Designer Brings Fictional ‘Wayne’s World’ Gadget to Life

Staff
By Staff
4 Min Read

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In the real world, we’re too often deemed not
worthy of fictional gadgets.

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None of us are getting a proton pack or a flux
capacitor anytime soon.

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But if you’re looking for a car roof mounted
licorice dispenser like the one featured in

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Wayne’s World, that can be arranged.

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Candy Phelps, a web designer based in Madison,
Wisconsin, wanted that licorice dispenser as

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soon as she saw it in the 1992 movie, but no
one was selling it,

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which is both bogus and sad.

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And that’s just really sad.

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More than 30 years later, she’s finally filled
the empty space in the market with a real world

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version of the contraption, which she sells
online through her company.

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Called Motor Mouth.
Phelps spent about 1 year in the design,

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prototyping and testing phase with a dozen or
so design iterations and 5 full 3D printed

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prototypes.
She said that the only reason it took so long

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was that both she and Motormouse production
designers have other full-time work.

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So it ended up being a quote, when you can get
to it type of project.

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The biggest challenge with the project was
engineering something that managed to stay true

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to the movie in terms of design, while being
safe to use and Flexible enough to mount in a

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variety of different ways.
In the movie, they have a carriage bolt through

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the roof of the car.

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Most people aren’t going to do that, so we
needed to find alternative options,

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said Phelps, adding that in the end Motormouth
went with options for screws,

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straps, and adhesive stickers.
She said that customers have also used magnets,

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Velcro, and suction cups to mount it.
The threads for the dome and bottom plate also

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took some iteration, as did the parts that the
knife is mounted to.

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Phelps said.
They kept breaking off, so her team had to

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develop something that was sturdy enough for
quite a bit of pressure,

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but that also worked in the injection mold
process.

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Once Motormouth finalized the design, the
company needed to find a manufacturer.

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Most US options were well out of the company’s
budget, but it found a manufacturing partner in

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China with the required ISO certifications.

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Naturally, there were some time zone and
communication challenges,

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but in the end, we were very happy with the
manufacturers that we found.

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And definitely plan to continue using them for
future runs,

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said Phelps.
I’m Ben Munson, and this is manufacturing now.

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We’re not worthy.

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We’re not worthy.

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