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CU-24 Motors
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The Zeroids were the brain child of Frank Rice, who previously was the Chief Designer of Playsets at Marx before moving to Irwin Toys, then Transogram as V.P in charge of Adult Games. As head of R&D Frank, along with senior VP of engineering Erwin Benkoe and VP Julius Cooper, was tasked with adding excitement to the Motorific line of cars. Much of the success of Motorific had to do with its heart, the Japanese-made CU-24 motor (image above) which allowed for mobility driven by AA-batteries. Up until that time most electic-powered cars used electrified tracks (slot cars) or were larger and used D-cell batteries. The adoption of the Motorific motor allowed for the smaller 6 1/2" height of the Zeroid robot and its development with minimal design costs.
Julius "Julie" Cooper was the primary driver behind Zeroid development, working hand-in-hand with the model department (folks like Ed Turcina, a top Marx model maker who defected to Ideal) to produce high-quality sculpted figures that really caught your eye and sparked the imagination of kids. The Zeroids had many metalized "chromed" plastic parts applied, employing tricks used on Motorific vehicles, which added a flashy appearance and unique design. Much of the work getting the CU-24 motors produced to exacting specifications was spearheaded by Lenny Solomon who negotiated the pricing and oversaw changes and corrections to their production.
During this period the Ideal Toy Corporation was really making a push into TV marketing (as were all the other toy companies) so the Zeroids were given this initial marketing spot (there are others which unfortunately haven't surfaced yet).
1968 Zeroid TV Commercial
To produce the initial TV spot (above) Frank Rice went to Munich Germany instead of doing the commercials in New York (which was the more common practice at the time). They were able produce multiple commercials at one time for less money (there were multiple sound stages in Germany with experienced crew and top-notch equipment).
The names of all the Zeroids, along with the backstory, flowed naturally once "zeroid" was established as the overall name of the robot. Planet Zeroid, the individual names starting with "Z" - I am a bit surprised that the Alien wasn't given a "Z" name too other than "Zeroid Alien."
John's Notes
Most of the information above was pulled from Playset Magazine No. 17 published on September/October 2004. It features a Zeroids cover and multiple-page article and is well worth getting.
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