Designer Times
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Tom's character designs were very clever and cute. Small scale model maquettes were sculpted, then modeled full size for casting up production molds. The costume folks would then make patterns for series production of the costumes, which were very complete and charming. Fiberglass body sections would be posed on a temorary fixture so that Dave could instruct each shop fabricator in the motions that each figure would require. The shop fabricator then designed the specific figure's mechanical construction following my basic generic figure mechanical concepts.

We developed a technique for building animated figures in the simplest possible manner while insuring reliablity. Dave used to call our stuff "Mack truck ugly". At Disney, all the mechanical details were very beautiful and featured expensive machining details. These parts were always a joy to design, build, and look at. Un-restrained technicians will always want to do beautiful work.....it's the heart of creative satisfaction.

RiverTowne was faced with the need for extremely low cost which meant that every mechanical part must be dead simple.....no fancy machining. Mechanical figure design is originated in the shop by the "hack and fit" method without regard to any dimensional accuracy or repeatability....just a rough one-off assembly. I would then measure every part and make a detail drawing. From that, I would make other drawings of welded sub-assemblys, which led to a final assembly drawing. These were typically 8.5x11 paper hand drawn (no drafting tools) and not to scale.

I had a fast way of drawing all lines horizontal with a pen following a free ruler. I would rotate the paper for any vertical or diagonal lines.....sort of a spinning paper - fixed pen position.....Reverse Polish Drafting I called it. White out fixed any errors or revisions. I did however develop a fully integrated part numbering system which was very easy to implement with very little recordation effort. I was always blown away by the Blueprint Empire at MAPO. Every itty-bitty drawing change required a full revision block notation, entry into corporate records, then a blueprint re-release to maybe a dozen users. (I once saw a double-Z revision in the MAPO Electrical Department). I just let the drawing content change as much as needed until the design settled down into production. Only then would revision letters start.....a true change only after the inevitable fiddling about to get the design just right to begin with. Why issue revision paper while the design is being born?

This technique was real fast....any shop fabricator could make all the bits very quickly, and a figure could be aligned in a simple jig for final welding in production. Build, then draw.....backwards but very fast. No need for the typical large company Documentation and Control, no need for a blueprint machine, just use the office copy machine. An additional advantage; all drawings were contact size and would fit a standard 3-ring binder.....no rolled blueprints to mess with. Shop guys could red-mark their changes on the shop copies and I would collect them later for finalizing the originals.

I grit my teeth and drew up square tube stuff with raw saw cut ends, no fancy and expensive mill-cut coped joints. Bearings and moving bits were cheap but hardy, no brackets had rounded corners like Disney animation, just plain square ends. No stainless steel investment castings, no nicely fitted aircraft ball bearings, just plain and simple......Mack truck ugly. Funny thing; if the character is charming, sings and moves well, why pay for pretty mechanicals you can't see.

Animated's shop staff had a lot of former Disney talent, having left while WED/MAPO was going thru some unhappy times just prior to the re-birth of 1984 under Eisner and Wells. Investors and potential restaurant operators were very impressed with the Disney-like quality RiverTowne animated show. Our idea was to tool up to produce maybe one show a month.....as long as Animated's executive staff was signing up new locations just as fast. The first RiverTowne opened in March 1982 in Putty Hill, Maryland followed by another near Washington DC, others were to open in Lakewood and Sante Fe Springs, California, even one in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Universal Studios asked Animated Show Productions to help build animations for their new Conan Swords and Sorcery Show. Other new projects seemed to be on the horizon. Dave and Tom had hired quite a sizable staff by Christmas 1982. We all had a great Holiday party to celebrate a growing year. Things looked rosy, we were expanding rapidly, and we soon moved into a 60,000 square foot factory just up the road in Sylmar.

Universal Studios Tour wanted even more of our work. We did projects for a number of clients like Rod Stewart and Betamax. New inquiries were coming in every month. The company changed it's name to Applied Entertainment Systems since we were going to do way more than just build some Dog and Pizza shows. The administrative staff began to blossom. (In hindsight, more like a foretelling mushroom cloud than a budding flower). I was hired on as Engineering Vice President on April 1st, 1983. Not long afterwards I found myself to be the April Fool. But that's a business-lesson story way into the future.

oOo

Next month: Conan Serpent - Giant fire-breathing animated figure