprises booth to meet up with Bud and the sales reps, beaming when I saw a giant-sized promotional version of the Remote Controller which Bud said cost around $7500 to fabricate.I thought about the process from inception till finish and laughed at the ridiculousness of the thing.

I also wondered why I wasn't in the business of making giant replica's.

 Package design.

When I first saw the Remote Controller in the Sears catalog, I laughed when I realized it almost looked like some sort of BDSM thing. What was I thinking with the chains?

A few weeks later I was walking along Sixth Avenue when I decided to see whether Dapy might have them in stock. There, on the featured shelf in the front store window, sat my ridiculous invention.

In the end, the sales weren't nearly as strong as Bud hoped, and he only renewed the license for another year and a half. One unforeseen problem was that retailers balked at the oversize boxes, not wanting to carry them because shelf space was sacred. Who knew? I still have a feeling that the hot girl version would have sold better, but that's me.

Every four months over the next few years I received some nice royalty checks like little surprises. Looking back, I'm not sure whether I'm proud or embarrassed by it, but hopefully on at least one occasion it fulfilled its exceedingly noble role in preventing a precious remote from being lost.