Squaredy Cats™ is go!

We’ve launched the site to our newest property available for license.

Monkey Doodle Dandy will be exhibiting at Licensing Show in June (booth 1153), and we have a few new surprises in store. We would love to hear feedback from you on the designs in the link below.

We are pleased to introduce Squaredy Cats™
squaredycats.com

If you like it, please pass it along.

Let the GAMES begin!

This link is to iVillage hottest toys of 2009 based on Toy Fair. #8 Of 15 is a Tara Toy game called Meatball Madness. It’s not something we worked on here at Monkey Doodle Dandy, but we have done games for Tara Toy, and even a few for other companies. It’s great to see Tara move in the direction of games.
We’ve done a lot of work for Tara over the years. We had our monkey paws all over some of what you see here.

Here’s a game we designed for INI, Inc. Last year I did this illustration for INI’s successful drinking game. It was repackaged with this illustration on the box.


Since the game is based on a classic, it made sense that it should be applied to kids. Pictured below is the game we designed for INI’s kids’ version. It will be in stores soon, but here’s a link so you can buy it now!

Wildlife Control

The studio is still new enough that it's still kind of messy. That explains why I was outside in a t-shirt in the snow breaking down cardboard boxes for recycling. That doesn't explain the funky Wildlife Control vehicle parked across the street.
I hightailed it back inside for fear that someone reported wild monkeys running around in the neighborhood. Hey, at least these monkeys recycle!

Here’s an image showing just some of the Christmas cookies Elaine baked. We sent them out to as many friends and colleagues as we could. There were somewhere over a thousand cookies that we put in our custom tins. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the tins, and we sent all 72 out!
Here’s the image I made to put on the tins as a sticker. We also based the holiday card on this.

New studio!

Monkey Doodle Dandy has moved into a new studio. We still have the 17th Street address in Park Slope, Brooklyn; but now we have another small space on 5th Avenue in Park Slope.

I’ll post pictures when the place is more presentable. Right now, we have things in working order, but we are having shelves put in. We’ll pose once the floor is cleared, and boxes are unpacked.

Hopefully there won’t be any more setbacks like the one where I started a fire in the shredder. That was a close one. Lesson learned. Keep screw drivers away from uncovered light switches ;) Phew! That was a close one!

TRU T-Rex

Elaine and the Toys R Us T-Rex.

Elaine and Kurt went to Toys R Us for research. If you’ve been to the TRU in Manhattan you’ve seen this, but we are riveted by their Jurassic Park life-size T-Rex every time.

Monster book by colleague

My old art director, Timothy Young, from my first toy industry job at the bizarre and now defunct idea factory has just had his first book published! It is called I'm Looking for a Monster, published by Random House. Lift the flaps and pull the tabs to find the monsters. I will admit that I haven't seen it in person, yet, but I'm pretty sure that it will be awesome and maybe just a little bit SCARY!

Secret Lego Vault

I hope someday I get to work on a Lego design. I found this link with a video walk-thru of a vault where they keep almost every Lego set ever made at Gizmodo!

Check it!

Retro Toys

Many who are adults in the toy business today will remember most of these. I found this link to a slide show of old school toys. I didn’t personally have them all; but I have a big family, so most of these were in my house. There are only two we didn’t have — the Slip ‘N Slide and Lemon Twist. My favorites were Merlin (my brother’s), and the Big Wheel (also my brother’s). My “Big Wheel” was what we called the Little Wheel because it was a smaller knock-off. One of my other brothers had the Green Machine — the envy of the block.

Click for link.

Escalators for dummies

There are always unusual characters at the International Licensing Show at the Jabob Javits Center in NYC, but I thought this was pretty funny. I was eating lunch and watching the “…For Dummies” character doing stretching exercises after resting on the floor upstairs at the circle lounge. He must not be allowed to remove the mask in public.
I tried to get my camera out in time to make a video, but he’d gotten up already. I followed him down the escalator after finishing my lunch. He’d decided to dance up and down the escalators for some girls who were also having lunch. By the time I got my camera back out he was resting on the way down.