Dan Klitsner, Toy Inventor BOP IT!

auto generated transcript

Mark (: 00:02

Welcome back friends to unlocking your world of creativity. And if you've ever sat around your family room at night and responded to a game that tells you to Bop It, pull it, twist it, cast it, cradle it, comb it. Then you know the work of our guest today. He's the inventor of the Bop It wildly successful children's toy. Dan Klitsner is on the show. Dan. Welcome.

Dan (: 00:31

There You go. I just happen to have that

Mark (: 00:33

That's right. It's taking me all the way back right now

Dan (: 00:37

Of a familiar sound. Thank you, Mark. Big fan of your books on creativity and it's really an honor to be here.

Mark (: 00:45

Well, thanks so much. Well, Dan of course has a love for games and he is not a one-hit-wonder. Bop it is only one of a hundred as he would coin them even annoying toys. I mean, it's the ones we love to hate, right? Dan?

Dan (: 01:00

Yeah. I'm proud to believe that I am responsible for creating the world's most annoying game. calculated by very scientific methods. Of course

Mark (: 01:12

that's right. Well, today we wanna talk with Dan about how to take this idea of a Bop It, but any idea to development, we're gonna talk a little bit about the art of the pitch, and then we'll talk about some cool things he's working on now in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Bop It. Now there's nothing like hearing 25 years of Bop It to make us all feel old, but it also speaks to the impact and the ripple effects of a toy, like the Bop It

Dan (: 01:44

That's right. I am having a hard time believing it myself. Honestly, there are drawings, there are things. There's still stuff I have sitting around from 25 years ago that I'm kind of amazed. It doesn't seem that way. How, is it possible, I've done the math and it's all true. It's, a quarter of a century since that happened.

Mark (: 02:06

Unbelievable. Well, we were all sitting around listening to our late nineties music and started playing the Bop It, but let's go back to that and then say the creative process, you were talking about drawings and prototypes. And so there's one thing to come up with an idea and make and design it, but it's another to get it to the market. What were some of your learnings from that process?

Dan (: 02:33

I started as an industrial designer, or I am an industrial designer with an interest in, making stuff. I love the idea of figuring things out and problem-solving something that, you could make something better which is the opposite of this by the way in games, which are, they're not there to solve any other problem but to disrupt or do something new to give you a new experience. So in a way, it's very interesting when you ask about the creative process, because, for toys and games, it tends to be different ideation than for problem-solving, stuff. So my beginnings were looking though at a cross between industrial design and games, just because I still liked ergonomic products that fit in your hand, all these kinds of things. And when starting as looking at pitching ideas to toy companies I specifically was inspired by the idea of animating the player of an object, making them move the goal of the product is to animate the person, not the other way around.

Dan (: 03:55

So when you think about Bop It and you think it got it totally, it tells you what to do, Bop It twist to pull it and you do it. The entertaining part is as much watching someone do it as it is doing it yourself. That's why I believe it has all these great feelings from people hanging out in the nineties and playing this game because it really led everyone else in on it. And that's sort of one of the biggest insights that I've then leaned on for the next 25 years is a lot of other games that if you think about the one thing in common is they animate you.

Mark (: 04:27

That's so interesting. At a time and certainly an era that's built when we're trying to animate everything else to entertain us. You're saying you looked inside and looked at the user and said, how can I animate the person

Dan (: 04:42

Exactly. Watch the player, not the game is sort of the motto and that, is really what I've given out to everyone. It sort of always works, in terms of maybe everyone's imagining right now how would that apply to designing, a toaster or designing even graphic design or being creative with an art piece or sculpture. I think it's just sort of a line. You can think," what if my job as a creator was to make the person using this more active, more movement and more animated" and animated could be their face, it could be, you know, just smiling. You could, you could take it to another more abstract, but literally, the actual product I was working on at the time was a remote control for kids.

Dan (: 05:35

A universal remote for TVs that would let you change channels. I had a bunch of different designs and one of them was called a channel bopper. And it looked kind of like this foam of a prototype here. If you're watching, if you're listening, it looks like a hammer with two giant softballs on either side, instead of the hard parts of the hammer. And the idea was the channel bopper was a remote control that animated the kid, that when you want to change channels, you don't just push a little button with your thumb. You slam it on the table, you Bop it on the table and it would change a channel every time you Bop it. So it'd be like, I don't like that channel. I don't like that. One BAM BAM BAM BAM you know, 12, 13, 14. This was, of course before we had 14,000 channels. But

Mark (: 06:25

Yeah, it would take a while.

Dan (: 06:26

It would take a while, but, it has two Bops on it because when you flip it around you, went downward so downward upward. So that's really animating someone versus using your thumbs, right? Which we do on phones now today, still mostly it's thumbs that we animate instead of a volume button, it was a knob that you turn because that's sort of ergonomic to volume. People think of volume like volume knobs. So the volume on this remote was a twist and the on-off of your TV was a pull. You just pulled it on and off. So that was a twist, pull bop. It was failed or it was rejected many times as a cool kid's remote control until someone said, what if it's not a remote. And as I've said, in many, interviews, anyone who's creative knows what it feels like when someone tells you that your main concept, what if it isn't what you're really thinking. What if your vision isn't the right. And your first gut is what your first thing I might say is, are you crazy? That's all, you

Mark (: 07:34

Just don't understand.

Dan (: 07:37

Yeah. but before saying that I caught myself and remembered that yes. And, all the lessons we learned in listening, what I call relentless, listening to others when they do have an idea. When they're kind enough to riff off of your ideas, you always say yes. And I thought maybe it isn't, what would that do? And so that actually just that one comment got me thinking, what if it was a game? I already thought of it having noises and sounds and it just sort of evolved from there. And there's quite a long story about how through several iterations and rejections and different things they eventually evolved into the Bop It, we know today. But if you're looking, you can see the similarity between these two designs. They're cool. And look at the twist knob is yellow and it twists and the pull knob is down at the bottom. So they're very similar.

Mark (: 08:32

Yeah. There are a lot of basics of the idea. You bet.

Dan (: 08:34

But, the Bpo It has two Bops on it right here and here because this had two buttons. And what's really interesting is that's sort of evolved, even though they do the same thing, you don't really need two buttons. But because there were two buttons, we believe that it became a three-dimensional product that required a lot more animation from the player. Because you could use it in a lot of ways. And so as much as that concept or lesson animate, the player started, it ended differently, but still, the DNA was there and I believe that's why it kind of worked.

Mark (: 09:11

Yeah, it does. Well listeners in just the first few minutes of the show, we've got two big ideas. So let's, let's highlight them. Let's put a little highlighter on these two and that is put in your brief, whatever you're working on right now, how to animate the user, and also let's stop a moment and consider this relentless listening. Dan, I love this. And of course, we all try to practice this, but when thinking about how you pitch the Bop It and then you get this feedback but then I'm sure there was more than one pitch. So you kept pitching until somebody said, I think we could make this thing, but where was the give and take? Let's talk about the two-way pitch process

Dan (: 09:56

Pitching, in general, is so fun, or hopefully, it's fun for you. That's why you're an idea person. If you're listening or a designer just whenever you've got to pitch your idea to someone, you could be an idea for a business or anyone pitching an idea. One of the most interesting things to me is how you choose to pitch it depending on the idea. There's just not one way to pitch ideas. There are, many ideas and you have to figure out what is a compelling way to get people, to love this. And in the toy industry, often the people you pitch to aren't necessarily the people that eventually decide whether they're doing it or not. So there are a lot of other things to consider about your pitch. You don't just pitch it like on shark tank and they say sold. It has happened by the way when you're with the right audience.

Dan (: 10:49

So if you're with the right audience, you pitch one way. So going a little deeper that is knowing your audience is the most important thing before you pitch. Who are you pitching? And certainly understanding that what you're pitching is something, they want. A lot of people when they pitch an idea, they're just pitching it to the wrong people. They know they love their idea, but they're not really, they really haven't found out enough about who they're pitching to, to know why that company or person would want it. The technique of pitching is sort of what people think about, but it's all about what you know, ahead of time. . And over the years, that is what you gather in any industry, but in toys for sure is you start to get to know all the different people and what they want and why this company

wants that.

Dan (: 11:43

And this company wants this. Bop It was pitched as a foam core handheld model because that was the best way to sort of test out. You had to hold it a video of it wasn't really enough. You had to have something. but I dubbed the sound into a separate actually on a video of me playing it. Then I made sure that when it went internal, I said, so hold this foam core hammer. Don't just show the video. You can listen to the soundtrack offscreen making it sound like this little foam core hammer is electronic, but because it's just telling you what to do, you can pretend to do it. And it looks like you're playing the game. And it's funny, watching someone Bop it, twist it, pull it in. So even if you look it up, I'm sure it's on YouTube. Or some people have posted it a lot. My original pitch video, 25 or 26 years ago now of me basically pitching this foam core hammer is a, just a dubbed soundtrack, but it was used as the soundtrack for them to pitch internally without a working model.

Mark (: 12:53

Well, exactly. And you're sort of bringing your brief to life. It's like, I can't show you on a PowerPoint, how this is gonna work. I have to put it in your hands,

Dan (: 13:03

Experiential. So that product needed an experiential pitch, other products, I've pitched, thousands and thousands of ideas, some of them, you have to say this, should be a 30 second, basically commercial. I wanna make sure that this is such a visual idea. This one, like there, was one similar called hyper dash, which was this game that sort of told you to run around and do things. I wasn't expecting the people to do it, but you wanted to see kids doing it. So I did a very quick video showing you could really viscerally understand what was happening quickly, like any good advertising. So that's, a very visual idea there are ideas that are, incredible new technologies. Maybe you can show a video to get people interested, but those are proof of principle products that have to be built and proven like this really is anti-gravity well, we're gonna need to see a prototype on that, you know?

Mark (: 14:13

I just, there's a little bit of a prove it on something like that,

Dan (: 14:17

But, something very in common, I think with many industries for pitching is to make sure to keep it loose. Animate the listener. let the people in to the process by not having it buttoned up, especially when toy concepts, you really wanna rely on the feed feedback from the people you're pitching. because often they've seen more concepts than you have. You don't have to take their advice, but make sure you have something where you can get their input for sure. But I know anything from rough sketching to a design, people know if you're showing an architectural sketch, you're showing something, most people respond better to a loose, in my opinion, a loose version of that thing.

Mark (: 15:04

Yeah. And I wonder if the listeners think, well, Dan, you're so good at this. You've invented all these hundreds of games, but didn't you ever have that meeting where they go? I don't get it. I think of the scene in big where they've pitched this toy and it's like, I don't get it. Haven't you had that? The blank stare?

Dan (: 15:24

Okay. So I have licensed like I really have flashed track, honestly, it's over hundreds of things, but that means I have had that blank stare about 10, 20, 30 times thousand, right?

Mark (: 15:42

To get a small percent of winners,

Dan (: 15:45

Bop It, was rejected by several people companies, they just didn't get it. And later they go, oh, I should have seen it. Well, we all feel that way, but it's about the execution of the product. It's whether that person you're pitching to sees beyond the prototype or understands why it fits their marketing, I've gotten, probably more than anyone listening. I would say, I bet you I've gotten the, I don't get it more than anyone.

Mark (: 16:13

Well, and then when it is successful, let's turn the tables. It is a big success. And you say, where do we take this thing? There's a Bop it two if I'm using that brand name correctly. And now you're working on some other Bop It extensions as the 25th-anniversary approaches.

Dan (: 16:31

Yep. It's the 25th anniversary of this year, as we said. And, and I wanted to say, how do you celebrate that? And one way is looking back and saying, wow, look at all these. Because there's been, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 different types of Bop Its, many of the concepts, weren't originally a Bop It idea. But because of my association with the brand, they became Bop It Teris, Bop It smash, Bop It DJ, Bop It this, you know, they were sort of all categorized. They weren't the original gameplay of Bop It, but, so that's where do you take it? One is to start building the brand bigger than just the item and, making other things that sort of capture the same audience or the same fun. So that's one way that it had expanded. And so looking back, I'm trying to celebrate all these different things and all the, all the community that's been created around Bop It.

Dan (: 17:31

So there's, a two-part question, right? How do you do that? That's a big discussion. Just make sure to look for the bigger picture of what the product is. There was a Bop It two. Behind me, you can see Bop It extreme, which was the first idea of just doing the same, but more of it. People would pay more. If they could see more, it was not hidden. It was very clear that the animation of the person was amplified, was extreme that Bop It at an extreme, because it had more stuff to do. It had a flick it and a spin it and different things that weren't on the first one. So that worked because it was more of the same, but better, which is one of the phrases in Bop It, by the way, more of the same do it the same, but better. That's one of the phrases.

Dan (: 18:22

So I'm going in the opposite direction. What I'm working on right now is this. I was starting a book that may or may not be finished by the time this year's up. But it was a mock-up of it called to take this book and Bop It, and it's the idea of, how it happened and how I think about creativity, but also just the fun of celebrating 25 years of Bop It. And my biggest thing was I wanted there to be a working Bop It on the front. Right.

Dan (: 18:59

So it's a book that has a Bop It on the front, just because that animates the player, the reader, right. You're gonna push that button. It's gonna talk to you. And then when you open it up, it's got all sorts of things about my process, but the story. And so that was okay, but I got so intrigued with this button that I thought, oh, just you just push it. And it says, one of several things, that's all it has to do. And then I started thinking, what if it was a game, a one-button game, and this now has become this project that I'm actually gonna be running a Kickstarter on, in about a month. Independent from Hasbro. It's a special product called basically the Bop It button and the rules are Bop It or don't Bop-It.

Dan (: 20:11

So it goes to celebrate 25 years. Bop It used to go to a 100 or the original one went to 100. So this goes to 2,500 sort of like a hundred for each year. It's not the same at all. Like the other ones, it's totally about paying attention. And it's meant to just sit on your desk. It's like, you can just walk by and, hit it.

Dan (: 20:38

And it says something funny. But when you play it, it starts to unlock things from the past. So I wanted to sort of little favorites, there are Easter eggs in there. There are things that Bop It players who've had a Bop It extreme in 1998 are gonna hear a sound and go," I think that was from the Bop It I had." So I wanted to celebrate by kind of making this crazy product that was so simple and easy. But it would include a little of everything. There are some guest voices in there might be one from me if you find it. So I wanted to do something like that. And also connect directly with fans for the first time, I've actually made a product myself versus having a product license and published by another company.

Mark (: 21:24

Well, and some listeners are into Sonic branding. And I think about, the signature sound of the Bop It, this is almost like who's the voice of the airport announcer. And who's the voice of Alexa. Tell us about the voice, the branding, and the sounds of Bop It.

Dan (: 21:44

Well, it's very interesting how many people I've totally tuned into that as you said, and the voice has become part of the brand. What's interesting is when people say who's the voice of Bop It, I say, well, which Bop It, because it has changed, there's at least five or six currently the one that's in here in the Bop It button and the one that's in these, little mini replica Bop It. So there's also a replica of this. Bop It is different totally than this one. This one was the industrial designer within Hasbro who just did the recording himself because all it was was three words. Later, as it became a big Bop It extreme, the idea was to put all these voices and things in it, it's a totally different voice. And then after that, it was another voice. So, over the years it's changed depending on if it was a DJ Bop It if it was a this, but then recently I'd say in the last 10 years, it's almost always been a guy named Buddy Rubino. Who's become a great friend who is now for that reason, we're trying to brand that that is the voice of Bop It so that when you hear it, it's one voice that continues to be, the same on all of them. So that is the voice and this little mini Bop it's this design of the first original Bop It, but the voice of the present. So it's supposed to tie the years together.

Mark (: 23:08

Good connections love that. Well, you're also doing Dan, we couldn't talk about the 25th anniversary, but also to talk about your latest project to really bring Bop It for good, and do something for kids and underserved areas, underserved populations, and things to really help people with the idea behind the game and all obviously the success you've had, maybe you should give us a glimpse to that.

Dan (: 23:38

Yeah. Thanks for asking about that. It was this thought of how to celebrate. And my first thought was, how do I give back? I wanna celebrate by giving something back to this incredible. I mean, I can't believe that this has been around for 25 years and the most satisfying thing over the years has been to hear from certain communities that it's actually helped in the simplest ways. Like there's a blind community that is very, it's become one of the most important games for the blind Bop It has because it's so tactile and audio and that you can play it. If you're blind with someone who can see and you can usually beat them or be on par, it isn't a game specifically designed for that community. They get to be part of the fun with the kids that are playing video games and things. I didn't realize how important it was that this was this cool game that everyone was playing, that they could play just as well.

Dan (: 24:37

And they make friends through Bop It with kids that can see when they're blind, very, very common story, which just touched me deeply. And so Bop It for good. I and my wife have started a program this year to try to find through the boys and girls club, communities of kids, or just any of these after school communities, where there are kids that are blind mixed with kids that can see how to make sure just as an icebreaker, we make sure to get them all Bop Its. We're also working with autism because of the same thing, somehow kids with autism are very able to play Bop It and often connect with others through play. The great thing about games, right, is when they bring people together because it's a silly thing you all do together just to do it together.

Dan (: 25:34

You're not usually learning something or doing something really the best ones are, we all are joined together, even with a stranger because we wanna play this game together. And so that's really, it's as simple as that Bop It for good is about finding communities that we can help get together. And also especially profits that we get from this button. We're trying to work with the boys and girls club to go to these underserved communities and help their creativity programs. So there's a lot there we have planned and more to come in the fall.

Mark (: 26:11

Yeah. Well, it's exciting. And it's kind of like an unintended consequence. Maybe I could put it that way. You say, yeah, developing a toy, but look at the way it does bring kids together. You know, if they have a disability or if they have a condition that the toy could really help overcome.

Dan (: 26:30

Yeah. That it isn't a special needs toy. It wasn't designed differently because often those things are difficult because they're very expensive because the scale doesn't work. You can't make enough in mass production of an item that's for special needs if it's only for that group. But if you can design a product for the mass market that is able to be played by people who have a special need, that is the best because you've connected those groups together, which is what games should be doing.

Mark (: 27:04

Yes. Well, Dan, what a great conversation. I enjoyed it so much. We could go on for hours. I imagine this coffee shop or lunchtime conversation that we could be having and we could just go a lot of different directions. So perhaps we can talk again sometime.

Dan (: 27:20

I would love that.

Mark (: 27:21

Yeah. But in the meantime tell people where they can find out more about you, and the work, especially this Bop It for a good program.

Dan (: 27:29

If you go to Bop It for good.com, you'll see some of the things we're starting and it'll have news about the Kickstarter for the button, for those who wanna see more about that. And that's really it, Bop It for good.com and my social media. I do a TikTok page and an Instagram page on just Bop It inventor. Not just about Bop It, but I do a riff on it a lot. You can make a lot of fun of a lot of things Bop It and there's a lot of Bop It and social media. So I'm sort of responding to people and having fun with celebrities. I just did a thing with Machine Gun Kelly, where he had done this post on Christmas day where he broke a Bop It. So I made a crazy Bop It and posted it. And so I just having fun with that. And it's about connecting with fans of Bop It and creativity.

Mark (: 28:19

There you go. Well, and I assume Dan, that you've got this mind that sometimes you can't turn it off. Are you always thinking about toys?

Dan (: 28:30

Toys or solutions, to problems. I do a lot of sketching. I'm an illustrator or that's how I started. So usually if I just start drawing something, it takes away the urge to always have to make something, just draw it because like you said, otherwise you can't turn it off and you can only do so much

Mark (: 28:51

Exactly.

Dan (: 28:52

But I am always drawing and, and things like that. So…

Mark (: 28:54

Yeah. I can imagine the journal, the notebook, the napkins, the collection of ideas.

Dan (: 29:00

Yeah. It's fun. And like I said, I think what I love most is looking, if I wasn't a toy inventor, my favorite thing would be to get together with people and just play games like that. That is my favorite evening. So it is wonderful to be able to do what I love. And, like I said, looking back feeling, feeling like it's been an amazing interactive experience with all these people, now that I can really talk to them on social media. It's been, it's kind of an incredible year.

Mark (: 29:33

Oh, fantastic. Well, Dan Klitsner has been my guest, Dan can't thank you enough for being on the show. I think we've taken away lots of good ideas, but also had a lot of fun. I appreciate that.

Dan (: 29:43

Thanks, Mark. Again, really, my honor, and look forward to talking to you again.

Mark (: 29:49

Yeah. Hope so. And listeners check out. I'll put the links in for the Bop It for good Kickstarter program and the other programs that we've talked about today, including the voice. I'll try to find Buddies. Like we'll put that in the show notes as well.

Dan (: 30:05

Sounds good.

Mark (: 30:07

All right. That's a great way to close. Thanks, Dan and listeners, come back again. We've been celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bop It today, but another milestone we're just a few weeks away from our 200th episode, our milestone here for the podcast. And it's all thanks to listeners like you. And of course our creative guests like Dan, we really appreciate you coming by if you haven't subscribed or if you'd like to leave us a review, it really encourages us as we go into the next phase of the podcast and join us again. Next time we'll continue around the world journeys to talk to creative practitioners about how they get inspired and how they organize and pitch those ideas, but also how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world. And that's what we're all about. So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson and we're unlocking your world of creativity. See you soon.