Monster High creator to guest at St. Pete horror con

When toy designer Garrett Sander pitched the idea of a line of teenage dolls based on classic movie monsters, his bosses at Mattel – where Barbie reigned supreme – were skeptical.

After several rounds of audience testing, Mattel came around and gave Sanders’ Monster High doll line the green light. Within two years of its 2010 launch, it was bringing in more than $500 million in sales annually.

Sander was – well, he was pleased. “I was excited about the concept, and I always wanted it to do well, but I didn’t think it would ever get as big as it got,” the designer says. “You never know until it’s on the shelf and the sales start coming in.”

Sander will be in St. Petersburg Saturday and Sunday, as a guest at Sunshine City Scare, the city’s first horror convention. It’s the latest event from the St. Pete Comic Con organization.

Not that the plucky plastic teens of Monster High are all that scary, mind you. There’s Frankie Stein, Clawdeen Wolf, Draculaura, Cleo de Nile and others, all modernized (and suitably fashion-coordinated) for today’s legions of doll fans.

Toy designer Garrett Sander.

“In the beginning, people were very wary of doing a monster doll line,” Sander relates. “So it was finding the balance between monster and doll. And we really had to play off the most well-known monsters, just to be sure girls knew who they were.

“But as the brand got more popular, it let us branch out into monsters that didn’t have movies! More like global monsters that happen in certain countries. And that was fun. Because every time we came up with a character, we really did try to find what we called their Freaky Flaws – what made them human, if you will. And what pairs with that? And from there, what is their fashion style? What is their overall look and aesthetic, and how do we build the character around that?

“Because we wanted to make them feel, even though they’re monsters, as much like a real teens as possible.”

Monster High, inevitably, spawned an animated web series, video games and more. As of 2022, the franchise had expanded into commercial television. There are new dolls as well.

Sander, who parted ways with Mattel in 2018, doesn’t see a dime from any of it. “I’m not involved in anything Monster High any more,” he explains. “But when the original stuff was on, I read every script, watched every animatic, all of that stuff. I reviewed everything that was content for the brand.”

Today, he is a principal designer for Just Play Toys. He loves talking about Monster High – his baby.

“One of the best parts of going to conventions is getting to meet the fans and hear their stories. A lot of times, they will tell you who their favorite character is. They’ll talk about what the brand means to them. There’s a lot of really heartwarming stories about how the brand got them through rough times, made them feel like they were a part of something, made them feel that they could just be them. Because they could identify with these monster characters who can’t hide who they are.”

And Sander can’t help thinking about those early days. “It was crossing fingers and hoping that when it came out, kids would get it,” he says. “And I think they just did. There was something about the brand they could identify with, and that’s what really helped. They stayed lifelong fans, a lot of them.”

Sunshine City Scare details and tickets here.