As we slowly march towards the holidays, we thought it would be appropriate to add some popular, battery-powered toys to our Throwback Thursday routine. Several weeks ago, we reminded you about the existence of the stage-prop turned must-have toy, the Tiger Talkboy. This week, we’re going all the way back to the mid-eighties to talk about Mr. Teddy Ruxpin.
Teddy Ruxpin was a plush, stuffed teddybear released in 1985 by toy manufacturer Worlds of Wonder. Teddy used a standard cassette tape deck hidden behind his tan vest to “tell stories” and “talk” with synchronized mouth and eye movements. Although the bear could play any standard cassette tape, special, Ruxpin-specific tapes could actually coordinate the bear’s movements with the audio. The special cassettes used the tape’s left audio channel for the bear’s vocals and movement instructions were found on the tape’s right audio channel. The toy also contained an input port to hookup its companion toy, Grubby. When Grubby was attached with the included cable, and a Ruxpin-specific tape was inserted in Teddy, the two could interact by jointly telling stories — alternating lines back and forth. In 1985, it seemed like science fiction.
The toy was so popular it eventually got its own TV series dubbed: The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. Although no longer owned by Worlds of Wonder, Teddy is still available today — sans cassette deck.
Hit the jump to see Teddy’s awesomely bad 80’s commercial spot and to let us know if you have any TR memories.
Thanks to @bettiol for this week’s Throwback Thursday suggestion!
BGR’s Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear.
