Figures spring to life at local business

Characters Unlimited sells products worldwide

Oct. 31 may be Halloween for most people, but for owner Olaf Stanton and his crew at Characters Unlimited, every night of the year is like the haunted holiday after they turn off the lights and go home.

That's when the 709 Foothill Court plant is turned over to the hundreds of animated and still characters and animals, some yet to be assembled or repaired.

"We've been in Boulder City for 17 years," said Stanton, whose wife, Krishun, has a new talking cow at Grandma Daisy's ice cream and candy shop, the business she runs. "We usually sell between 500 and 600 characters or animals a year. We sell all over the world, including Russia, Japan and Australia."

Characters Unlimited is no stranger to trade shows, either. Last week, Stanton completed a three-day exhibition at the National Association of Convenience Stores attended by 25,000 delegates at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"We take the booth and the characters to 25 or 30 trade shows a year," said Stanton, who spends much of his time on the road. "You never know who you'll run into in these trade shows."

Earlier this year, the tall Norwegian made trips to Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Boston, Toronto, Sacramento, Orlando and Madison, Wis., near the Wisconsin Dells, where he was born and raised.

"My stepfather taught us how to make molds," said Stanton. "And then my brother Doug and I learned the rest."

Stanton's hottest creation is the $5,900 fortune-teller booth, where the characters known as Ol' Miner, Sir Lancelot, Esmeralda, Zoltar and even one of President Clinton will spit out 23 different fortunes and give messages for 50 cents.

The booths are found just about anywhere there's an entertainment venue, including local casinos such as Excalibur, Boardwalk, the Orleans, Imperial Palace and a number of amusement parks around the country.

"I've even sold one to Michael Jackson for Neverland," Stanton said. "It was a fortune-teller for the theme park."

Stanton also told of two of his most unusual sales.

"One was a flasher for an adult bookstore," he said. "But the really unusual one was a guy who wanted a character that looked like his mother. He brought in her clothes, her jewelry, her rings, even her false teeth so we could put her in a rocking chair and that way he could talk to her. Everything about that one was weird."

The process for making a character is relatively simple once the head and hand molds are cast and ready for assembly.

To start, 2-inch-by-2-inch wooden sticks are cut to body-part lengths and assembled. Then the character is dressed in any costume desired, the head and hands are attached -- after they're painted to look life-like -- and then comes the most important part: the electronics necessary to make the character have mouth, eye, head and arm movements are installed and tested before a basic talking character ($3,315) or a deluxe fully animated talking character ($4,990) is shipped out the door.

The deluxe model has a head and one-arm movement, a wireless microphone system to hear what people are saying to the character, and an 8-minute digital player that records up to 30 messages. Aside from new characters, Stanton has some models in for repairs.

"They've sent this one back for a little TLC," he said of one. He also has a growing mannequin business. "It's really turned into a sideline business. If you look up mannequins in the phone book, we're the only company listed."

Stanton's characters have been used as crash dummies for mock airport disasters and have even been rented as props, characters in the background, for the popular TV series, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."


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