The Chucky doll is a popular and memorable horror character, but you might not be aware of where
the idea originally stemmed from. The roots can be traced back to a very creepy real-life toy.
Here's the true story of Robert the Doll, who indirectly inspired Chucky.
Robert the Doll, who has been the subject of several of his own movies and an episode
of Amazon Prime's horror anthology series "Lore," was the property of Robert Eugene
Otto. Otto gave the doll his own name, though he himself actually went by "Gene."
Otto was the youngest of three sons of an affluent Key West family, and he studied fine
arts in Chicago, New York, and Paris, ultimately becoming a notable, and somewhat eccentric,
painter and author. It was in Paris that he met his wife, Anne, a concert pianist,
and the two lived in New York together for a while before moving back to Key West and,
more specifically, to the home in which Otto had grown up in, which he had since inherited.
They would name the Colonial Queen Anne manor the Artist House, where they would live until
the end of their days. Gene passed away in 1974, and Anne followed two years later.
The Artist House is now a hotel, and visitors have reported sighting an unsettling apparition
strolling the turret room staircase. TV shows have visited the Artist House to see if they
could lay eyes on the famous thing that haunts the building, which is said to be the ghost of
Anne Otto wearing a wedding dress, patrolling her own home. Robert the Doll is elsewhere.
Before you even learn about Robert's reputation for being haunted,
just his look may be enough to unsettle you. He's got beady black eyes and a strange
little face covered with the scars of over a century of aging. He wears a sailor suit and
holds a doll of his own, a little stuffed lion with bug eyes and a wide-open mouth.
As it turns out, Robert is not just weird, but in fact unique. Robert was not a mass-produced
item meant to be a toy for children everywhere. Instead, Robert was a one-of-a-kind item meant
as part of a window display of clowns and jesters for the Steiff Company, the toy makers who made
the original Teddy bear to celebrate Theodore Roosevelt. Built around the turn of the 20th
century, Robert is 40 inches tall, making him the size of a human child. The doll is stuffed
with wood wool, also known as excelsior, made from wood shavings usually used for packaging.
Although Robert would have originally been dressed and painted up like a jester, the
sailor suit he has worn for over a century would have likely been one of Gene Otto's own outfits,
handed down to his new friend. Considering Otto gave the doll his own name and his own clothes,
it almost makes you wonder if he didn't send a little piece of his soul into the doll, too.
If you believe in that sort of thing, that is.
Where does a doll like Robert come from? How does a simple child's toy
end up causing mayhem and terror for those who disrespect him or his childhood friend? Well,
officially, Robert was a gift to Gene Otto from his grandfather on his fourth birthday in 1904.
His grandfather bought it for him on a trip to Germany, presumably from the window display at
the Steiff Company. But the legends surrounding Robert the Doll are something else entirely.
"He said he'd be a good friend to Gene."
The Artist House website says the doll was a gift to Gene from a young Bahamian girl, either as a
gift or as retaliation for some wrong perpetrated by the Otto family. Meanwhile, Slate suggested
that the doll was a gift from the family's Bahamian maid. The added element of the Bahamas
seems to exist to bring in the idea of voodoo, and indeed Florida Keys Treasures says Robert's toys
included small voodoo dolls that he would hold in his lap and throw across the room when angered.
The official Robert the Doll page entertains the possibility of voodoo being at the heart
of Robert's antics, but seems to give more consideration to the idea that Gene imbued
the doll with all sorts of potent emotional energy by constantly blaming the doll for
everything negative in his life. Whether the doll is laden with a voodoo curse,
filled with negative energy, or sharing a piece of his human friend's soul,
Robert's activity appears to have continued long after leaving the Artist House.
Gene Otto and Robert the Doll were reportedly inseparable for much of Otto's life. In fact,
Gene would apparently carry Robert everywhere with him, and at night, Gene's mother could hear him
holding conversations with the doll, who spoke in his own voice. Though she originally assumed
Gene was doing both voices, she would later come to question her assumption about this.
[Laughter]
Gene was never without Robert. The doll had his own chair at the dinner table and slept
every night in Gene's bed. Even weirder, Gene talked about Robert exclusively as
if he were a living entity. Later, Gene built Robert his own room in the attic,
complete with furniture and other, smaller toys meant for Robert,
including the little animal that Robert can still be seen holding today.
One habit of Gene's that a number of people found quite concerning was his tendency to
blame his own bad behavior on Robert. Gene was known for frequent tantrums, which he would
say were Robert's fault. Spills or overturned chairs would get blamed on the doll as well.
At every turn, whenever chaos and disorder followed the young Gene throughout the Otto home,
"Robert did it" would be the refrain.
"Robert is real.
And he doesn't like it when you scold me."
Perhaps surprising no one, Anne Otto did not care for her husband's strange friend,
and so Robert found himself confined to the Artist House's turret room when the couple
moved into Gene's family home. As it turns out, that wasn't enough to stop his antics.
The adult Gene Otto would often go up to the turret room to work during the day, as he found
the light there preferable for painting. His good pal, Robert, exiled to that same room by
Gene's wife, would be his constant companion, propped up against the southwest window.
As the stories go, however, schoolchildren walking past the Artist House would see Robert
the doll moving from one window to another or even scowling at them through the glass.
After Gene's death, Anne reportedly made sure Robert was locked in a cedar chest in the attic.
Myrtle Reuter bought the house in the 1970s after Anne's death and found herself Robert's
new handler. Visitors to the house claimed they would hear unexplained footsteps skittering
across the attic room above them, as well as disconcerting giggling. According to
the Robert the Doll homepage, a plumber working in the house's attic once heard
giggling and turned to discover that the doll had moved across the room on his own.
Additionally, Robert was alleged to change facial expressions when he could overhear conversations,
especially if they were about him or Gene. One visitor apparently commented that Gene
Otto must have been an old fool, only to see Robert's face twist into an angry scowl.
"It's the doll."
Reuter continued to bear the burden of being Robert's companion even after moving out of
the Artist House, only to discover that Robert would run room to room in her new house, too.
After 20 years as Robert's caretaker, Myrtle Reuter apparently had enough of the doll's
antics and finally donated him to Fort East Martello Museum in Key West in 1994, where he
has spent almost all of his time since. The choice of home was a fitting one, as Robert's pal Gene
Otto had designed the museum's gallery. Robert was not initially put on display in the museum,
but visitors soon showed great curiosity about the doll when they learned he was there. So Robert the
Doll was put in a glass case, sitting in a little chair, much like fellow spooky doll Annabelle.
According to the Robert the Doll homepage, staff started noticing a "shift of energies"
at the museum once Robert arrived. After Robert had been put out for display,
visitors and museum employees noticed that cameras and electronic equipment would
malfunction in the doll's presence, with photos coming out smeared or out of focus, for example.
Mishaps at the museum are often attributed to the doll,
with the common refrain being the same as the one at the Ottos' house, with people claiming,
"Robert did it."
In addition to any mischief Robert might make by running about the museum or gumming up the works
in electronic devices, the creepy little doll is reportedly most famous for placing curses on
visitors who disrespect him, specifically by taking his picture without permission.
Past visitors to the museum have attributed any number of misfortunes to encounters with Robert,
including incidents such as car accidents, job losses, divorce, and physical ailments.
According to the curator of the museum, Robert receives one to three letters a day,
and while some are fan letters, the vast majority are apologies from visitors who had disrespected
Robert during their visit and subsequently suffered some catastrophe in their lives.
In fact, the Robert homepage contains scans of a few letters sent to Robert,
including one from a child who wants to be pen pals with Robert for some reason and
somewhat disconcertingly asks if he has a girlfriend. Another is a desperate letter
of apology for taking Robert's picture without permission from someone who had subsequently
received a speeding ticket and continuous car trouble. The best, though, is the kid
who writes to cheer on Robert for destroying those who disrespect him. Many of the numerous
letters of apology to Robert are pinned up to the walls around his display as a warning to visitors.
Other pieces of Robert's fan mail ask for advice or to curse their enemies with his doll power.
Perhaps needless to say, there is also a gift shop,
where you can buy your own replica Robert doll, among other creepy things.
While Robert has inspired no shortage of popular horror films about possessed,
enchanted, or otherwise maleficent dolls, Robert himself has made something of an impact on popular
culture all on his own. Notably, Robert left Florida for the first time when he
was taken to Las Vegas to appear on Zak Bagans: Mystery Mansion on the Travel Channel in 2015.
He later appeared on an episode of Ozzy and Jack's World Detour, where the Osbourne boys visited
Key West's spookiest boy and bought one of the replicas available in the gift shop. Additionally,
Robert's life story was featured on both the podcast and TV versions of Aaron Mahnke's Lore.
But perhaps most interesting is the Robert the Doll film franchise. Since 2015,
writer and director Andrew Jones has produced movies about Robert at the staggering rate,
starting with 2015's Robert and continuing through The Curse of Robert the Doll in 2016,
Robert and the Toymaker in 2017, The Revenge of Robert the Doll in 2018,
and Robert Reborn in 2019. Apart from using the Ottos' names in the first film,
very little of Robert's real story is preserved, as the setting is moved from Key West in 1904 to
Wales in 2015, and it features a doll that is somehow even uglier than the real Robert.
The later films set Robert's origins during World War II, decades after his actual manufacture.
While Robert is among the most infamous haunted dolls in history,
he is far from the only one. His fame at this point is far outstripped by Annabelle,
the demon-possessed Raggedy Ann doll imprisoned by Ed and Lorraine Warren,
the real paranormal investigators whose lives are the basis for The Conjuring franchise of films,
which includes three movies focusing on Annabelle so far.
Of course, if quantity over quality is what you value when it comes to nightmare dolls,
Mexico City's Isla de las Muñecas is the place for you. This horrifying island full of hundreds
of rotting dolls is a mind-bending tribute to a drowned girl who may or may not have existed.
And, of course, the Chucky franchise continues to expand,
most recently hitting our TV screens in SyFy's "Chucky." As a result,
it's undeniable that Robert the Doll's legacy far outweighs his own appearances in pop culture.
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