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Mon, Mar 30, 2009
Jason Hilbourne of Portland’s Bunk Bots created an answer to an age-old quandry: By giving our children soft teddy bears and stuffed sharks, are we then teaching them the lesson that bears and sharks are lovable, huggable creatures? Rather than directly answering this paradox, he came up with his own solution: lovable, huggable Bunk Bots. There are currently 10 plushbots in production (many of which are also in film productions), with more in the works. You can pick up an army of Bunk Bots at your local toy shop or online retailer (locations listed here). But if you want something really special, something that nobody else will have, you’ll need to enter…
To win all four customized Watchmen Bunk Bots as seen in the video below, answer this question: Nite Owl vs Batman: who has cooler gear? Discuss.
Please post your names by April 12th at midnight PST. We will declare the winner on April 13th, shortly before the next custoMONDAY. Four runner-ups will each get a Ninja Servo Bunk Bots plush. The contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. If you have already won a custoMONDAY in 2009, please feel free to share your creativity, but you are, regrettably, not eligible for the prize.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Vs8s2gYkQ&feature=player_embedded]
You make Bunk Bots, have two kids, a wife and a job as a product design engineer–tell us the secret to good time management?
There’s no secret! I just have a lot of help. The kids are now both in school, my wife Greta helps sell plush toys, our reps help sell more toys, and my brother basically does all of the real work at my small consumer electronics product design company. That leaves me with all kinds of time to… still work like crazy. But it’s fun every day! As a mechanical engineer, I find that the whole “making stuff” part of the toy business is actually the easiest chunk of my work at Huge Factory. The difficult, fun, unnatural, and challenging part of my new job is “selling stuff”. At Toy Fair, Greta and I asked thousands of people, “Would you like to hug a robot?” I’m 39 years old, and I never imagined myself asking anyone anything like that at any age–but here I am. Would you like to hug a robot?
What’s OMSI all about?
OMSI is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland. It’s like Exploratorium or any of the tech museums in bigger cities, so anyone familiar with those kinds of institutions will know that it is also totally awesome. I grew up in Portland, so I went there a whole lot when I was a kid. And now my kids go there a lot. OMSI has robots and rockets and tesla coils and bisected jet engines, but it also has loads of really cool biology exhibits as well. They used to have this giant scale-model of a human heart that you could walk through–and some of the chambers of the heart were only big enough for a kid to fit into. They don’t have that heart at the museum any more and I sometimes wonder: who got that heart?! I love that place. Educating kids in the sciences is really important to Greta and I, and we love how OMSI makes it effortless and fun.
A lot happened in the mainstream media last year giving “authority” for boys to play with plush dolls. Is the reign of G.I. Joe at an end?
Don’t even joke about that! Action figures (and LEGOs) are an essential part of crazy-creative play for growing boys. I can’t watch Empire Strikes Back without remembering all of the alternate endings to the Battle of Hoth that my brother and I imagined with our army of Star Wars action figures and improvised stuffed-animal imperial walkers. Bunk Bots aren’t trying to step on any action figure toes. We’re just trying to roll-out robots to a relatively unexplored set of younger kids who aren’t even playing with action figures yet. We want to get the Bunk Bots into the beds of young boys. Does that sound creepy? Whatever–I think you get it. Our boys have about a dozen Uglydolls between them, and their friends have piles of them too. Like you said–the authority has already been granted, and now we’re just hoping that the Bunk Bots can stand on the shoulders of Ugly giants and appeal to boys like only robots can.
The Bunk Bots are all over YouTube. How did this idea come about? And isn’t it time they started Tweeting?
Video is not the perfect way to experience plush toys, but it’s probably the best way to do it on the web. We wanted folks to become familiar with Bunk Bots as fast as possible, so making YouTube videos was one of our first attempts at cheap PR. I crank out at least one video every week. Some of them are actually funny! Making the videos isn’t especially difficult, but we’re hoping that more of our customers will catch the video-making bug and start posting their own Bunk Bots movies so that I don’t have to make as many! To get the ball rolling, we’ve even created a weekly YouTube contest where budding film-makers can win two new toys! [Ed note: Here's mine.] Our entire marketing plan hinges on one of these videos going viral and creating a tidal-wave of demand for the Bunk Bots overnight, so put down your mouse and get filming already! As for tweeting–I still don’t get it. Greta digs Facebook, but I don’t even entirely understand that one either. Bunk Bots might go crazy in both of those worlds soon, but I’m cozy with YouTube as my web-two-oh outlet for now.
What inspired you to do a Watchmen Bunk Bots mashup?
Greta and I noticed that most of our booth neighbors at Toy Fair had custom toys on display. In particular, Megan and Matt Doughty of Onell were constantly fidgeting with not only awesome customs, but even crazier custom configurations with his new Buildman stuff. Customs bring a lot of life to an exhibit, and they can also draw attention to brand new toys–like ours! So I wanted to capture some of that same custom magic for our next trade show in Los Angeles. The first day of the LA show happened to be the opening day of the new Watchmen movie, so “Watchmen hero custom Bunk Bots” seemed like a great idea. It turned out that the new Watchmen movie was awesome. It took my favorite parts of the book and added kung fu! I’m a sucker for superhero origin stories, science fiction, kung fu, and… robots! Unfortunately, it also turned out that most of the folks at the LA toy show didn’t know anything about Watchmen or the culture behind customs, so I think I confused a whole lot of otherwise-really-nice toy store owners! “No, sorry, you can’t order those ones… you see, that’s Nite Owl, and that’s Doctor Manhattan, and…” Anyway–it was still a whole lot of fun to build them, and now I hope they find a good home with one of your readers.
What’s next for Jason Hilbourne and Bunk Bots?
We’re still brand new, so everything is next! We’re slowly depleting our supply of bots, we’ve got a new line coming out for the holidays, and we’re always thinking of new ways to get the word out. Comic shops love the Bunk Bots, so I called up the folks at Comic-Con to try to get a booth there for July. He was nice about it, but the guy on the other end of the phone must have laughed at me for a good 3 seconds. I learned that Comic-Con exhibit space is sold-out for 3 years in advance! Like I said–making plush robots is… fun everyday.
Jeremy Brautman - who has written 1965 posts on ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected.
Jeremy Brautman joined ToyCyte in 2008 and has been writing about toy culture ever since. You can currently find him contributing to a variety of blogs, artkiving doodles at Doodlesplatter.com and cataloging artistic ephemera at ARTkivers.com.
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March 30th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Nite Owl has cooler gear.
Plus, Archie has a flamethrower and even today, Batmobile still sounds lame…
March 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
While this is definitely not an entry into the contest, I have to say that Batman’s mask shoots out some kinda knockout gas if you try to take it off. Which is insane.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
This is a tough one. They both have great outfits that represent their flying predator. The Nite Owl is my favorite character in the Watchmen as well, but I have been a loyal fan of Batman and bats since a very young age. So I am going to say Batman’s attire for the majority but Nite Owl’s Cold weather white outfit beats out overall.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:32 am
Nightowl. Batmobile ever served espresso? ‘No’ is that answer. No it does not.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:49 am
Totally Night Owl…hover scooters, smooth jazz and espresso, a snow owl outfit for cold weather, Night Owl is not just a super hero…he is a straight up PIMP!
March 31st, 2009 at 9:56 am
I will have to go with Batman, he’s always been a fave for me.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am
I’m going to go off of who could use their gear to best shoot a rap video. That said, Batman wins.
- The man has access to Batboats, planes, cars and motorcycles. Perfect for partying on/in/around and rolling crew deep.
-Batarang…doubles as a great oversized rapper necklace. Slap a dookie rope chain on there and bam, instant cred.
-Alfred, the Butler, could be featured in a hilarious rap video montage. Example: Old Alfred just can’t understand that loud rap music, throw him into some oversized pants, two words…booty dance, etc.
-Easily pierce pointed bat cowl to rock some large diamond thug earrings.
-Robin could easily be the “Mase” to Batman’s “Puffdaddy” in videos. Rap sidekicks always work well, look at Kid and Play.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:07 pm
As cool as the Nite Owl is Batman is the clear winner here… he’s got the batcave, he’s a far better detective, he’s rich, has a better costume, he has his own bat signal, he works alone, and has all of those gadgets in his utility belt.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:07 pm
My favorite gadgets are the big ones.
Batman has the batmobile, batwing, batsub, batbike, and whatever other normal vehicle you can add a “bat” prefix to it.. bat-segway?
Put it all together (and in a more cooler looking shape), add a flame thrower, smoke machine and a coffee-maker.. you have Nite Owl’s ride, Archie.
Now, aren’t gadgets about being “all-in-one”?
Nite Owl FTW.
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
I’ve always been a sucker for Batman, he has my vote.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Night Owl for the win. Batman is overrated.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 pm
While I like Night Owl, Bruce Wayne aka Batman has pretty much unlimited funds to make any toy… erm gear that he could possibly want or imagine. If Bruce Wayne would please buy me these plush toys, I would appreciate it.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Batman, but only because he’s had LEGO sets. Get me some Watchmen LEGO sets and then we’ll talk
April 5th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Personally, It’s almost an unfair comparison.
Batman’s just had so many different incarnations. The film versions, from the latest Batman Begin’s monster truck batmobile, and Batman(1989) Batwing to the animated versions crazy gear in the Batman Beyond series.
I haven’t even dug into the 70 years of comic history where so many creators have taken the bat tech in a million different directions. He even put Superman in a coma one time with his gadgetry. Superman. Coma. I just had to say that again.
While I love Nite Owl’s gear, and while they may be more badass than certain Bat gear, I don’t think it can come close to comparing to the epic amount of awesome gear that the Bat has had over the years.
Brian
April 6th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Its hard to compare, they both have cool gadgets, although batman does have an advantage, because he has pretty much an unlimited amount of money from wayne enterprises. But then nite owl’s gadgets did not involve a whole lot of money and super high technology when being made, and he had a way cooler costume than batman. But even when batman retired, he still improved his technology on his suits even though it was then terry mcginnis who used them in batman beyond, and really, that suit was amazing. with that, batman has my vote.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Batman, if it weren’t for him no one would even know what a ‘grappling hook’ was.
April 7th, 2009 at 3:45 am
Hands down:
Batman,
The new skool batman has a cool voice distorter, the ideal prank callers tool!
The old skool batman even had SHARKrepellant in his batchopper! need we say more?
nite owl got nothing on the dark knight!
April 8th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Batman… Two Words: Utility Belt. He’s too cool to have to carry his stuff in a flying egg.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The Batman clearly has the coolest gear, mostly because it doesn’t have to conform to reality. Remember the Shark Repellent Bat Spray from the original Batman movie (1966) that just so happened to work of robotic sharks as well as real sharks? Why is this cool, you may ask. I will tell you why: because Batman ALWAYS has just what he needs in that utility belt of his. His nemeses often remark upon this fact in incredulity. It doesn’t make any sense, but there you have it. Nite Owl is limited by the gear he actually has. It seems to me, however, that the Batman can simply imagine an item to make it appear in his utility belt, and like in the movie The Lathe of Heaven, once he’s dreamed it into reality, everyone agrees that it is canon and has always been there. Awesome!
By the way, Bunk Bots rock! They’ll be donating some plushies to a charity I am organizing with some friends here in Chicago, Bots 4 Tots (http://www.bots4tots.org). We think they are just the coolest!
April 8th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This one is simple: Night Owl.
In all of the hundreds of incarnations of Batman’s suit, and all of his dinglies and danglies and widgets and whatzits, I have not yet seen him equipped with a Bunk Bot in his own likeness.
Night Owl has one. I just saw a picture of it. I may even win it!
April 10th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I’m gonna go with Night Owl, mainly for the Owl Ship. I like the Brass/Copperness “Steampunk” if you will feel.
I love the Ikea squid, I have a bunch of those.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:11 am
OK…here are the winners per Bunk Bots CEO Jason H:
Winner = Nevermindthebolex
Runners-up = rontek3000, Brian Artiaco, Megan, kyle
Watch your inbox for a message from me to collect your details so we can send you some Bunk Bots. Congrats! Next custoMONDAY coming up in less than an hour…you’re gonna love it!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Whoah, Thanks very much! Looking forward to hearing from you.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I got my bunkbot today, I love it!