“They didn’t set out to make a toy; they set out to make us laugh”: Barry McLaughlin, Jason Lautenschleger and Goliath’s Brian Weiss talk Butt Face

Guys, it’s great to catch up. Butt Face was a highlight of Toy Fair season earlier this year. How did this come about?
Barry McLaughlin, Barry & Jason Games and Entertainment: A few years ago, Jason and I were producing the TAGIE Awards and we had this series called ‘The Toys That Didn’t Make It’.

Jason Lautenschleger, Barry & Jason Games and Entertainment: Which we will now have to change the title of, by the way.

Barry: Yeah, exactly! They were these fun videos of ridiculous toys and games that shouldn’t exist – sizzle reels for fake toys! One of them was called Mouthbutt and it was a toy that farts from its face. It was one of four videos we made, and the second the show ended, Brian came up to us.

Now, I don’t think he said these exact words, but it was something like: “I need Mouthbutt.” He essentially like laid claim to it, like right there in that moment. We were like: “Okay, sure!” Goliath got to work and Brian masterminded what became Butt Face.

Brian, let’s bring you in! At what point did you think this had potential as a real product?
Brian Weiss, Global Head of Toys, Goliath: Immediately! I don’t know if you remember the game Qbert, but it reminded me of Qbert farting every time he jumped. And then I remembered an item called The Ugglys which were these dog that farted and burped. I thought: ‘We can make a butt that farts but do something even better – and have it come out of the face!’ I ran up to Barry right after because I wanted us to do this.

We turned it over to our creative team and started getting some drawings going back and forth. And Butt Face was born. It’s a butt with a face – it’s that simple. We’ve done so many different iterations.

Did everyone see the vision immediately?
Brian: When we showed it to our team, everyone thought we were nuts. I said: “This is the biggest thing you’re going to see.” Everyone’s like: “Weiss, come on… We can’t do this.” But no, we’re doing it and the reception has been amazing.

What helped get this over the line? As you say, I imagine there’s several stages in development where this could’ve fallen down.
Brian: It’s because at Goliath, we’re completely fearless. As other companies become larger and larger, they have more departments and more protocols –but we skip all the bullshit. If an item’s good, we’re gonna make it.

The first item we launched when I joined was Jelly Blox. And the general consensus is that you’ve got to be a moron to go after LEGO and enter construction. We don’t care. If we find something innovative and new, and we think there’s a market for it, we’re in. In collectibles, you got great powerhouses like Moose, MGA, and Zuru, but we’ve jumped in there with Clickeez – and it’s been insane! So we just want to make the best toys. Who cares about the politics?

And why do you feel Butt Face has resonated with buyers?
Brian: Because it’s more about the humour and less about the grossness. Most people equate farting with gross, but we’re trying to equate farting with humour. Butt Face – and our first character in the line, Chester Cheeks – should be fun things to have around. The team has done a great job on this.

Barry: We saw some of the early iterations when it was a case of: do we go gross or do we go cute? We’re really stoked that they went with the cute direction because it really is adorable.

And going back to you guys, has this experience shaped how you approach inventing?
Jason: As two game inventors, it’s certainly opened us up to this world of toys. And out of all the plans and strategies we’ve ever had – where we’ve thought through everything about a concept – for this to be something that actually gets released into the universe… It’s one of those ‘Man plans, God laughs’ kind of moments.

Barry: I think the way this idea was presented was interesting too. When we’re going from pitch to pitch, there’s perhaps a certain amount of predictability and occasional weariness from the people we’re pitching to – especially if they’ve already met with 15 different people that day. Whereas seeing this idea in a totally different forum – that wasn’t a ‘pitch’ – meant Brian was in a receptive mode. Had we come in and pitched Mouthbutt in a regular meeting, I don’t know if that would have had the same effect…

Brian: When we see inventors, a lot of times they all have very similar stuff. It’s probably because the larger toycos are looking for certain things, so everyone develops those things… What made this different – and I would champion this approach for everybody – is they didn’t set out to make a toy, they set out to make us laugh.

Jason: It’s a good lesson in just keep showing up as your authentic self. It’s hard not to get stuck in the juvenile nature of what Butt Face is, but Brian hit the nail on the head – we set out to make people laugh. That’s what lights us up. Yes we love inventing games and marketing and all that stuff that comes with it – but our product at the end of the day is other people’s laughter. You know, back to that product is king thing. That’s where we keep showing up. It’s confirmed that if we keep making ourselves laugh with ideas, then it’s got a good chance of making the room laugh too.

Barry: Liquid Death has a thing where they often start meetings by encouraging people to put their worst ideas out there. Sometimes those become the spark for some genius things. We’ve definitely had some degree of that in our approach and this experience has just strengthened that.

Absolutely. And looking ahead, what does the future hold for Butt Face?
Brian: We have big plans – some of which we debuted at the April previews. But what I can say is that we expect to wipe the competition clean.

Barry: Very good.

We did well to get this far without a pun, didn’t we? But guys, a huge thanks for taking time out to chat. And congrats again on Butt Face!

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