Richard C. Levy ’64
Many students come to Cheshire because of its academic reputation, top-notch college counseling, or chance to catch the eye of NCAA Division I university coaches.
For Richard C. Levy ’64, it was all about the jacket.
While touring Cheshire Academy, he took one look at the school’s navy wool classic emblazoned with a huge C and a wily cat and his high school experience played out before him. Soon he was enrolled and earning a spot on the varsity wrestling team — and a letter for his jacket.
“I loved walking around Scranton, Pennsylvania, my hometown, wearing my jacket. I was so cool!” he said, laughing. “I was proud to be a Cheshire cat.”
While it was the one-of-a-kind apparel that drew Levy to Cheshire, it wasn’t the clothes that made the man he would become. At Cheshire and later Emerson College, where he majored in broadcasting, the self-proclaimed unfocused student bloomed into a sought-after, highly focused entrepreneur who has brought more than 200 toys and games to market, including animatronic Furby, a googly-eyed talking fuzzball that’s currently enjoying a fifth wave of popularity with kids and their sentimental parents internationally.
A 3D variation on the Tamagotchi, the digital pet children doted on in the late 1990s, Furby was the brainchild of David Hampton, who invented the adorable AI hamster-owl hybrid. Being new to the toy licensing game, he called upon Levy, who had established connections, to help license, develop, and get the idea to market.
Levy immediately saw a bright future for Furby. What made it so special? The technology – and the invisibility of that technology. According to Levy, the fact that Furby did things its owner didn’t expect – surprising kids with new words, actions, and other “Easter eggs” – was key.
And then there’s Furbish, the sunny, sing-song language that’s all its own. “Wee-tah-kah-loo-loo” means tell me a joke. Not to be confused with “Wee-tah-kah-wee-loo,” which means tell me a story. And then there’s the ever-popular “Wee-tee-kah-wah-tee,” sing me a song, something Furby is prone to bursting into at a moment’s notice.
Sensing a hit, Levy set a pitch meeting with Tiger Electronics president Roger Shifman, who, a day before the meeting, wasn’t feeling well and wanted to postpone it. “I asked him, ‘have I ever wasted your time?’ and he said ‘never,’” Levy remembered. “So I said, ‘unless you are critically ill, please take the meeting.’” Shiffman agreed.
And the rest is history. “Sometimes in life you have to know when to throw a ‘Hail Mary’,” Levy said.
The inventor’s instincts were on the money. The toy was an instant favorite in the U.S. and abroad. Levy saw Furby T-shirts and other merchandise on travels to Chile, Japan, Korea, and Micronesia. By the end of the first year of production, Tiger had sold an astounding 4 million Furbys. Over the years, models have been produced in 18 languages. Now produced by Hasbro, the toy recently celebrated its 25th birthday, and an estimated 75 million Furbys have found their way to children’s hearts in 57 countries.
“There were times during development that Furby was hanging by a thread,” Levy said, “and sometimes the toy gods just smiled upon it.”
Levy has made a good living and crafted a colorful life by being brave enough to take chances. Having spent his teenage summers in Spain, France, and Italy, and being conversant in five languages, he first went to work for Paramount Pictures International. At age 22, he was hired to manage foreign advertising and publicity for Avco Embassy Overseas Pictures. Between both corporate stints, he worked on the foreign launches of more than 30 major motion pictures including The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, The Producers, The Odd Couple, and Rosemary’s Baby. “Working in the feature film industry was like getting a Ph.D. in showmanship,” he said.
A chance meeting led to Levy’s first toy, StarBird, a pint-sized aircraft that became the #1 toy at the annual New York City Toy Fair in 1978. Now president of Richard C. Levy & Associates, his licensed toys include Disney Parks’ Spiro Light, P&G’s Crest Fluorider trike, and The World’s Smallest Duncan Yo-Yo. He’s thought up games like Adverteasing; Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus; Chicken Soup for the Soul; The Wayne’s World VCR board game; Tightrope; and Dizzy Duckies. He has authored 12 books, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cashing In on Your Inventions and The Toy and Game Inventor’s Handbook, which was #2 on Forbes’ 2016 list of the 33 Best Books Recommended by Shark Tank Entrepreneurs.
Levy has been profiled by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, The New York Times, The Discovery Channel’s Smithsonian “Invention” series, and The Washington Post, and has addressed the IBM Inventor Dinner, Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Conference, and many universities and organizations.
“I was fortunate to have married Sheryl, who has worked and traveled with me on this serpentine journey,” Levy said. “She gave me that added edge. Our talented and entrepreneurial daughter Bettie didn’t fall from our family tree. She founded BCL Entertainment, a company that specializes in producing one-of-a-kind talent-facing events and branded partnerships.”
Levy came back to Cheshire in 2002 to deliver the Commencement Address. Wanting to make a lasting impression on his youthful audience, he held up a can of the common household lubricant WD-40 and asked the confused graduates if they knew what the product’s name meant. The WD stands for “water displacement,” he told them. But the 40?
“That’s because it was the 40th time the inventor tried the experiment to make it when it finally worked,” Levy said. “I wanted them to have one message that resonated. The message is you have to persist.”
You know who’s taken that advice to heart? Furby Galaxy Edition, one of the latest models, that comes with 15 accessories and the ability to dance, glow in the dark, tell fortunes, and talk with tiny Furblets, one of which sits in Cheshire’s Office of Advancement, proudly donning a CA ribbon. It’s enough to make Levy and his furry pals very happy, or as they might say “Kah mee-mee noo-loo.”
