The lion lives! · 11:54pm Oct 9th, 2015
Those of you who read “Our Girl Scootaloo” may remember a certain stuffed lion with a music box in his tummy that plays ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow,’ appearing in chapter two. When I wrote it, I assumed such a toy must exist, but some months later, when I went to look for one, no such singing lion could be found. This was a little upsetting, especially given that I actually had a genuine need for such an item, but my wife and I were determined to improvise.
And now he’s real. It wasn't that hard, either, so we figured we'd share this as a how-to, in case anyone else wants one.
We started with a $10 stuffed lion ordered from the Big Cat Rescue in Florida. Every purchase helps to raise money for the very worthy cause of caring for rescued endangered species, so if you get your lion from here, also, you'll be helping real ones, which seems like a pretty good deal to me.
Next, we found a company online called Invite By Voice and ordered one of their programmable stuffed animal music boxes, for about $12 plus shipping. 
The software to program said box is free, and while it can be a little clunky, it does work. We discovered that editing the sound file with Audacity
to optimize the sampling rate worked pretty well, and provided you upload a 320mbps mp3 to the music box at the 16khz sampling rate or lower, this music box has fairly decent capacity. It holds and plays the whole song, in fact. We ripped it from the original 1939 movie soundtrack, which my wife has on CD because of course she does. (It was her favorite movie when she was a little girl.)
After a little 'stuffed animal surgery,' we managed to get the programmed, battery-filled music box inside the lion. My wife is pretty good with a needle and I'm pretty good at providing a distraction, let's put it that way. But here is our finished result, a lion that plays the song, just like the story had. The same technique will allow pretty much anyone to make pretty much any stuffed animal play any song they choose, and we figured, well, with Christmas coming, this might prove helpful to some adult with $40 or less to spare, but who nonetheless wants to make some lucky child very happy. (The potential custom-plushie applications are infinite.)
And yes, that is our little girl, cuddling her new toy.
So...
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