Ex-Rockers Roll Out Hot New Toys

Years ago, Gary Rottger played keyboards with Kiss and Lee Shapiro sang with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. They relished life in the spotlight and playing to thousands of cheering fans.

But those days have long since passed, and now these 40-something former rockers are using their talents in a much different world of entertaining--as toy inventors.

This year, they are getting a standing ovation for their creation of the Rock & Roll Elmo and Ernie dolls, two toys for the holiday season that are already flying off store shelves.

“If you asked me 20 years ago, I’d never say that I wanted to invent toys,” Rottger said. “But I think we really found our calling. We get the same joy in creating toys as we did in making music.”

Rottger and Shapiro both started their musical careers in their teens, and were passionate about life on the stage. Besides Kiss, Rottger also toured with Frank Zappa and appeared in the Broadway show “Beatlemania.”

Shapiro, meanwhile, dropped out of the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and joined Frankie Valli’s band as one of the Four Seasons, performing many great hits including the smash “Oh, What A Night” during his seven years with the group.

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Eventually, they both left the tough world of performing and began producing. Shapiro helped develop soundtracks for popular artists, while Rottger put together albums for groups such as the Fat Boys and Joan Jett. They also created jingles for commercials and themes for television shows.

In 1991, they merged their businesses, and together went on to produce ad jingles hyping everything from Dodge cars to Coca-Cola soft drinks and themes for well-known television programs including “The Jerry Springer Show” and “People’s Court.”

Among their advertising clients was Tyco RC, a toymaker that makes radio-controlled cars.

“We had ideas, and every once in a while, we’d throw out an idea to Tyco and everyone would love it and it would get used,” Shapiro said. “Then we started to think that we could start doing more than just giving away great ideas.”

“Then one day we said ‘Let’s make our own toys,’ and we got started,” Rottger added.

So they began brainstorming. Obviously, their history in music played into their ideas. Among their first creations: tap shoes for kids that made different sounds.

Success, however, hardly came easy. Both men tell of the many rejections from toymakers that just didn’t get excited about what they had to offer.

In the fall of 1997, they began working on what would eventually become their first big hit. They based it on Tickle Me Elmo--a bright-red, giggling doll based on the popular Sesame Street character--which had been a selling sensation for Christmas 1996.

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Rottger and Shapiro thought there had to be a way to further develop the Elmo character.

“Elmo sings and dances on Sesame Street, and we thought that we could bring that whole character out,” Rottger said. “We wanted him to really be fun and different.”

“But we also wanted to create something that parents and grandparents and their kids could relate to,” Shapiro said. “That was important when we developed this doll.”

They came up with a singing Elmo doll dressed as a rock star, clad in a leather jacket and holding a guitar, and presented it to the manufacturer of Sesame Street toys. They also created a backup band, made up of other Sesame Street characters.

Ultimately, Fisher-Price decided to go with just two dolls, Rock & Roll Elmo and Rock & Roll Ernie, and the company worked with the inventors to create the product now found on store shelves.

Each doll strums his guitar and sings two hit songs: Elmo sings “ABC” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” while Ernie sings “Splish Splash” and “Rock Around The Clock.”

“This toy appeals to both adults and kids. The music and these characters speak to us as a culture--it doesn’t matter how old you are,” said Chris Byrne, a toy consultant and contributing editor of Toy Wishes: The Ultimate Toy Buying Guide, a magazine that tracks hot toys.

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Clearly, they are popular. Fisher-Price says sales of the $30 dolls are running three times ahead of what Tickle Me Elmo was doing three years ago. Toys R Us is already featuring the dolls and will be using them in their holiday advertising in the upcoming months.

While Rottger and Shapiro--whose company is now known as Virtual Toy House and is based in North Bergen, N.J. and New York City--are enjoying the spotlight, that hasn’t stopped them from working to come up with what may be the next big thing.

And now, the toy business is ready to embrace them.

“When we were at the height of our thing in rock ‘n’ roll, we would write a song and publishers would open their doors for us. They wanted to listen to our music,” Shapiro said. “Now we are finding the same reception in the toy business--open doors, open arms.

“It seems incredible--but people are calling us.”