Fun, fantasy, and function: Roger Rabbit creator Gary Wolf fuels his creativity with vintage toys - Office Design

Home Office Computing, August, 1993 by Gail Gabriel

Roger Rabbit Creator Gary Wolf Fuels His Creativity With Vintage Toys

It's 5:30 a.m. A bearded man taps quietly on the keyboard in his oak-paneled office. Surrounded by hundreds of vintage toys, he stops, stares for a moment at a Howdy Doody puppet, then pounds furiously. Bustling with onscreen activity is Gary Wolf's Toontown--a setting first introduced in his 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? in which animated characters interact with real-life people. This morning, the Rabbit and Wolf are at it again.

Wolf's first Toontown novel was created in the 1970s, when he was a copywriter for a San Francisco ad agency. Publishers showed moderate interest. But in 1979, when Roger Rabbit and the book's other characters were snapped up by Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg Productions for its ground-breaking animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Wolf's Cry Wolf! Inc. was finally in the black. The $25,000 advance for the movie rights was more than the author had ever made (one year, his total earnings were a mere $3). With a three-film deal under way, Wolf gave up the 40-hour grind. Soon after, he bought a 1950s Cape Cod and began working full-time from home.

Here at his home, in the middle of a lush, six-acre spread 40 miles from the hubbub of Boston, the screenwriter, consultant, and television producer's imagination is fueled by mementos from his youth.

NOSTALGIC, YET PRACTICAL

Upon entering the house, you're ushered into a cozy, knotty pine-paneled family room. Dead center stands a porcelain-and-nickel barber chair (complete with leather razor strop and original burgundy leather upholstery), which Wolf had shipped from his hometown of Earlville, Illinois. The chair was retrieved from his dad's combination pool hall-barber shop before the business was sold. "It's a kind of 1906 recliner-director's chair," Wolf says, "reserved primarily for guests." If he and his coworkers need to review a filmmaker's samples, analyze an animator's clips, or watch a movie to research a project, the chair and its surrounding antique furniture are rearranged so that they face the TV, allowing the space to be converted into a producer's viewing room.

Strolling up a few steps, you enter Wolf's immaculate 14.5-by-17.5-foot office. The same warm, whimsical style repeats. You'll find a wood-and-leather rocking chair--a gift from his dad to his mom the day Wolf was born--beside an oak desk that houses his computer and a CD player. When meeting with animators or editors, this desk-rocking chair arrangement doubles as a conference area. "I have no conference room per se. I like things informal," Wolf says.

An oak bookshelf is lined with Wolf's works: A handful of science-fiction books, his second and best-selling novel in the series, Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? (published in 1991 by Villard Books), and the forthcoming Roger Rabbit's Gossipy Guide to Toontown. These two books were created right here. "We were building my wife's office while I was writing my second Roger Rabbit novel, and I wound up living in this room. I wouldn't go to a hotel for fear I'd lose it. So I'd eat and sleep here while construction workers pounded on the walls," he recalls.

Right down the hall is one of the two guest rooms. Here sits the oak altar boy's pew from the Earlville church. Found in perfect condition in the church basement, the circa 1900 bench now serves as another conference-seating area for visitors. Wolf's home is designed to accommodate a regular flow of writers, producers, and executives, who stay for a week or two to collaborate with Wolf on projects. "I just pull my 386 out of the closet, put them up in the guest room, and set them to work," he says.

SENTIMENTAL INSPIRATION

Wolf has created a working environment that not only serves as a practical area for optimal productivity but is also packed with familiar playthings to stimulate the creative juices. All the knickknacks and every stick of furniture are strategically placed to equalize the balance between old and new. A Kewpie doll sits on a bookshelf overlooking some stereo equipment; a Charlie McCarthy hand puppet is propped in a corner beside a speaker; a John Wayne Adventures comic book (No. 19) hangs on the wall above the computer; and an 1880s-era oak secretary is lined with manuscripts and superhero figures. The vintage toys are so meticulously restored, it's almost as if you stepped into a 19th-century child's room. And Wolf says that restoring these household treasures helped him come up with ideas for future projects.

"I get inspired by this stuff because my youth was so grounded in imagination. I can look at, say, my Hopalong Cassidy doll, and it brings to mind what a kid might be thinking," he says.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

To weave turn-of-the-century furniture, 1950s bric-a-brac, and modern office equipment into one cohesive mosaic was not an easy task. For Bonnie, Wolf's wife, business manager, writing partner, and the interior designer of the house, it meant planning. "It was important from the day we moved in that even though our offices would remain functional, they wouldn't be disconnected from the ambience of the house," she says. This consistency helps both Bonnie and Wolf gradually ease their thoughts toward work when they enter their offices. The work areas are so accessible from the rest of the house that Wolf can dash in to record ideas when they strike. "I come up with my best ones when I'm not working," he adds.