Thread: Gemmy Crystal Ball audio line-in hack

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Thanks very much for the "how to". I'm "heading" to Ross when I leave work. ....and btw, is it me, or does the pic on the box look like Leslie Nielsen????? lol !

Originally Posted by Fiend4Halloween

Thanks very much for the "how to". I'm "heading" to Ross when I leave work. ....and btw, is it me, or does the pic on the box look like Leslie Nielsen????? lol !

He first made his appearance around 8/13 in some Ross stores so you might have trouble finding him. I have been to one Ross store where I know they either put out at least another one or maybe someone returned one. The last time I was in Ross a week or so ago and saw spirit balls it was the witch one, but she doesn't have the mic set up that the white haired guy does. If you have a few Ross' in your area I'd try all of them if you really want him.

BTW I thought he looked like Merv Griffin but I can see the resemblance to Leslie. Actually in person he doesn't look that much like either.

Good luck on your hunt. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Yep! My parts list:

Panel mount RCA jack
Two conductor wire
Solder
Heatshrink tubing

You can use electrical tape if you don't have heatshrink.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by Ghost of Spookie

OpenTrackRacer, I was looking over your hack and would I be correct that all you need to pick up would be an RCA jack, some wire, solder, and some electrical tape maybe (in addition to wire cutter/stripers and solder gun)? I think we'll take out the microphone connection like you did.

Thanks OpenTrackRacer.

Fiend4Halloween, any luck picking up a white haired guy? I was in two ROSS today; one had none but the other one had a white haired guy and a spirit ball swami (no mic). You also might want to check Spirit Halloween stores in your search for one. The SH I was in today had a few 14 inch (full size) spirit balls on clearance, no white haired guys but you never know. Sorry I can't help you more. I see you are in Southern CA and not near me.

BTW the white haired guy's box at ROSS seems to be all in Spanish. Don't let that bother you. He speaks English if you want to use the original voice track he comes with and the instructions are in both English and Spanish.

Anyone looking for the Gemmy White Haired Guy Spirit Ball with Microphone in, check your ROSS stores again. I was in 3 stores in the San Jose, Ca area today (9/12/09) and saw 5 of them in the stores--so they are out there still ($19.99). Here's a link to my post about them.

BTW one of the white haired guys I bought actually is in a box with all English printing. All of the other ones were in Spanish, which as mentioned isn't a problem because the instructions are in both languages and the guy if you want to use his voice track as is is in English.

Neat tutorial and frakken cool Cylon!

Originally Posted by Terra

Neat tutorial and frakken cool Cylon!

I've been a Battlestar Galactica fan so also appreciated the new voice track.

I bought a few of these guys to hack next year and add bodies to (thinking maybe for a Ghouls Band; I'm still brainstorming about faces for them) and with some makeup, different do, and sunglass, I think one of them could be a Stevie Wonder-like singer; white haired guy does have that head tilt thing going on. In fact I could see him singing "Superstition" or maybe "Isn't She Lovely" with a vamp(iress) laying on top of a piano in her long evening dress. Stevie even did a song entitled "Evil" that might be appropriate for a Halloween nightclub act.

OpenTrackRacer, can you tell us how well these guys can sing??

They seems to sing about as well as they talk. Not very coordinated but not too bad. Hmmm... sounds like they're better than my singing!

Thanks for the feedback. We're going to pick up a few RCA jacks probably this weekend and do surgery on one of my guys. My husband was looking over your tutorial and said, you know I might want to take one of these guys into our lab at work and hook him up through the computer, with synthesized speech and iChat (Mac video conferencing) and surprise some of the guys who come into the lab.... hehe...I knew there was some small kernel of kid in there!

Thanks for the heads up, I was able to get my "Bola De Cristal" from Ross yesterday. Personally, I think that he looks like Uncle Fester with hair.

I'm likely going to gut it completely and use the ball for my Madame Leota, but I'm not 100% sure yet.