From Babble Otto Minion to ‘Sizzle Reel,’ O’Fallon toy team brings ideas to life

Child’s play has turned into challenging but rewarding work for a pair of college buddies who have seen their dream job evolve into a thriving business.

Electrical engineer Michael Gramelspacher, who moved to O’Fallon with his family in July 2021, and his business partner, Rory Sledge, set up shop earlier this year in a rehabbed commercial building at South Cherry and West Fifth streets.

The old “120 Building,” originally built in 1946 and once a restaurant, is now the home base for SG Labs, a product design, development, and consulting company.

“Our main focus is inventing and prototyping toys for license to toy manufacturers,” Gramelspacher said.

The pair design and develop their own concepts and intellectual properties, then take the pre-production prototypes to partnering companies, who then license it to toy manufacturers, who eventually introduce it into the marketplace.

For instance, their interactive toy Babble Otto Minion was timed to coincide with the release of “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” which has been ready since 2020, but the film was delayed and is now set to open July 1. However, it is currently for sale at different places.

The large toy features nine different ways to play, sings and talks with 20-plus sounds and phrases, and responds to movement.

The state-of-the-art tech is what Gramelspacher and Sledge spend their workdays on — refining a project to make it commercially viable — as in how many motors, lights and what electronics are needed.

Their “Sizzle Reel” is full of razzle-dazzle — colorful lights, sounds and familiar characters that beckon for attention on big-box retail store shelves and on commercial websites. Their hits include Lil Gleemerz, Rubik’s Slide Speech Breaker, and Barbie Dreamtopia Magical Lights Unicorn.

In addition, they work on Marvel superheroes, Star Wars characters, animated show breakouts like Peppa Pig, Disney favorites — which indicates the pair are working with the heavy hitters.

Jakks Pacific, an American company based in Santa Monica, California, produces and markets their toy, a Rock ‘N Roll Groot that talks, spins, dances, and lights up, which came out to coincide with the Marvel “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” movie in 2017. (And directed by St. Louisan James Gunn).

The remote-control toy is based on the lovable tree-like humanoid and dances to the tunes packed inside — from the Awesome Mixtape Vol. 2. The unit comes with a remote control styled like Peter Quill’s cassette tape and four batteries pre-loaded into the plastic sapling. Two batteries, not included, are required to power the remote.

More about inventors

Those are the kinds of details the SG team figures out. They try to come up with something unique, but with the consumer in mind so they can understand it, Gramelspacher said.

And yes, they play with other toys. Gramelspacher has three sons and Sledge has a daughter.

“We often tear down other toys to see how certain things were accomplished, or just to learn. Or to see how many motors, sensors, etc., were involved in a toy that hit the shelves at a certain price point,” Gramelspacher said.

They were awarded — along with their partners Bang Zoom Design — the 2020 Fisher-Price Baby Toy of the Year as well as the Mattel and Fisher-Price 2020 Inventor’s Choice Award for their Rollin’ Rovee, an interactive playtime friend for ages 6 months to 5 years, with four modes of play as baby grows from infant to toddler to preschooler. The soft multi-color face lights up and arms move with an interactive ball.

“We are especially proud of the Inventor’s Choice award as it was voted on by our peer group of hundreds of professional inventors out of dozens of nominees. This was only the second year the award has been given out,” Gramelspacher said.

College and Business Connections

As a kid growing up in Jasper, Indiana, Gramelspacher favored building toys.

“I liked to tear things apart. I was always fascinated by what made things work, so I made my own,” he said.

Destined to be an electrical engineer, he attended Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he met Sledge, a future computer engineer, who lived on his dorm floor freshman year.

They loved to build things as a hobby, but they had no idea inventing toys actually could be a career.

After graduation, they developed Bluetooth-based products, software for cameras and printers, industrial items, and medical devices. Eventually, they wound up in St. Louis, working for the technology part of a company owned by the Koplars, former owners of KPLR (Channel 11), who are behind the animated character Voltron, part of a television series franchise. Through that division, they interacted with toy companies.

The rest, as they say, is history. They made connections, and those relationships were key to breaking into the industry.

“We started learning the process and how far to take the toys, from concept to the company, how fast could the turnaround be,” Gramelspacher said.

Fads vs. trends

Keeping their eye on trends is important. What’s ahead for 2024 is what their mind is on — how much can you predict ahead?

“Fads and trends are two different things,” he said. “You see things surge in popularity — one thing turns into a big deal, but it doesn’t last.”

He explained fidget spinners were a fad and now a huge supply is left. On the other hand, they were all blindsided by the popularity of Baby Yoda, from Star Wars’ “The Mandalorian” series.

“No one had seen Baby Yoda — and that threw a curveball. Nobody predicted that,” Gramelspacher said.

The industry moves fast, he noted. And the digital age has changed things — people don’t necessarily have to be the breakout at the annual Toy Fair to be a success.

Committed to invention

But Gramelspacher and Sledge are committed to invention — no matter what changes are ahead — because play will always be an important part of life.

“There is always something to be working on,” he said. “The ideas are the fun side.”

Gramelspacher, and his wife Addie, have three boys — Henry, 12; Max, 10; and Benjamin, 14 months. They are active in St. Clare of Assisi Church in O’Fallon and the parish school. Addie, his college sweetheart, is originally from Carrollton, Illinois, and they both previously lived in the metro-east before settling into O’Fallon last year.