A Very Pi**ed Off Bugs Bunny, or How to Lose Millions

A very angry Wabbit

A Very Pi**ed Off Bugs Bunny, or How to Lose Millions

Bounce houses, bouncy castles, inflatable fun houses. Whatever you called them, at the time my father’s factory manufactured them, they were frowned upon by the big theme parks and blue-chip companies. Nobody wanted to be associated with something that propelled the users high in the air, banging into other users and crashing back down. It just wasn’t good for business.

So when my father, Peter, reached out to Warner Brothers to see if they were open to putting their characters on our products, we were amazed when they said they were interested.

Quicker than you can say Bugs Bunny, I, along with our top artist, were dispatched to their London officers, Wardour Street, I think, where our creative guy sat down with some of their people and drew up plans of products and product placement. They were impressed.

Just a week later, I stood at the arrivals gate at Manchester Airport, waiting to meet and greet two of their people, to whisk them back to our factory in Prestatyn for a meeting to discuss things further. This could be the start of something big.

The morning meeting was held at my dad’s office and consisted of four people. Two WB guys, my dad and me. I was to get a say in how things might go and go well they did.

 After discussing models, sizes and what characters could be used, we headed to my father’s restaurant and club at the top end of town for lunch. It had been an exciting but hard meeting, so we needed an hour to wind down before the afternoon’s negotiations continued.

I was surprised when one of the execs ordered a double Vodka and Tonic. After all, it was one o’clock on a Thursday lunchtime, but these were London people; this is how they did things. Me, I stuck to sparkling water.

Knock off goods and losing money.

Back at HQ, they laid out their stall. Every colour had to be exact; Pantone numbers could not be altered, mixed with or disrupted in any way. We were limited to five models, five sizes and here was the important bit. The stars of the show and the only stars we could use from the Warner Brothers stable were Bugs himself, Elmer Thud, Wile E. Coyote, Roadrunner and Porky Pig. No deviations, no dipping into the pot for more friends and everything, absolutely everything had to be approved by London.

I remember looking at my father and thinking, “Please don’t fuck this up, please don’t fuck this up.” He fucked it up.

After dropping the guys off at Manchester for their return flight, I headed home, and the next morning, we set about drawing up the plans, all in anticipation of receiving the official licensing agreement.

I remember calls to various paint/ink supplies, making sure the colours we used were so exact, the drawings of the characters had to be practically facsimiles and of course, the products themselves to be of the highest order, and they were. Man, the people in the factory worked so hard to create five perfect items, ready for the open day when the execs would return to view them before they could go on sale to the general public.

Not one of our competitors, anywhere in the world, was getting this opportunity, an opportunity that could be worth millions. Word had it that certain people were furious, but we had put in the work, we had been bolded enough, and now we were being rewarded.

It was a great moment, setting up these huge, almost giant-like inflatables in the factory car park of the small town where we lived and worked. Passers-by stopped and looked on in awe at the display before them, and a small crowd soon gathered.

The factory could have made millions.

They were followed by members of the national press, and shortly after, a car carrying the Warner Brothers people arrived.

“Wow!” one of them said as he got out of the car and viewed our very own set. “Fantastic!”

And just like that, the road was set to make us millionaires, at the very least, securing the future of the factory. The contracts were signed, the licences agreed, and marketing was put in place. Orders started to come in from around the world, and it was suggested that other blue-chip companies would soon be knocking at the door. Bugs Bunny and his friends had brought success to this small business, its directors and its staff. The future looked good.

And then it happened. Peter Morrell had to be Peter Morrell.

“Right,” he declared. “This fancy paint has to stop. I mean, it’s an absolute fortune. Simon, get round to Woolworths and see what grey paint they have in stock. We don’t have to have carbon copies of Bugs Bunny.”

The groans were audible. “But we do though, Dad. That was the point of all those meetings. Everything has to be spot on, or they could take the licence from us.”

His frosty glare made it clear I should know my place. “Just get the paint. Do you really think those fellas from London care? They won’t even see anything we make again. Just get some petty cash and get some paint.” And then, to the art department, “Stop taking so much time with the drawings and the artwork. It’s only a kid’s bouncy castle, cut your time down and get on with it.”

The morale in the factory went downhill as we all just did as we were told. The next time we inflated a product for photos and testing, it was like looking at a completely different to the previous month, when the factory carpark looked like a high-end theme park. The units were shambolic, with the cheap paint already starting to peel.

“Roll them up and ship them out,” I was told, and that is what I did. Like I say, I knew my place, and I also knew a golden opportunity was slipping away. Companies like Warner Brothers simply do not offer licenses to cheapskates, poor producers and substandard suppliers. And that is what my father turned this venture into. A substandard venture that would soon die a death.

To this day, I don’t know how WB found out about the alarming decline in their characters at our hands, but they did. A phone call became a series of letters, those letters became a notice of Cease-and-Desist notices, and finally, the licences were withdrawn. The golden goose was cooked, and the money train derailed. We had to look for new products, new images and new designs.

And that is how my father’s actions, one of many, became the reason we supplied knock-off Bob the Builder children’s play equipment to mom and pop businesses throughout the UK.

That is what was up Doc.

Our Factory, Our Father