They’ve Got the Cutest Little ‘Babymugs’

They gurgle and drool, smile, frown and drool some more--they are the captivating infant stars of “Babymugs,” a phenomenally successful home video made up entirely of screen-filling baby face close-ups that charm adults and help keep infant viewers’ fussies away.

Videos of babies may abound, but this video’s simple format--scores of close shots of babies’ faces, period--has earned it record sales and lots of direct competition, as well as a showing for several weeks on Billboard’s Top 40 video sales chart and national media exposure, from “People” to “Oprah” and “Dateline NBC.”

Not bad for a couple of novice video producers--and first-time moms--from Northern California, Shelley Frost and Linda Warwick.

When speaking of their success, the pair sound genuinely bemused. “It kind of all happened at once,” Warwick said. “We made it maybe a year ago, and when it was exposed in a broad way through ‘People’ and ‘Oprah’ and ‘Dateline,’ that’s when it just went crazy.

“It’s really funny because it sort of caught on like a cult classic. It has caught on even with single adults in the 25- to 35-year-old range because they just get a kick out of it.

“It just struck a chord,” Warwick said. “We’ve heard from Japan, Australia, Brazil . . . in Germany, their equivalent to “Dateline” came and did a show.”

“Babymugs” was the outgrowth of Warwick and Frost’s mutual support for each other as “stressed out, sleep-deprived” new parents.

Frost, 35, a former manager of a local nonprofit animal shelter, and Warwick, 36, a former editor and art director, had been “career women all of our lives,” Frost said, before becoming full-time, stay-at-home moms. The friends had had their babies at the same time. “We didn’t know what we were doing, but we found that talking to each other really helped.”

One thing they noticed, Frost said, was that “when we were around other babies they would latch on to each other’s faces with their eyes. My baby was a very colicky, fussy kid and being around other babies seemed to distract him. We decided this had to be a phenomenon that all parents knew about, so we talked to other moms and decided that a live video of lots and lots of baby faces would be a great resource, not only for us but for our friends.”

And for other parents, like Glendale mom Kathy Swaiden, who recently gave the video a tryout with her 1-year-old Catherine. She laughed as her daughter reached for the TV screen. “I think it is very sweet,” Swaiden said. “It feels like you have a bunch of friends in the room, doesn’t it?,” she asked her fascinated toddler.

Frost and Warwick began their project by placing an ad in the San Mateo Times. In response, 85 babies and toddlers were brought by parents to a videotaping at a local hotel’s conference room. Payment was a free finished video.

When it came to marketing the video, which is aimed at children 3 months and older, Frost and Warwick simply approached local stores where they did their own shopping. The videos caught on, quickly selling out. “We started getting orders from larger stores like Imaginarium and Toys ‘R’ Us,” Frost said, “and then we thought it was just getting beyond us.”

Overwhelmed when confronted with major marketing demands, the pair hired Chatsworth-based MVP Home Entertainment as the video’s distributors. The video is now also available at such stores as F.A.O. Schwarz, Target, Kmart and Musicland. Philip Knowles, president of MVP, confirms sales of more than a quarter-million videos since its 1995 release.

“I knew it was going to be successful,” he said, “but it surpassed my wildest expectations.” Knowles credits the video’s unexpected “broad appeal” to “older folks who like to look at babies, and to everybody who loves babies.”

Both women stress that “Babymugs” is not intended as a baby-sitter.

“It’s interactive,” Warwick said. “In the beginning of the tape, a little blurb [says] to sit with your child and bounce them and dance with them and enjoy their reactions.” The 30-minute tape isn’t meant to be watched all at once, either, she stressed. “Maybe 10 minutes at a time. There are a lot of different segments that you can use for different purposes,” from those accompanied by “soothing” lullaby music to “jazzier segments for play and dancing.”

Success and competition go hand in hand--similar videos featuring only babies’ faces are also on the market--but Frost and Warwick take a mostly philosophical view.

“We knew it was inevitable when we started getting so much media attention,” Frost said.

They and their distributor express concern with one competitor’s marketing strategy that they fear may confuse potential buyers. Legal talk makes them uneasy, however. “Linda and I are just stay-at-home moms,” Frost said, “and we don’t want to get caught up in all of this. It’s fine that people want to compete with us, just so long as they don’t try to copy our personalities” and don’t claim the success of “Babymugs” as their own.

Now that their children are no longer babies, but 2-year-old toddlers, a future “Babymugs” sequel will target a slightly older audience. But that’s “all in due time,” Frost said firmly. “It depends on our schedules and our husbands’ schedules and our kids’ schedules.”

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“Babymugs,” MVP Home Entertainment, 30 minutes, $9.95. (800) 903-BABY (orders), (800) 772-MUGS (information).