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

A web designer wanted to make the movie's licorice dispenser a reality.

Transcript

In the real world, we’re too often deemed not worthy of fictional gadgets. None of us are getting a proton pack or a flux capacitor any time soon. But if you’re looking for a car roof-mounted licorice dispenser like the one featured in “Wayne’s World,” that can be arranged.

Candy Phelps, a web designer based in Madison, Wisconsin, wanted that licorice dispenser as soon as she saw it in the 1992 movie. But no one was selling it, which was both bogus and sad. More than 30 years later, she’s finally filled that empty space in the market with a real-world version of the contraption, which she sells online through her company called Motormouth.

Most Read on IEN:

Phelps spent about one year in the design, prototyping and testing phase with a dozen or so design iterations and five full 3D-printed prototypes. She said the only reason it took so long was that both she and Motormouth’s product designers have other full-time work, so it ended up being a “when-you-can-get-to-it type of project.”

The biggest challenge with the project was engineering something that managed to stay mostly true to the movie in terms of design while being safe to use and flexible enough to mount in a variety of different ways.

“In the movie, they have a carriage bolt through the roof of the car. Most people aren't going to do that, so we needed to find alternative options,” said Phelps, adding that in the end, Motormouth went with options for screws, straps and adhesive stickers. She said that customers have also used magnets, velcro and suction cups to mount it.

The threads for the dome and bottom plate also took some iteration, as did the parts that the knife is mounted to. Phelps said they kept breaking off, so her team had to develop something that was sturdy enough for quite a bit of pressure but that also worked in the injection mold process.

Once Motormouth finalized the design, the company needed to find a manufacturer. Most U.S. options were well out of the company’s budget but it found a manufacturing partner in China with the required ISO certifications. “Naturally, there were time zone and communication challenges, but in the end, we were very happy with the manufacturers that we found and definitely plan to continue using them for future runs,” said Phelps.

Click here to subscribe to our daily newsletter featuring breaking manufacturing industry news.

More in Video