The Benders Star In Twisted Toy Story

THE BRAINCHILD of a Portlander with a wild imagination, these 4-inch-tall, posable wire figures with magnetic hands and feet are shaping up to be a big hit.

PORTLAND - What do you get when you combine a handful of wire, plastic, magnets and a large dose of imagination?

The Benders, a Portland-born toy/gift/doodad that's bringing out the artiste in shoppers all over the country.

Billed as "posable magnetic sculpture," Benders are 4-inch-tall, plastic-coated wire figures with magnetic hands and feet and flexible bodies. A cross between stick figures and something artist Alexander Calder might have scribbled on a napkin, the Bender family - Joe, Wendy and their dog, Fender Bender - can be twisted into all sorts of poses and shapes. They cling to your fridge, give the thumbs-up or balance in your palm.

"Right now, The Benders is our No. 1 item," said Mark Hebenstreit, president, founder and "Head Hog" of Hog Wild, a quirky Portland toy company that brought the world the "Pro Thumb Wrestling" ring and the "Air Head!" suction-cup propeller.

Though Hog Wild now markets The Benders, which are handmade in China, the wiry ones were created in Steve Walterscheid's southeast Portland basement in October.

"It's something I came up with over the years tinkering with wire," said Walterscheid, a bar manager at Wildwood Restaurant and Bar.

He dubbed the original Bender Fat Stevie.

Fat Stevie?

"Well, I don't know," Walterscheid, 36, said. "My name's

Steve." But the figures are anything but tubby. "I know," he mused. "It was the opposite."

Walterscheid's unlikely success story started one night at Wildwood, when he approached a table full of staffers from Twist, hip art, crafts and gift shops in Portland.

"He puts this little disc-like container on everybody's plates and says, `I'm making these at home, what do you think?' " recalled Paul Schneider, the owner of Twist.

"Everybody started playing with them," Schneider said, bending the figures into positions both playful and suggestive.

"I said, `I'll take as many as you can make,' " Schneider said. "They're really quite great, they're kinetic and so simple. It's the essence of good design. And Steve has that super-dry sense of humor."

Walterscheid, who is married and the father of two sons, 4 and 2, would come home from Wildwood and toil on Fat Stevies in the basement until 4 a.m.

Pricing them at $10, Twist was constantly selling out of the figures. "Between the end of November and Christmas, Paul sold 700 of them, I think," Walterscheid said. "He wanted more, but I couldn't keep up production."

Walterscheid took his creations to Hebenstreit at Hog Wild, and The Benders dynasty was born.

In preparation for the February American International Toy Fair - the biggest toy trade show of the year - Hebenstreit ordered 20,000 Benders. "By the time we got to Toy Fair, we had sold every one of them," Hebenstreit said.

And the orders have kept on coming. Since Toy Fair, Hebenstreit said, Hog Wild has sold more than 450,000 pieces of the Bender family to stores. They can also be ordered at www.hogwildtoys.com.

"Those are considered good numbers, even if you deal with Wal-Mart, which we don't," Hebenstreit said.

There's more Bender Mania to come. This fall, the children's toy book publisher, Klutz, will unveil a three-book series featuring the Bender Family with ideas on poses (adding paper clips to their feet for "skis," customized with a twisty-tie "neck scarf").

Wendy Bender, however, proved too hot for Klutz to handle. "Controversy set in due to the fact that Wendy has breasts," Hebenstreit said.

Klutz wasn't comfortable with that degree of anatomical accuracy. So Wendy was replaced with Brenda Bender, whose gender is indicated by a flip hairdo.

Despite the Klutz embargo, Hebenstreit says Hog Wild will keep Wendy.

"For them, Brenda is Joe's counterpart, and for us, Wendy is Joe's spouse. Wendy's keeping her curves."

The Bender clan will further expand next year. Look for a cat (Mind Bender or Tail Ender Bender), a tuxedoed Joe and begowned Wendy in a heart-shaped tin (Love Me Tender Benders) and Surfer Joe Bender.

"We may take Wendy and put a little blindfold around her and have her hold a little scale like the scales of Justice, and call her Public Defender Bender," Hebenstreit said.

As for Walterscheid, he's not quitting his day job. "This is kind of a hobby, a thing I always had to do," he said.

"We've made some good money already, but who knows? We'll see what happens. I don't know if we're going to get the gold ring, but it's been pretty exciting."