Sparky!

Nothing, there are not plans on how we built Sparky, or a walk through discussion. Sparky was our first self made prop and was built in 2000.

There are plenty of walk thru's on how to build something similar, but the idea for Sparky came to use at a local Halloween shop.  They had a very similar prop driven by a control board.  I pondered it for about 10 minutes and told my brother we were going to built it.

As I said, it was our first and is still one of the best.  Sparky works off a wireless remote that is manipulated by an actor.  This allows for Sparky's "electrocution" to be completely random and our whim.

Sparky is simply driven by a low RPM motor (slowed down by a variac) located in his torso.  The motor rotates and causes his shoulders and torso to jostle back and forth. An added touch is the spot light bell over his head that has a disassembled strobe lite embedded into it.  The strobe is on the same power connection as the motor, so they kick off at the same time.  He is very clumsy and bangs about a bit, but hey, who said you could perform the ballet while getting 50,000 Volts of ComEd!

Perhaps next year there will be sound added to here poor Sparky scream!