“BABY GO-GO” was a no-go! She was one of our always unsuccessful attempts to create a Radio Controlled item for girls. History, in retrospect, has proven that RC and girls don’t mix. This was a lesson that my partners, KISCOM and I were destined to learn the hard way, by trying time and time again. Baby Go-Go’s story has already been told. It’s buried in the section called “Five RC Ideas” on the home page. But seeing that the actual prototype I created, many years ago, suddenly appeared, I decided to include her here. This is, after all, where she belongs, here, in the Land of Lost Toys.
She began as the drawing, below. Then, I visited my favorite Toy Making Supply store, Toys R Us, and miraculously found a doll that resembled the drawing, as much as if I had created her myself. I also found a suitable RC vehicle to chop and crop and harvest the mechanics. The remote control controller bear was made of Super Sculpey.
The way Baby Go-Go worked was quite amazing. She tootled along at a quick pace, and changed the direction of her crawl, each time she was backed up. So, with a little practice, Baby Go-Go could be steered to go just about anywhere. In the trial and error process of enabling Baby Go-Go to scurry fast enough to not be boring, I discovered that I could add a subtle extra touch that permitted her to shake her butt!
And thus, with the original drawing enlarged, refined, and colored in with Magic Markers, Baby Go-Go was ready to Go. But before she went, to meet her fate, she had to have a video. The resulting tape was definitely the best thing Baby Go Go had going for her. It was created and edited to coordinate with the perfect song, called, “I’m too sexy for My Cat.” This amusing ditty, combined with the acting talents of my two favorite kitties, amounted to clever Music Video. Some fleeting glimpses of Mouse Heaven were also disclosed.
This video had been on You Tube, for several years, when several months ago, it was discovered by the music’s copyright owner, and You Tube removed the music. I looked at my You Tube site the other day and discovered that much of the music I had used for Invasion Earth had also been removed, as if anyone really gave a crap about the sixty year old sound track of “The House of Frankenstein!” It was then that I discovered that Baby Go-Go’s tune, “I’m Too Sexy for My Cat” had been put back! To celebrate that fact I decided to create a new page for her, and add it to the pack.
You can see the video tape, below. It featured my buddy, Peewee, the actor cat, who allowed me to shoot several takes. He was great at emoting, especially expressing fright. He pretends to be scared, but minutes later, he always reappears, ready to do it all over again. Here, he is accompanied by the young starlet, Mimi. What a team!
According to my partner’s Blue Book, a big fat folder that tracks the history of the toys I made, Baby Go-Go was shown to many companies. Some of them tested her, including Mattel, who reported that the tests did not go well. Looking at her page, just now, a thought occurred to me: Perhaps a hypothetical viewer of this website might find it interesting to see this entry. Lest you think that selling toy inventions might be an easy way to make a living, this page will set you straight. It offers you a glimpse at what my partners did, all the toy companies that they showed, then sent the product to for testing, over the course of several years, from 1995 to 1999. These included Mattel, Kenner, Galoob, Playmates, Playschool, and Fisher Price. A company called Cap paid a $5,000. fee to option it for a month. Mattel’s condemning comment was: "It’s a watch me toy.”
So, that was that! That is, until last week, when Baby Go-Go was discovered sound asleep, in the crawl space behind my desk, where she has been hibernating for the past twenty years. Now that she has posed for her close up, she will be returned to her resting place, and I’ll never see her again.