Peter Wachtel

Somewhere in your house there's a box you haven't opened in years. Inside it is a toy you loved so much the paint wore off the edges. You probably never thought about the person who designed it. Someone did [music] though. They sat at a desk and imagined it for you. For 30 years that person was Peter. In the mid-1990s he designed a superhero action figure that became the number one seller in its line. Then he went bigger. He themed the Batman and Viper roller coasters at Six Flags Great Adventure. He designed 500 products across toys, entertainment, and live experiences. One of his inventions even landed him on late night television. Then in 2016 he walked away from all of it. He took a job teaching shop class at a California high school. Today his students design for Mattel, Universal Studios, and the Santa Barbara Zoo. Hundreds of them have moved on to college. In 2023 his class built the longest charcuterie board in the world. It stretched over 204 feet. He's in his 60s now finishing a doctorate on Ikigai and the bridge between white collar and blue collar careers. Peter, welcome. This is going to be a fun one. Johnny Johnny Peter Walktil joining us this morning on Mornings in the Lab with Keith, John, and friends with the world's biggest charcuterie board. What's up Peter Walktil? Hey, welcome Keith. Welcome John. Thank you for having me. That was quite an introduction. I I I That's like a movie theater like I couldn't believe it. That's amazing. >> it's it's if if we like you you're going to get a good one. If we're going to [ __ ] with you you get a terrible one. >> [laughter] >> I love it. I love it. And you got a Guinness World Record shirt on. There you go. That's awesome. And I got to tell you man Sophia got a new outfit on this morning. We upped her budget. Her hair's looking great. Sophia's looking like a smoke show this morning. So welcome to the lab. >> to put her put her in something real risque, please. I I agree. Yeah, I think we got to push the limits. Like yeah, totally do it. Yeah, yeah. Peter, where are you joining us from this morning? Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. So I I I'm not as buff as John there. It looks like he works out a little bit. I mean I don't know I don't know if I got as much as he does, but I'm glad and you guys were talking about dogs earlier. So I brought something along with me. I invented this about a year and a half ago. It's called Batter Batter Fetch and it's for dogs obviously. And it's got foam balls in here. And you can shoot it like you go like this and go Whoop, there you go. How how far will it go? But you can also throw it up in the air and bat it and then you don't have to touch the ball. You just go and it goes sucks right in. So right there, Batter Batter Fetch. And I'm not trying to get any advertisement for the advertisement, but I just thought, you know, I'm a toy designer. >> Brother, you [ __ ] better be trying to get some [ __ ] free advertising. What's wrong with you? >> [laughter] >> Well, you know, free advertising. Are you guys looking >> What What hey how when you shoot that ball how far does it go? It goes maybe like 20 25 >> What's up, Peter? Are you guys in Canada? I think Peter you're on I I can hear him. It's It's back to your great internet service, brother. No, I I I I'm good here, too. I I I'm fine. Okay. Can you guys hear me now? Peter Peter, where are you joining us from today? I'm in Camarillo, California. Where is that? That is [snorts] if you know where Los Angeles is we're about maybe 45 miles north of there. Okay. Yeah. >> Which highway are you close to the 5 or or 101? >> 101 101 >> Okay. Got you. >> Where are you guys at? Are you guys in Canada or where are you guys at? Keith is. I'm sure you can tell the you know, the little weirdo. You can always tell the Canadians. >> [snorts] >> How about them Sabres last night, you know, beating the >> Oh, he dropped off. He's his I was just busting his ass about internet and this and then this happened. I love it. >> [laughter] >> He did freeze. I swear I saw him freeze. >> I know he did. He's He freezes a lot. I keep telling him get some better service. >> Oh my gosh. So tell me about the charcuterie board, brother. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about that. So basically like I designed toys and stuff, theme parks >> Well, actually let me rephrase that, brother. How did you get the idea to make the longest one to make a record out of it? >> Ah, now that's a good idea. I'll give you an answer to that. So a while back I won this prize this teaching prize from the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools. And we got together over the summer in Colorado. And we were just thinking about what what's next what can we bring to our program? And even though I'm a you know, architectural product design wood shop teacher I was thinking hmm like what can we do in wood that's like worldwide that's like amazing. So I started thinking wood and then I just Googled like Guinness World Record wood, you know, and I'm like oh, look at that. There's a charcuterie board. And I'm like oh, that's pretty cool. So I call cutting board, but whatever. So then we started looking at it and I started contacting Guinness and saying hey like what's the record? What's the you know, criteria you got to follow? How long does it have to be? How thick does it have to be? Why da da da da And then when I got back to school after the summer asked my students to go hey, you guys want to do this? And interestingly enough we were redoing our new gym bleachers. So we took all the wood from our gym bleachers and >> Oh, so you repurposed. That's actually [ __ ] that's That's really cool. Yeah. And then the problem was is that Guinness isn't free. A lot of people think oh, I just set a record and there you go, but for the Guinness likeness and all that fun stuff they came out to quite a bit of money. So we had to do a GoFundMe. But I had to pay the money to do >> quick That's interesting question. What does it take what do you have to pay to hold a record in Guinness? It depends on what it is. I mean they have different tiers, but we wanted, you know, an adjudicator to come down. We wanted official. We had to get an official like a measurer. So we got the carpenters union down. So I had all these contacts. We couldn't actually my school cafeteria couldn't actually make the food. We had to actually chop it up from another school's culinary program, which was kind of interesting. Had it covered, you know, so the birds don't come by and do that. And then people couldn't eat right off of it. So we had to like give it to them and stuff. Ended up being like 550 lbs of food, but Jesus Christ. Yeah, it was an undertaking, but This is like that. This is like that almost like buying a real expensive car. The buying it's the easy part. It's the [ __ ] taking care of it that's the expensive part. So Yeah, the idea is >> you thought you were covered with the wood, but now all this other shit's popping up. No, it it was a good chunk of change. It was It mean there's all different things you got to think about. You got to get this, that, and the other thing. And but yeah, it all came together, repurposed the board, put it together. 150 kids helped make it. Got it down on the football field and it went from like end zone all the way to 35 on the other side. Oh, Jesus. So we're talking few hundred feet. 65 yards. [ __ ] What is that? 180 almost 200 feet. Yeah. [clears throat] A little bit little bit less than what Josh Allen could throw a football. He could throw I think 75, but So here's the question. Once you get the record what the [ __ ] do you do with it now? Cut it up and make individual [laughter] boards out of it? Well, we ate a lot of it and we had about two or 300 people there. They took a lot home, ate it there. Every little piece had actually be accounted for and taken away. You couldn't leave any. We gave some >> No, no. I mean I mean the I'm I'm talking about the board. I'm sure the food was easy to get rid of. It's [laughter] [ __ ] food. But they got this 200 [ __ ] 200 foot long charcuterie. What do you cut it individual? Everybody takes a piece or something? Well, that's that would be a good idea. Well, actually what we did is after it was done we did dismantle it cuz we couldn't have this one big tree that's 65 yards long. So we did take it apart and then the people that donated for our funding and everything like that they got a personalized charcuterie board with their name on it Guinness World Record >> That's cool. Yeah, yeah. and we gave around two or 300 of those away. And then the rest of it we just repurposed and we used for other things like that. And then interestingly enough we held the record for almost a year. But then someone in Canada beat us. So we had the record for almost a year, but That's why I don't like the Canadians. Good morning. this morning Johnny. I appreciate that while I was out getting his face [ __ ] so to speak. He fixed your internet. Hey Johnny, I I I found something. So Peter Walktil was busy last week and I I don't know if he's going to be talking about it this morning. I I'm not sure if he's comfortable talking about it, but John Well, Jimmy let's just put this on the table, man, because I got to ask Peter about this because Peter we caught you. Jimmy, run the clip. A man replaced LEGO sets with pasta and got $34,000 back from Target. 70 times. Nobody checked the box. He weight matched the pasta to the original LEGO pieces so the box passed every quick check at the return counter. That's not a scam. That's a logistic operation with a pasta budget. Irvine PD called it off the charts. We're getting into it. So Peter, there's a dude wandering around United States who's buying LEGO boxes taking them home building the LEGO Johnny with his smart brain and then putting all that positive energy and replacing the box of LEGO with pasta. And then taking the box back to the store and getting his money back. And then all right, how much does a [ __ ] box of LEGOs cost for God's sake? 20 bucks? 10 bucks? No, we're we're talking Peter probably talking hundreds, right? Like they're not cheap, but my the point is Johnny back to what we said all the time. If this dude would take that energy and put it into something positive how well I I just want to take my arm around and say dude, go put this energy somewhere else. Like Peter, what do you think about this whole thing? What This is ridiculous. >> I think that either he's a pasta chef and just needs to get rid of that extra pasta or he's just a good Samaritan. Maybe he's trying to feed the homeless or something because he has to put the pasta in there. Like if I was going to take the LEGOs I wouldn't come back with a box full of noodles, you know, but maybe maybe he's trying to feed people secretly or Good morning these features. I got to admit that what that you have to admit it's actually pretty smart it is actually pretty smart theft. Let's go and take the Legos and because any young person working at Walmart when you take it back is not questioning whether Peter has actually taken the the Lego out and put it back in >> shake it. Yeah, you shake it sounds like Legos but they open it up cuz sometimes they take the actual really cool characters like Darth Vader or something like Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, there was another thing that was in their system. I can't remember which big store it was. Yeah. You order it online. Yes. Gets delivered. Yes. You return it. Now if this item is under a certain price, they just say keep it. What? Because it's more expensive to take it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know Costco's like that. I I People were [ __ ] people were like taking like tens of thousands of dollars monthly and then what would happen is the the system would catch on and just [ __ ] turn off their account. I I we I knew somebody who when I when they told me this I was just I was actually appalled by it. They said, "Yeah, we use our coffee machine we bought from Costco for whatever a couple years and then when it broke we took it back and they didn't ask any questions." I'm like, "What?" Like that's just [ __ ] low-bro, man. Like that's just greasy. That's absolutely greasy. Hey hey Peter. You you pitched jump sticks, a scooter pogo stick hybrid. You are going to go panel of children like not adults children on ABC's The Toy Box. So I got to be honest, man. What's it like having your career like your whole business evaluated by eight-year-olds on national television? Like were you like, "Oh yeah." Like did you take it seriously or did you roll your eyes and go, "I'm just going to go with it or what?" Well, whatever you do in life you got to be able to you know be willing to fail. Yeah. So basically I had kids I have two kids they're a lot older now they're like 20 and 18 now but at the time they did they're like little scooters around, right? Yeah. And we [clears throat] had a pogo stick as well and it just sort of hit me one day I go you want to be able to jump higher over the curb and stuff like that, right? So I'm like, "What if we put a pogo stick as like the handles and you got a scooter?" And it was interesting enough idea, right? So they did and we had kids jumping and everything that and it worked really well. And then of course you know the toy box and everything I tried this out and I'm a little bit heavier than a nine-year-old kid by like twice. All right, so maybe a little more and so it didn't really work out. I actually fell on national TV which was a nice little Fun. Yeah, but it was kind of a great experience. I mean it didn't go anywhere. I actually reached out to like Razer and a couple toy companies but basically it was more of a an issue like with getting hurt and stuff like that but I love the idea like boing you could like go over the curb really well and stuff like that but yeah and we so I got a question. So you got the pogo stick you got the dog ball throwing apparatus. >> [laughter] >> I got something better for you right here. I was going to say yeah, I was going to say let's hear it. You you want you got you've created 10 [ __ ] things. What what tell about us all. Yeah, all right. I'm going to give you my best one. So Yeah, hold on hold on no no no no we won't hear about them all. All right, all right, you ready for A? Well, let's start with Q. So a long time ago there was this company called Quirky, right? They were in New York City and they were basically Hold on real quick. I'm sorry to interrupt but how many is there because if if you got like 17 we're going to have to give you like a a 15 second time limit per explanation. Whatever there's like six or seven. Okay. >> [laughter] >> All right, so here's the here's the one I'll show you. So I invented this thing it's called the Grill Wrangler and what it is is a barbecue tool but it's a three-in-one barbecue tool. So if you like barbecuing that's really cool. But basically it's a spatula, right? You use your spatula. But then it's got this fork that slides out you know so you can poke your hot dogs or whatever and then if you do this it's tongs. So you can actually get this on Amazon if you return it you won't get your money back and keep it like you're saying but it's called the Grill Wrangler. What does that what does that retail for? About 20 25 bucks. That's reasonable. Yeah. And there's a smaller version which is this one and then there's a bigger version it goes about this big. But it's been around about 10 or 15 years now. Okay, so that's number one we got six more to go. >> [laughter] >> All right, here we go. So basically I was a little kid I used to cut the lawn, right? That's what kids do. So I got in trouble and I actually took my dad's lawnmower apart made a go-kart out of it and I think he's still mad at me now. But basically got me very curious and creative and stuff like that. So I went to design school and started working at a toy company started F.A.O. Schwarz in New York City and then went on to like Tyco, Marvel, Six Flags, Jakks Pacific, Mattel, Hasbro, Fisher-Price. But basically designing toys from barbecue tools to dog toys. There was a Tonka road constructor that was made in ooh that was a long time ago as well. Got the best toy of the year award. There was X-Men and Spider-Man action figures when I worked at Marvel. Other vehicles were really cool like that. I got to meet really good movie stars and people that worked on all these toys. At Six Flags you know designed the Viper Batman rides. That was cool because every morning I didn't even need coffee. I was on these roller coasters going down at 6:00 a.m. like flying through and stuff like that. But basically I didn't engineer them I designed all the theme and the graphics and the names and stuff like that. But there was so many and then there's like little things like that. But action figures, vehicles, toys, puzzles, everything you could think of. And then basically I got into teaching because I wanted to share what I did and I taught at like different design schools across the country like Pratt, Parsons, Otis Art Center. And then basically I said, "Hey, what about high school?" cuz we drive by the high school and the kids were about to go to high school. I said, "Hey, high school." and then high school. And then I started there about nine years ago. I said I want to do that same stuff so I teach my kids design. We work with toy companies like Mattel and Hasbro. We'll go on field trips to BMW and I show them how the whole industry works and right now we're working on movie props and play props for real companies and so they get a real look into what the industry could be like. It could be fun it's not just blue collar it could be white collar or a little bit of new collar. So they love it. So I'm sort of taking my creativity to the kids. It's fun stuff. So you you held up the the meat poker and the tongs and the three-in-one and the dog thrower, right? You have more [ __ ] that you can hold up or is that it? >> [laughter] >> I can see let's see what else we can get here. So this is also a nice zombie tool as well. And if you can see in the background there's some of my toys there there's that Tonka road constructor up there which is really cool. Did you make that? Yeah. Well, basically yeah it was made by Tonka so that's >> going to say it's a Tonka toy, yeah. So some of this stuff you actually you actually was it like you were working for these companies or you licensed it to them or or A little of everything. So >> [clears throat] >> Wow. As a matter of fact that was all me me my son came up with that long time ago. I licensed this and invented it. Same with the Grill Wrangler. The Tonka thing I actually worked for a company and did that. So while I was employed at companies as like a creative director or designer I designed a lot of toys as well. And there was a lot of like little >> [snorts] >> X-Men and Spider-Man action figures like here's Venom you know he's saying good morning to you guys. Oh yeah. Good morning creatures. What's up? I like to So so the million dollar question is literally the million dollar question. Have any of these made millions of dollars in your pocket? Uh so that's a that's a trade secret but I could just say that I have a house I have a wife I have two kids a dog a pool used to have a camper and I have a nice car and >> Well, brother forgive me I know a lot of security guards that have all that. >> [laughter] >> How does that work though, Peter? You you you sell you get a licensing kind of fee? We don't need the number is that how it kind of works though like you get a percentage of sales? Yeah, but it's sort of like a lottery ticket. The reason I say this, Peter, is because I guarantee you there are people listening going, "Fuck I have ideas. I want to try to bring it to market." So I'm just trying to get a little bit of a road map here and of course if they can glimpse it holy [ __ ] this [ __ ] guy made some bank. I need to [ __ ] stop being afraid of what people are going to say about what I'm doing and just [ __ ] do it. All right, I'll give you a little bit of information with that. So inventing is like lottery ticket scratchers, right? Sometimes you win 50 bucks sometimes you win five sometimes you'll win the 500,000, right? So with licensing or inventing you everybody has that idea. So your idea might be good or not. But one thing I suggest is provisional patents they're like maybe 110 bucks protect your idea for a year and then show it to as many companies as you can but don't say that you have the best idea in the world they'll be the judge of that because unless you're going to make it yourself and distribute it and sale and marketing and take returns in and any lawsuits that might come in companies are best suited for this because they already have lawyers and traditional distribution everything set up, right? And they'll give you a percentage. Usually it's 5% if it's on TV 2.5 if it's just wholesale and via mail which isn't that much if you think about it but if you had a Cabbage Patch doll or a Furby that's millions of dollars. However, if you invent like 5 10 15 20 things and here's the thing with today's >> Yeah, and they're all and they're all making you a few grand a month you're pretty [ __ ] happy. Yeah, it's not bad. I mean you're not a million trillionaire but here's the thing in the olden days like when we were kids toys and products stayed on the market 5 10 years, right? Now the life cycle of any toy or product is like you know six months to a year. So they don't usually go through distributors. They actually just give them to the stores first and if anybody tries to knock them off it doesn't matter because the store space is already filled. So you have six years to do it. So with the barbecue tool made you know definitely six figures with the Better Batter Fetch not too bad but not as close. But it's basically all about your idea who the company is and how they market it. And is it really fitting a need to the world that's going to be awesome? Or is it just like Is it really solving a problem? Yeah, exactly. And then it's also like, you know, those that Flurby or blanket that you would used to wear that was like a robe blanket. I mean, it's little funny ideas like that, million to dollars. So even if you get 5, 20%, it's awesome. But if you do yourself, it's going to be all that money up front and you might or might not make it. So, but I say if you have ideas, go for them. I mean, you never know. But just don't spend millions of dollars or thousands of dollars on patents and protection. Just get >> Yeah, don't try to protect something that has no value. Well, there's a lot of people don't know that cuz they believe that don't give up in your idea. So, I'm just going to keep pouring money into it. And it comes to a point it's like, "Dude, what are you doing?" But I see it all the time. So, let's talk about that green that that fetch fetch puff puff, whatever that thing is for the dog. I'm thinking puff puff pass. That's what I do. I'm going to say Keith turned it into a [ __ ] joint. Yeah, [laughter] puff puff pass. When when when you put that thing together, you and your son, like are are you like when you first put the the original one, are you finding parts around the house and creating something before you go to like get plastic molds and all that? Like talk us through like the expense of creating the prototype. Yeah, no, that that's a great question. So, back when my kid was a little kid, he was hitting the ball around and stuff like that. And you know, kids have so many toys. So, next to it was like a Nerf foam gun, right? So, I'm thinking that's interesting. So, he's just hitting the ball with a Wiffle bat and he gets his foam gun. So, what I did is I basically sawed apart the Wiffle bat, stuck the Nerf gun like components into the bat, and then basically it worked like a Nerf gun. But then you could also hit the ball up in the air and hit it like that. And I showed it around to a bunch of companies, right? Cuz I was connected to the toy company, I'm in the industry, they know me. Nothing. Crickets. They're like, "Nah, whatever." And then like since I've been teaching, I said, "Oh, I got I got probably 23 ideas that I have that I think would still be viable." So, maybe 3 years ago, I started sending it around again. And they had interest in them. I'm like, "Why?" They're like, "Maybe it's just the timing." So, this one company, Jazwares in Florida, they picked it up. They tested out. They got some market feedback. They liked it a lot. And it took about 2 [clears throat] years to get to market, but they reproduced it, prototyped it, made the whole mold and everything, and then they sold it. And it was it worked out fairly good, but some things take some time. Some things [clears throat and cough] take 15 years. But what was cool is that it was all based on my dog, Miko, here. I don't know if you can see it. He's a Japanese Akita. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's a he's awesome. But he just passed away, unfortunately. Oh, sorry to hear about that. He was like one of the inspirations for it because [clears throat] he liked his balls and he got to eat them and chase them and stuff. So, it's really cool. Awesome. Peter Walkto, Keith Billis, John Anderson this morning at Mornings with Al live with Keith, John and friends. Hey Peter, do you got actually a few minutes to hang out with us this morning or do you got to rock and roll out of here? I got a few minutes. We're going to do this. We're going to do a reset on hour two. We're going to come back So, we're going to do a lifestyle tip with Anderson, reset hour two. We're going to keep the conversation going on with Dr. Peter Walkto, Dr. Peter Walkto, the doctor the the the workshop dude. And our our our good old Miss Peaches says, "I swear Peter's neighbors must love him." And I'm thinking that they're always looking at their window going, "What's Peter inventing today?" Would that be fair to say? For some part. I mean, you know, if it there's sort of like like if you were my wife, he's like, "I'm tired of hearing about it." Oh, yeah. I guess, right? Yeah, but or they say, "Hey, I have this idea. Let me show you." And I'm like, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like that's like the guy that That's like the guy that says every time you see him, "Hey, can I tell you a joke?" Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to hear about the [ __ ] German guy and the Polish guy and the American guy one more time. No, I don't want to hear your joke. That's like if you lived next to Wayne Gretzky, he'd say, "Hey, look at this slap shot I just did." You know?