Why McElroy?

People sometimes ask me why I'm so fixated on the McElroy brothers specifically. There are other great figure makers — Marshall, Mack, Selberg — so why these two?

The answer is simple: Glenn and George McElroy didn't just build ventriloquist figures. They built mechanical puzzles that happened to have a face.

When Frank Marshall first saw a McElroy figure at a magicians' convention in 1938, he reportedly said: "Looks like I'll have to go out of business." That says everything. Marshall was one of the greatest figure makers of his era — and he was genuinely shaken.

What makes a McElroy different is the control post. While most figures of that era had two or three functions at most, a fully loaded McElroy could have up to fourteen: floating eyes in all directions, crossing eyes, individual winkers, raising eyebrows, upper lip sneer, stick-out tongue, wiggle ears, wiggle nose, light-up nose, flip-up fright wig. All controlled by a typewriter-style keyboard of levers and keys built into the headstick.

The result is a figure that feels alive in a way no other dummy does. Every combination of movements creates a new expression. The possibilities are in the hundreds.

That's why McElroy. That's why I can't let this go.

Alessio