Child's Play's Chucky is a popular and memorable horror character, but where did the idea for
the doll come from?
His roots can be traced back to a very creepy real-life toy: Robert the doll.
Here's the true story of the indirect inspiration for Chucky, among other horrific dolls.
Robert the Doll was owned by Robert the Human: Robert Eugene Otto.
Otto gave the doll his own name, though he himself 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.
He grew up to be a notable, eccentric painter and author.
In Paris, he met his wife, Anne, a concert pianist.
They lived in New York for a while before moving back to the Key West home where Otto
had grown up.
They would rename the manor the Artist House, where they would live until the end of their
days.
Gene died in 1974, and Anne followed two years later.
The Artist House is a hotel now, and visitors have reported sighting an unsettling apparition
strolling the turret room staircase.
It's not a spooky doll; it's beautiful woman wearing a wedding dress, said to be the ghost
of Anne Otto, patrolling her own home.
Robert the doll is elsewhere.
Robert the doll's look alone is pretty unsettling.
He's got black, beady eyes and a weird monkey face covered with the scars of more than a
century of aging.
He wears a little sailor suit and holds a doll of his own, a little stuffed animal with
bug eyes and a wide-open mouth.
Robert is not just weird.
He's unique.
As Atlas Obscura explains, Robert was not a mass-produced toy for children everywhere.
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
President Theodore Roosevelt.
Built around the turn of the 20th century, Robert is 40 inches tall and stuffed with
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 impish new friend.
Considering Gene gave the doll his own name and his own clothes, it almost makes you wonder
if Gene didn't send a little piece of his soul into the doll.
Atlas Obscura reports that Gene Otto's grandfather gave him the doll as a gift on the boy's fourth
birthday in 1904.
His grandfather bought it on a trip to Germany, presumably from the window display at the
Steiff Company.
But that's not the only version of the story.
The Artist House website says the doll was a gift from a young Bahamian girl, given either
as a simple present or as retaliation for some wrong perpetrated by the Otto family.
Slate relates the story that the doll was a gift from the family's Bahamian maid.
The added element of the Bahamas is seemingly meant to bring voodoo into the story.
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 supernatural antics, but also theorizes that the young Otto imbued the doll
with potent emotional energy by constantly blaming the doll for everything negative in
his life.
Whatever the case, Robert's apparent activity has continued for more than a century.
Gene Otto and Robert the doll were inseparable for much of Otto's life.
According to Slate, Otto would carry Robert with him everywhere.
At night, Otto's mother could hear him talking with the doll, who spoke in his own voice.
Though she originally assumed her son was doing both voices, she would later come to
doubt that assumption.
The doll had his own chair at the dinner table and slept every night in Otto's bed.
Even weirder, Otto talked about Robert as if he were alive.
Later, Otto built Robert his own room in the attic, complete with furniture and toys meant
for Robert, including the smaller doll Robert can still be seen holding today.
The young Otto had a tendency to blame his bad behavior on Robert.
The boy 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.
Perhaps surprising no one, Anne Otto did not care for her weird husband's even weirder
friend, so Robert found himself confined to the Artist House's turret room when the couple
moved into the Otto family home.
The adult Gene Otto would often go to the turret room to work during the day because
he found the light there preferable for painting.
Robert would be his constant companion, propped up against the southwest window.
As the stories go, 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 Otto's death, Anne made sure Robert was locked in a cedar chest in the attic.
Myrtle Reuter bought the house after Anne's death and found herself Robert's new owner.
Visitors claimed they would hear unexplained footsteps skittering across the attic above
them, as well as disconcerting giggling.
According to the Robert the doll website, 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.
Robert was also said to change facial expressions when he could overhear conversations.
One visitor commented that Gene Otto must have been an old fool, only to see Robert's
face twist into an angry scowl.
Reuter continued to bear the burden of being Robert's caretaker even after moving out of
the Artist House, only to discover that Robert would run rampant in her new house, too.
After owning Robert for 20 years, Myrtle Reuter had apparently had enough and 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; Robert's pal Gene Otto designed the museum's gallery.
Robert was not initially put on display, but museum 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 chair.
According Robert's website, museum staff started noticing a, quote, "shift of energies" once
Robert arrived.
After Robert was 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.
Mishaps at the museum are often attributed to the doll, with the common refrain being
the same as the one at the Ottos' house: "Robert did it."
"A lot of people talk about feeling a very negative heat energy around him.
Other people claim to see him move within the case, change positions all on his own."
Robert can be visited at the museum every day except Christmas.
You can even see him at night, after the other exhibits have closed.
He is temporarily moved to the Old Post Office and Custom House every October.
The impish doll is 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 car accidents, broken bones, job loss, and even divorce.
According to the museum's curator, Robert receives one to three letters a day.
While some are fan letters, the vast majority are apologies from visitors who had disrespected
Robert during their visit and subsequently suffered some catastrophe.
The Robert homepage has posted a few letters sent to Robert, including one from a child
who wants to be pen pals with Robert for some reason, somewhat disconcertingly asking 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 had continuous car trouble.
The best, though, is the kid who writes to cheer on Robert for destroying those who disrespect
him.
Many of the 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 just to curse their enemies with
eldritch doll power.
There is also a gift shop, where you can buy your own replica Robert doll, among other
creepy things.
Many fans believe Robert has a sweet tooth, so it's not uncommon for visitors to leave
candy at Robert's display.
The museum even once received a box full of peppermints addressed to Robert with no return
address.
Other visitors will leave Robert gifts of money and even marijuana, which hasn't chilled
him out at all.
Cori Convertito, the museum's curator and Robert's current caretaker, tends to these
tributes.
In addition to making sure the Florida humidity doesn't ruin Robert's wood-shaving-filled
body, reading all his mail and sometimes answering it, Convertito also runs Robert's social media
accounts.
Besides his official homepage, Robert also has a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account.
Among the various horrors to be found on the haunted doll's fan page are a collection of
memes.
One, with Robert's face was photoshopped onto that famous picture of Kim Kardashian spraying
champagne onto her butt, was part of a social media campaign to get attention for the museum
in order to win a grant.
And it did!
Robert really does have mystical powers, it seems.
Robert has inspired no shortage of popular horror films about evil dolls.
And 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 Ghost Adventures: Artifacts on the Travel Channel in 2015.
Then skip ahead to 26:55 to 26:58 "Their stories are quite eerily similar."]
"Is it true that Robert the Doll actually inspired the movies Child's Play?"
"Their stories are quite eerily similar."
He later appeared on an episode of Ozzy and Jack's World Detour, in which the Osbournes
visited Key West's spookiest boy and bought one of the replicas in the gift shop.
Robert's life story was also featured on the podcast and TV versions of Aaron Mahnke's
Lore.
Robert the Doll also has its own film franchise.
Since 2015, writer/director Andrew Jones has a Robert film every year: Robert in 2015,
The Curse of Robert in 2016, Robert and the Toymaker in 2017, The Revenge of Robert the
Doll in 2018, and Robert Reborn in 2019.
Aside from using the Ottos' names in the first film, very little of Robert's real story is
preserved.
The setting is moved from 1904 Key West to 2015 Wales, and it features a doll that is
somehow even uglier than the real Robert.
The later films put Robert's origins in World War II, and one of the movies features a haunted
doll killing a train full of Nazis.
Robert is far from the only haunted doll in horrortown.
There's, of course, 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
film franchise of films.
The three Annabelle movies have very little to do with the reported Annabelle case, but
they've definitely created a haunted-doll brand.
Another haunted doll is Charley, found at the bottom of a trunk with a yellowed copy
of the Lord's Prayer in a spooky old house in 1968.
Like Robert, Charley supposedly tormented the family who found him and spoke to the
family's youngest child in the middle of the night.
Charley has long made his home in a curio shop outside Salem, Massachusetts, where it
is said he can still be seen moving from time to time.
If you prefer quantity when it comes to nightmare dolls, Mexico City's Isla de las Muñecas
is the place for you: it's an island full of hundreds of rotting dolls as a mind-bending
tribute to a drowned girl who may or may not have existed.
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