The "animal head as helmet" is fine for me, since I would be doing animation editing for closeup speech anyway - wouldn't need the generic "talk" animation you provide :)
But yes, the "animal costume" type thing is the idea. I will fool around with it once you release it, basically see if I can get a Bullwinkle Moose and a Howard the Duck out of it :)
Thank you for being responsive, it means a lot!
J