Origins of King Cake Baby

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This crazy giant baby-monster is the brainchild of Jonathan Bertuccelli and his Studio3 creative shop.

Bertuccelli is a master designer and sculptor whose family has been creating Mardi Gras floats and props for generations in his hometown of Viareggio, Italy, and for decades here in New Orleans. He tells us how King Cake Baby came to be, and why unique designs, especially those that are a little “off,” have been central to Carnival celebrations around the world.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Tell me about creating the King Cake Baby. Was the creepiness intentional?

It was a little bit intentional. When I made it, of course I showed my client photos of it being built and being made. And they gave me a lot of freedom. They said we want a king cake baby, a king and a jester — but they didn’t give me any ideas or any designs. They left it up to me. So I built it, and as I was building it I would send them the progress report and show them photos, and then I showed up with it and they were all happy.

They wanted it to be a little… they didn’t say creepy-creepy, but to have something about him. They didn’t want it to be cuddly and cute; they wanted it to be a little wacky-looking. You know, Mardi Gras — I’m a float builder, I build floats for a living, and if you look at Mardi Gras there is a lot of goofy, creepy, kind of mystical-looking stuff at Mardi Gras. And I’m an immigrant, I came here as a little kid from Italy, and my family builds Mardi Gras in Italy. So it also has a little bit of their Old World, medieval, marionette kind of look from Italy, from France.

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