- 03/10/2007 (10:34:19 pm)
- Adam Levy
Jakks Pacific WWE line featured in newspaper article!
Jeremy Padawer and Peter Skourtis of Jakks Pacific were featured in an awesome article about the WWE Action Figure line in the Daily Titan, the student newspaper at Cal State Fullerton.
Toy Story With Bodyslams
What old is new again for the WWE and Jakks Pacific
Adam Levy
Posted: 3/8/07
Don't mistake it for child's play - there's a lot of action that goes into creating a successful toy line.
The spiffy dolls you see hanging from retailer's shelves are the end product of a vision brought to life via a team effort of brainstorming, creativity, artistry and marketing. They see the six-month process through, from the conception of an idea, to its shaping and development, to the birthing table that is your local toy store.
Just ask Jeremy Padawer.
The 33-year-old serves as the vice president of Boy's Entertainment for Malibu-based Jakks Pacific, a prominent player in the toy business - an industry that grosses $1.5 billon annually.
After working for Mattel, Padawer was hired on by Jakks four years ago to revitalize slumping sales numbers in the action figure department. And did he ever.
Jakks '06 revenue stood at $765.4 million, in part due to the success of Padawer's opus, the WWE Classic Superstars line.
The brand is second only to Star Wars in the action figures genre.
FIGURE MANIA
Padawer's office is an experience in and of itself - think Tom Hanks in "Big." The wall is adorned with an impressive collection of autographed memorabilia, while a table showcases a menagerie of the colorful action figures he has produced. He said that his background as a wrestling fan and toy collector has given him the proper perspective to cater to the hungry consumer masses.
With 35 percent of action figure consumers constituted of males 15 and older, Padawer took a retrospective route with the line.
"The focus was on celebrating the nostalgic part of the brand," Padawer said. "Wrestling fans have a real sense of their history - people live and breathe this stuff."
The line is a collection of figures based on wrestlers from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Popular characters in the assortment include household names such Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and Rowdy Roddy Piper, as well as lesser-known mat men of yesteryear such as Hillbilly Jim, King Kong Bundy and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.
"Those guys are the true heart of wrestling," Padawer said of the more obscure characters.
Padawer said a major factor in the lines' success is the direct communication with his target audience; he maintains an ongoing dialogue with fans and collectors via his blog Jeremy.com.
He sets the quantities of each character corresponding to the wrestlers perceived popularity, as well as periodically producing limited edition figures.
And armed with the right feedback, he is in a position to give the people what they want.
SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE
Running an action figure line based on real people adds an intangible most toy makers needn't pay mind to - the human one. It's not as if Chewbacca, G.I. Joe or Bart Simpson carry grudges or hold out for more money.
While many of the superstars are signed to a WWE Legends Contract, which authorizes merchandising rights, a separate element of Padawer's job involves tracking down estranged wrestlers - some of whom left the WWE on less than rosy terms - and signing them to year-long contracts that are independent of the wrestling company.
In a move he said was intended to set the tone, Padawer's aggressive enterprise led him to ink a wrestler whose nasty and public dispute with WWE had gone on for the better part of a decade.
"In the first assortment we signed the Ultimate Warrior," Padawer said. "We were going after it."
Padawer said that getting wrestlers into the creative collaboration process towards developing the figure's appearance is a key element.
"I don't know how much more personal you can get than an action figure."
The contracts are not just limited to the living. In the case of deceased wrestlers, Padawer negotiates contracts through the wrestlers' estate. Posthumous Classic Superstar figures include wrestlers such as Andre the Giant, Yokozuna, Mr. Perfect and The British Bulldog.
And then there's reporting to the chairman of the board, WWE CEO Vince McMahon. While the billionaire's larger-than-life television persona would lead you to believe he's the boss from hell, Padawer said otherwise.
"Vince is very hands off, he trusts us," Padawer said. "He's very easy to work with."
THE ARCHITECT
Once the list is confirmed and contracts are signed, the handoff is made from Padawer to senior project manager Peter Skourtis.
If Padawer is the heart of the Classic Superstars line, Skourtis is the soul.
"I try to do it for the person buying the figure," Skourtis said. "We want to make sure every detail does it up to life."
The 28-year-old said he strives to makes figures that he would buy.
"I was a fan when I grew up, so I remember them from that perspective," Skourtis said. "There's a lot of passion behind this - these are my babies."
The cubicles that encompass his office are not traditional, to say the least. Amid the desks, computers and files, lie hundreds of loose action figures the project manager uses as paints to his pallet.
Skourtis' job is to process the list of names given to him into eight-inch replicas that capture the essence of the wrestler during a given time period. Steps involved in this process include a computer scan on a picture of the subject's head; sculpting a head mold; and cobbling together a body and costume that will further embellish the product.
Skourtis said he uses old wrestling footage and action shots taken from the Internet or sent to them by the wrestlers as reference points to what the figure should resemble.
"It's a lot of research, but it's kind of fun," Skourtis said.
He uses a variety of facial expressions, such as neutral, happy, angry, and so forth, to determine which look will spark a sentimental flashback in the eyes of the consumer. Skourtis clicked on his computer screen, and brought up an old picture of the Honky Tonk Man, the wrestling Elvis impersonator; then dragged up a picture of the accompanying head mold, sporting the same expression.
"That was the one that sold me on the head," Skourtis said of the picture. "He looks like such a jerk!"
Jakks uses Real scan technology, a laser-generated program that captures accurate dimensions of the wrestler's skull to cast a mold upon.
Skourtis said of the technology, "It's like a giant Xerox copy that scans their heads."
Once the template is set, Skourtis works with sculptors, casting the head mold out of wax and then resin, a synthetic substance used in the plastic industries.
The product manager said specific communication with the sculptor is vital to get the details of the head just right, in a process which he said, "You can see the magic happen."
When planning the head mold for 80's wrestling star "Ravishing Rick Rude," Skourtis said he pulled no punches when streamlining the details with the sculptors.
"Literally what I told him was that we need a dirty, 70s porn-style mustache," Skourtis said. "It's a lot of nitpicking - sometimes you just gotta be explicit."
The next step in the process encompasses matching a body to the mug. Due to cost expenditures, Jakks does not make a custom body sculpt for each figure, but rather "Frankensteins" them together out of stock parts until they come up with a comparable physique to each wrestler.
"Once the heads are done and we get them back, we'll Frankenstein them here in the office," Skourtis said.
The project manager demonstrated this by grabbing a few figures, fiercely pulling them apart and creating a new figure on the spot.
Once the approval is given for the heads and sculpts, the molds are shipped off
to Honk Kong where a prototype and painted version are produced and sent back for approval. If green-lighted, a typical four-month production begins with the mass production of the figures and the packaging.
LET THE BIDDING BEGIN...
As soon as the figures hit the market, the collector race is on. Retail shelves are depleted of the scarcer figures sooner than you can say "Tickle me Elmo." On any given night, hundreds of e-bay auctions buzz with bids as high as $500 for a single figure.
At the Frank & Son's Show in City of Industry, collectors and merchants congregate in a warehouse twice a week for a swap meet of Magic cards, video games and action figures.
Anthony Cabrera, a 26-year-old merchant at the show, has a booth devoted to selling the popular toys. He has fetched bounties as high as $200 for a single figure, a Series One Shawn Michaels. He said the figures usually become a hot commodity once they are not available on retail shelves, and also commented on the generational gap the line bridges.
"When the kids come in, they buy the newer ones," Cabrera said. "But the parents wind up buying something also - [the Classic Superstars] catches their eye."
A longtime enthusiast, the peddler lauded the line compared to past wrestling figures.
"They are a hundred times better because of the articulation and the detail now that they have real scan," Cabrera said.
Bart Kapitzke is the 34-year-old owner of the AWS Collectibles Store, which specializes in wrestling-related merchandise. He estimated the Classic Superstars line accounts for 25 percent of his sales.
"They love them, they're collectors and that's what they want," he said of his customers. "They're 100 times better because of all the scans - it's all about the scan."
"A DREAM JOB"
Both Padawer and Skourtis said they have the proverbial "dream jobs."
"You have to fall in love with something to do it right," Padawer said. "The funny thing about dream jobs - the job is what you make of it."
"I talk to Ultimate Warrior," Skourtis said. "It's surreal - totally surreal."
Skourtis said the bottom line for the line's enduring success was their attention to the little things, no pun intended.
"The details are very important. These keep selling - there's plenty of room to grow."
© Copyright 2007 Daily Titan
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