| “ | I happen to an affinity for Chuck E. Cheese's and my creation, Catgirl. I also like yelling inside the head of my 1980's Helen Henny costume. | ” |
— Crystal Stainton in a 2011 interview
|
| Crystal Stainton | |
 | |
|---|---|
| Crystal in 2013 | |
| Born | September 8th, 1986 (age 31) |
| Other names | "Cryssie"
"The Young Helen" (in the 1990's) |
| Years active | 1990's-present |
| Notable work | Customed characters
Female voices |
| Home town | Utica, New York |
| Family: | Aishwarya Nibhanupudi (wife)
Robert Stainton (father) |
Crystal Wacken Stainton, better known as Crystal Stainton (born Sarah Jamie Mészöly; September 8th, 1986) is a American-Canadian voice actress, musician, writer, DJ, and suit performer. She is the biological daughter of Robert Stainton.
History[]
Crystal was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts at Burbank Hospital to Selena Mészöly and Gilmar Sanford, and was raised by her biological father Robert Stainton.
Crystal was interested in mascot characters and was often at the nurse's office due to her backbone being weak.
She became interested in the costume character industry in 1987 when Robert took her to the Union, NJ Pizza Time Theatre for her second birthday. "I enjoyed the CyberStar visuals of the characters... they made me wanna feel like I was gonna be with them. But I enjoyed Helen, most of all."
Her first walkaround role was (surprisingly) Helen at the Union location "In the not-too-distant past, 1998 to be exact" she recalls. Her other first role was a appearance as Helen at a CEC banquet that was captured on tape. She was 13 when she gained the role, making her one of the youngest performers at an CEC location. She mostly did substituting and road shows during visits to other establishments. When she was 16 in 2001, she gained the role fulltime.
She did her first voice acting role as Little Girl in the Greeny Phatom Kart game (doing "a very high-pitched impersonation of Georgia Denney's Little Girl voice"), and various female roles for her followed after, followed by her creation of Catgirl and the Clawed Crusaders.
In January 2002, Crystal gave birth to a daughter, Marina Stainton, via surrogate.
In 2006, she revealed her love of all things CEC in a post to her own blog. She also revealed she had embarrassing costume accidents, in one of which her head was knocked off after a Chuck E. performer's shoe flew into her face (and also a boy said "Helen's not real!"), one in which was during her audition as she walked aimlessly around the gameroom and got slammed down by a screaming child, one in which she got called "Birdie", and one in which she broke her jaw after landing on a rock after tripping while outside the restaurant trying to get motorists to honk at her and the performers.
In 2008, Crystal became a DJ, debuting at Metro Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.
Crystal attended Chicago Vocational High School for her high school education. In 2014, she graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a degree in drama.
She has been dating a childhood friend of her, Aishwarya Nibhanupudi, since 2002 and they adopted a second daughter, 12-year old Kishori Nibhanupudi-Stainton, in 2015. Crystal came out of the closet as a lesbian in 2008, and she stated that "Aishwarya has been with me ever since I was 7. We have two different nationalities, she's Indian and I'm a American, so we try to get along with being a different person from another country. In fact, I'm a lesbian woman. We don't date a lot, but when we do, we manage to be two cute girls." Crystal then came out to her father and his wife. The two married in November 2016.
In February 2016, Crystal revealed her other embarrassing costume accidents in a interview, in one in which a kid ran away from her screaming "Don't stuff me into a suit", one in which an employee spilled his Tropicana Twister all over her costume's shoe, one in which got caught sleeping on a Baby Pac Man machine after playing it "for about 1 hour" while on a 4-hour visit to a beach for a fundraiser, one in which she tripped and fell into the Skee-ball machine, and one in which she got caught flipping off a angry mom.
Equipment[]
In Fantastic Beatle Boycott, she uses multiple turntables and several keyboards for "extra efficiency" and contributes scratching, sound effects, noises as well as background noises/effects to songs. In Selena and the Animals, she portrays "Emily the Ameraucana" and contributes scratching and sound effects to songs.
Fantastic Beatle Boycott[]
- Reloop RP-8000 Advanced Hybrid Torque Turntable
- Roland TT-99 3-Speed Direct Drive Turntable
- Technics SL-B200 Turntable
- Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB Turntable
- Technics SL-1200GR Turntable
- Vestax PMC 05 IV (Black, x5)
- Roland Jupiter-80 Synthesizer
- Studiologic Sledge 2.0 Polyphonic Synthesizer
- Studiologic Sledge 2.0 Black Polyphonic Synthesizer
- Casio XW-P1 Performance Synthesizer
- Oberheim OB12 Synthesizer
- Casio MT-520 Synthesizer
- Yamaha CS01 Synthesizer
- GitHub Arduinoboy (fitted inside modified Nyko Shock 'n Rock)
- Game Boy Light (Silver, Japan import)
- ROLI Seaboard RISE 49 MIDI Keyboard
- Squier 20th Anniversary Strat (Torino Red, Rosewood fingerboard)
Selena and the Animals[]
- Roland TT-99 3-Speed Direct Drive Turntables
- Vestax PMC 05 IV (Black)
- Roland Jupiter-80 Synthesizer
- Moog Source Synthesizer
- Studiologic Sledge 2.0 Black Polyphonic Synthesizer