IT'S ALL WORK, NO PLAY AT SCHOOL FOR TOY MAKERS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

'Twas the week before Christmas, and Martin Caveza's toy-design students were more wired than the cast of ``Barney.''

Somewhere out there, they knew, lurked the next Tickle Me Elmo, maybe even the next Cabbage Patch Doll. A toy that transcends age and gender boundaries and sends Wall Street into ecstasy. A toy every child in America would beg its parents to buy, borrow or steal.

Not just a toy, mind you, but a consumer craze, the kind that sparks TV spinoffs, fast-food tie-ins and riots at Toys R Us.

But global conquest would have to wait, at least temporarily. It was final-exam week at Otis College of Art & Design, and the 15 inaugural members of the college's new toy-design program were facing perhaps the most important show-and-tell of their lives.

Their mission: To design and build an original ``plush'' (i.e. stuffed) toy, then present it to their teachers and classmates as if they were pitching to a roomful of dubious Fisher Price executives. In the lucrative and ever-expanding world of corporate toy-making, show-and-tell isn't just for kindergarten anymore.

Work and play

``Let's have a little bit of fun today. Let's hear a little bit of whooping and hollering in the audience,'' department chairman Caveza urged the bleary-eyed sophomores, some of whom had been up all night finishing their end-of-semester projects.

Remember, Caveza told the class, ``you're basically giving me a presentation of why you're selling me into this idea.''

Yes, Virginia, there is still a Santa Claus. Only nowadays he does his manufacturing overseas and leaves the heavy lifting to guys like Martin Caveza.

Though lacking the requisite white beard and paunch, Caveza, 36, is a sort of modern-day Kris Kringle, Fortune 500 division. He makes children's dreams come true. He also makes them very profitable.

In Los Angeles County, where more than 500 toy firms generate $4.3 billion in annual sales, toys are anything but child's play. Industry giant Mattel, based in El Segundo, alone employs 2,000 people and reaps $1.5 billion a year just from its ubiquitous Barbie dolls. Applause Inc. of Woodland Hills is a leading manufacturer of stuffed animals.

A former Mattel senior product manager who headed the company's Nickelodeon line, Caveza last year was appointed chairman of Otis' 2-year-old toy-design program. The intensive four-year program is only the second in the United States. The first, at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, has become a prime training ground for corporate toysmiths.

Caveza, credited with shepherding development of the See-N-Say Story Maker and the Disney Dreamtime Carousel, knows how to turn whimsical ideas into marketable commodities - and young toy artists into business-savvy ``product engineers.''

``I think the students are just now starting to realize what toy design is all about,'' said Caveza, a hip-looking, handsome man with a short, black ponytail.

``I think they came in with the preconceived idea that this was really going to be fun, but there also is a business aspect to it. It (the toy) has to be manufacturable. It has to come within cost. You're talking about a business that generates several billion dollars of sales a year. It has to be run in a very corporate-like manner.''

That's more or less how Caveza and co-instructor Mary Ellen Reich ran last week's plush toy presentations, asking lots of questions and offering students gentle but pointed feedback on how their toys could be made more market-friendly.

Character parade

First up was Ledio Prezzi, who'd designed a cuddly looking androgynous elf with Velcro pants and oversized hands and feet.

Jeremy Madl, a talented Kansas City native, showed off his beautifully stylized, 2-1/2-foot-tall devil named Luci (short for Lucifer). Looking eerily realistic, Luci slumped on a stool like a Hollywood walk-on awaiting an audition. Madl said he'd envisioned Luci as the main character in a yet-to-be-made sequel to Tim Burton's ``The Nightmare Before Christmas.''

Nearby, Leslie Poisson was putting the finishing touches on her burgundy-colored rabbit, aimed at preschoolers.

``I haven't slept in a while,'' said Poisson, a former computer programmer for the city of Glendale who quit her job to enroll at Otis. Growing up in Haiti, she used to dream about the toys she'd see in the back of the Sears-Roebuck catalog.

Another student had developed a ``road-kill series'' of stuffed animals, parodying the popular Beanie Babies, with names like Run-Over Rover and Dead-On Deer. Boys would like it, he told the class, because it wasn't too sissy-ish.

``These kids have done such a job. It's amazing,'' said instructor Mary Ellen Reich, a pattern and sewing specialist who also makes collectible teddy bears at her Sherman Oaks home. ``We had to keep it (the project) simple because when we started, a lot of these kids didn't even know how to sew.''

Training ground

Located just north of Los Angeles International Airport, in a seven-story concrete building that once housed IBM's regional headquarters, Otis College strives to produce graduates who are not only creative but employable. Besides such well-known painters as John Baldessari and Lita Albuquerque, the school also turns out scores of fashion and graphic designers, cartoonists, ceramists and photographers.

At Otis, commerce and artistry aren't considered mutually exclusive. With annual tuition at $16,550, students want more for their money than a cultured worldview and a job flipping burgers or selling sneakers.

Consequently, few of Caveza's students see anything wrong with treating toys as if they were sports cars or coffeemakers.

``Basically, it's just a business,'' said student Mike Finizza. ``You're selling someone something. It comes with the territory.''

A wisecracking, goateed student from West Hollywood, Finizza didn't look nearly as disheveled as his project: a glowering, beer-gutted boxer doll named Big Bad Bruce, ideal for young boys looking to transfer some of their aggressive instincts.

``Big Bad Bruce, he'll knock your mouth loose! You can punch him, he can punch you,'' said Finizza, quoting the marketing mantra he plans to use if Big Bad Bruce ever gets green-lighted.

``You did a real nice job,'' Caveza told Finizza. ``Remember, we also had the suggestion of making Bruce's face out of slow-recovery foam, so you can punch his face and really deform it.''

While several of Finizza's classmates see the toy program as a ticket to Hasbro or Mattel, others said the training would be helpful whatever career path they chose.

``You're not limited to toy design by going into this,'' pointed out Tyler Kenney, 19, who grew up in La Canada. ``You learn a lot of skills that are valuable in the movie industry.'' But before they can do lunch with Michael Eisner, the students first must polish their craft for another 2-1/2 years. They'll be learning how to pour rubber and make isometric drawings. They'll be studying child psychology and toy development throughout history.

``We've got model-making class, and that's busting our butts as well,'' joked student Gerry Cody. ``On the fifth floor of this building, the lights never go out.''

Next semester, Caveza told the class, he has invited some of his friends in the industry to come critique the students' work.

``I just met with one of the senior vice presidents of Mattel, and he said to me, `There's got to be a reason why we do the toy.' That kind of thing is going to be more important for me to get from you guys.''

Serious business

Has the new corporate paradigm taken any of the joy out of toy making? Maybe. In his just-published book, ``Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood,'' author Gary Cross argues that the modern business environment is squeezing out the eccentric, independent toy inventors who revolutionized the industry a generation ago.

``One of the things that the individual inventors like to emphasize is that the corporate toys, like many things in the corporate world, tend to be the blending of many tried and true ideas, and they tend to be very conservative,'' Cross, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, said in an interview.

After last week's class, a group of Otis students hung around discussing the toy industry's less sunny side.

``I really felt horrible about the negative aspects, like all the toys are made overseas in Hong Kong, China, sweatshops, little 12-year-old kids selling toys,'' Meleina Mayhew said. ``I've got this conscience hanging over me. But at the same time it's very ...''

``Lucrative?'' her classmate Sacco Naz suggested.

``Yeah,'' Mayhew agreed.

Martin Caveza knows his profession isn't immune to ethical compromise. ``I think within any business within corporate America, there are going to be companies that try to take shortcuts and will do whatever they can to adjust the bottom line,'' he said.

But he also remembers waking up as a child in Colorado one Christmas morning and finding the toy of his dreams, Mattel's Strange Change Time Machine, a miniature domed oven that transformed small, plastic cubes into dinosaurs and prehistoric beasties.

``I remember I was so bummed because I didn't think it came in that kind of box, and my parents let me open it last. I was so freaked out! Awesome! I remember bouncing off the walls of my mother's house,'' Caveza said.

``Now, I'm in the unique position, and so are these students, of designing something that'll bring joy and happiness to other kids. Someday, it'll be their design.''

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7 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Students hope their whimsical ideas become hot toys

(2--Color) The student toy makers at Otis College designed and created stuffed characters for their final project.

(3--Color) Gerry Cody prepares sketches of his plush toy, M.U.T.

(4--Color) The Elf of the Magic Store, with his oversized hands and feet and Velcro pants, is the brainchild of Ledio Prezzi.

(5--Color) Junghye Chang works at her desk with her creation, Mr. Happy.

(6--Color) Sacco Naz hopes to generate some marketing waves with Mellonhead, the Surfstar.

(7--Color) A devilish-looking stuffed toy named Luci (short for Lucifer) has the lithe look of a Tim Burton character.

David Sprague/Daily News