Babbling
Babies!
Created by Mel
Birnkrant (above)
Produced by
Unimax (below)
The photos below show the
unfinished sculpy dolls next to the
dolls that Unimax actually produced.
  
Peekaboo!! (note
the head was swapped with the next one...)
  
Bashful!! (Her
cheeks light up.)
  
Tickletoes!! (Her
feet light up.)
  
Cha Cha!! (Her
rattle lights up.)
  
Hungry!! (Her
tongue lights up.)
  
Sneezy!! (Her
nose lights up.)
Prototypes
This photo shows latex castings
of the babies. They are a little rough.
The sculpy models shown above are more finished. Mel had
the Oodles
in mind when he sculpted these dolls.
Mel created the prototypes but
then had to work out an application
for these adorable dolls...
Originally they were going to
be squeeze toys.
Mel designed the little hangtags (above) as examples.
Eventually, the creative team
decided to give the dolls electronics so they
could talk and light up. By the time the creative team
had completed the
electronics and sample scripts for the dolls, they were
calling them the
"Talk and Listen" babies because the dolls are
interactive. They respond
to you and to each other.
When Unimax bought the concept
dolls, they changed the name to
Babbling Babies. Mel and Kiscom thought that was a good
change.
Mel wrote the scripts for the
Babbling Babies. He dashed off some notes
with suggestions on what the Babblers might say. He
assumed that a
professional team would review and develop those
suggestions into
something more sophisticated, or appropriate, or
appealing etc. So
Mel was very surprised when his "notes" were
used almost verbatim
in the language programs.
Unimax did use Mel's head sculpts
for the final dolls, but they re-sculpted
the bodies. Mel's prototype bodies were not jointed, as
the final dolls are.
And, Unimax possibly needed to redesign the bodies in
order to accommodate
the electronics.
 
This prototype doll was not
produced. The other six were.
Distribution
The Babbling Babies did not
receive wide distribution in the U.S. Only
K-mart sold them as far as we know, and not all the
K-Mart stores had them.
"Mel Collectors" had a hard time finding any.
Unimax would not sell direct.
So this was a frustrating experience for those who know
and love Mel's toys.
We are convinced that the dolls would have done very well
IF they had
actually landed on store shelves.
We heard that Unimax was going to
make a second production of the dolls
with a darker skintone because the first production of
the Babbling Babies
turned out to be very pale. However, we don't know if the
dolls were actually
produced a second time. Unimax distributes world-wide so
it's possible
that the Babbling Babies have had a better life and
future outside the U.S.
Lights
Out
Night,
Night I love you!! Bye Bye!!
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