Badger State games: Wisconsin-made toys

By Ken Singletary
December 1, 2006

Timeless toys, new-fangled products, exotic items, cutting-edge video games. Toy and game makers in the Madison area and elsewhere in the state are crafting all of these things.

They range from one-person shops to multimillion-dollar businesses with far-flung distribution and stores. Some of their products are educational, some blur the boundary between art and toy. Some are ageless and could last for years, and some will remind parents of their own childhoods. Most offer a chance to give a Wisconsin-made gift for the holidays.

Among these area toymakers is Gil O'Brien, who invented Marbotz toys about two years ago. "This one is just one that kind of came to me in a flash," he said. "I was playing around and not really trying to think of anything and just had a flash of inspiration."

Marbotz are colorful robot-looking figures with marbles for joints - hence their name.

"The marble is a perennial favorite for generations," he said. "I love the heritage of the marble and the new-fangled application of the robot."

Sales are going well, but not as good as he hoped, said O'Brien, a Madison resident who has been in the toy business for 14 years as a consultant and designer. Sales and marketing are not his forte, he said. He's enlisted the aid of Bob Galinsky, who sells geography-based puzzles from his home in Neenah, to help him with that.

The Marbotz toys, at $22.95 each, are manufactured in Menomonie and packaged in Madison, and have an educational element, too, O'Brien said.

"You can use your imagination with it and take it apart and put it together in different ways."

Meanwhile, also in Madison, is Amy Arnold, who makes Peepwools - doll-like soft sculptures made of recycled sweaters and stuffed with wool.

"People usually buy them thinking of them as an art object," she said. But "some people buy them for their children. I guess it depends on who you are and what you think a toy is."

The items may appeal more to adults than kids, she said, reminding parents of their own childhoods. Prices are $110 to $240. Rattles are $48.

Big players

But not all Madison-area toymakers are one-person operations. There's also American Girl in Middleton, maker of historical and contemporary dolls.

The company has sold 12 million dolls since 1986, 111 million books and has spawned three movies, a magazine and branded stores in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, spokeswoman Julie Parks said. The dolls and accessories are hits with girls across the country and have an uplifting message that every girl has a unique story and talents.

And there are a couple of video-game-makers in the area. Human Head Studios unveiled its "Prey" game during the summer and is working on its next release, said Paul MacArthur, the company's president. As part of that effort, the company will increase its work force to 45 people early next year from 30.

The new generation of game consoles has spurred sales across the industry, he said, setting the stage for more growth. The Madison area is good place for the company because of the creative people, educational institutions and technology focus. Madison is "seen as a viable place because there's other companies to draw upon," he said.

Raven Software is another maker of video games in Madison, producer of several real-world and science-fiction action games, including its most recent release, "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance." The company has 135 employees and plans to increase that to 150 to 160 employees by next year, spokesman Chad Riggleman said.

For people who like board games, a big maker is Out of the Box Publishing, started in 1998 by Mark Osterhaus, a lifelong Madison resident. He moved the company to Richland County last year, where he also raises beef cattle.

"We've been growing like crazy," he said, turning in a 50 percent to 100 percent increase in annual sales each year since 1998. The company, which publishes 50 products of its own and distributes 150 more, sells more than 1 million games a year, he said.

Its biggest seller is Apples to Apples, an award-winning game that's "as easy as comparing apples to apples," the company says. Osterhaus called it a "phenomenally good game. A great flagship product for our company that allowed us to grow our business."

He said Out of the Box tries to take a different approach to games than other makers.

"We look at other forms of entertainment as our competition," Osterhaus said. To draw people away from television or video games, the company makes games that can be learned and played quickly, and that are easy to play as well.

Also making board games is Patch Products in Beloit. Originally a printer of games for other companies, Patch moved into making its own games in the mid-1980s. The company offers about 110 titles, plus many NCAA-licensed products, said Lisa Wuennemann, director of marketing. A big seller is Buzzword. "It uses trivia knowledge but you don't have to be a trivia buff to play it," she said. "It's a good multigenerational game" that is suited for families.

She said sales are growing in the single-digit range, reflecting flat sales industrywide.

"Children are looking for other things on their Christmas list other than what we call toys and games," she said, including electronics and room decorations.

But the company's board games are doing well, she said, because they provide for a family activity.

'Timeless' craft

Taking a more traditional approach to toys is wooden-toymaker John Michael Linck in Madison, who creates wooden trains, rocking horses, planes, wagons and boxes. He's so busy that he isn't taking orders for Christmas other than from previous customers.

"I build toys I would have liked to have had when I was a kid," he said.

He focuses on producing "timeless" pieces, he said, that are an antidote to mass-produced toys. "The plastic toy is not going to be kept and revered, the wooden toy can be."

He makes about 1,000 toys a year and has about 1,500 active customers, some of whom buy from him year after year. Prices are $20 for nutcrackers to up to $275 for bigger items.

Also making wooden products is Judy Peterson of Monona, who creates "fantaminals" - puzzles that form fanciful creatures such as dragons and dinosaurs, as well as wildlife and other figures that appeal to kids and adults. She's branched into landscape puzzles. Prices range from $10 to $175.

"I'm a one-woman operation," she said. "I do all of the woodworking." She has 271 patterns and has written three instructional books for woodworkers with her husband, Dave, who handles the business side of the operation.

Judy Peterson uses a lot of Wisconsin wood, especially cherry and walnut, and sells her wares at art shows and galleries, as well as through her Web site.

Offering a more exotic flair is Loan Rathgeber, who sells a range of Vietnamese items. She's from Vietnam and runs a Web site, www.vietnameseartwork.com, from Madison. Along with artwork, she offers children's masks, kites and musical instruments, all from Vietnam and many of them traditionally made folk toys. Prices start at $5.

"I haven't seen these toys anywhere," she said. "Even in Vietnam, these toys are fading."

Farther afield in south-central Wisconsin is the Wisconsin Wagon Co., maker of the venerable Janesville Wagon, which has been around since 1915.

"Everything is handmade," owner Karen Ferguson said. "We do things one piece at a time. It's all materials acquired here in the state of Wisconsin."

The company has five employees who put together the wagons, as well as sleds, rocking horses, wheelbarrows and tricycles. Prices ranges from $48 for the small-sized Tag-a-long model to $396 for the Islander, built for larger loads.

Sales are going well ahead of the holidays, Ferguson said.

"It's keeping us busy," she said. "I know our season started a little bit earlier than it did last year."

The company's products are meant to last. "If (parents) are looking for a quality item that's going to be handed down from generation to generation, certainly an item that will outlast the box," she said, look no further.

Another puzzle maker is Bob Galinsky in Neenah. He got the idea a couple of years ago to make geography-based puzzles from his son, who learned the names of states from a puzzle.

"I thought it would be neat if he could learn about other countries in the same way he learned about the United States," Galinsky said. He worked with an artist to produce puzzles of other parts of the world.

"There's a real desire for parents to have educational toys for their kids," he said.

He's also adding travel and geography games to his offerings. Prices are $15 for the puzzles and $30 for the games.

In Milwaukee, is fast-growing Fashion Angels, which has tripled in size in each of the past four years, spokeswoman Lisa Orman said.

The company sells dolls and doll clothes, and jewelry that people can customize, as well as upscale clothing for adults. A focus is on toys that lend themselves to creativity, Orman said.

The company even has a television show based in production, slated for a fall 2007 debut, she said.

A product that has strong Wisconsin flavor, though the company is in Colorado, are the cardboard building blocks from ImagiPLAY, headquartered in Boulder.

The colorful blocks are meant to stir the imagination - and to hold up over time, owner Barbera Aimes said. Sales are up 50 percent this year, she said.
They're made using paper and cardboard from Wisconsin, the center of the nation's paper industry, Aimes aid.

"The way they're constructed makes them super strong. An adult can stand on them. But they're super lightweight."

Prices are $32 to $40 for sets.

"People are really looking for playing with toys they remember playing with when they were kids and I think we're benefiting from that."