Worlds of Wonder
1985
Created by Ken Forsse with later assistance by Larry Larsen and John Davies Teddy Ruxpin wasn’t a bear. I know, you thought he was, but he wasn’t. He was in fact a Illiop, a creature that looks sort of like a bear. Sure, the name is a bit misleading but still Teddy is not a bear!
Ok, let’s be honest though, he was essentially a Teddy bear wearing an odd Tan and red outfit with a cassette tape compartment on his back, only this one was a little different. See most cassettes have two audio tracks that allow for stereo sound, but the the ones that came with Teddy had audio on the right track, and on the left they utilized a control data stream. What that meant is the left track was used to control servos in the dolls head to move his eyes and mouth. If you stuck one of your tapes into Teddy, he would ignore the left track,
Teddy Ruxpin was a big seller for WoW, becoming Teddy Ruxpin became the best-selling toy of 1985 and 1986 and so additional characters were released, most of them non animated, but they did release a companion, Grubby, who could connect with Teddy via a cable allowing them to interact as the signal from the cassettes was transferred.
Here is an interesting tidbit, At least two other companies (Vector Intercontinental and Veritel Learning Systems) produced tapes that actually worked in the Teddy Ruxpin. They were sued by WoW in 1986, claiming the effect these tapes had on Teddy were the same as their own. This resulted in an infringement of the proprietary recordings, and the courts in Ohio and Texas ordered the infringing tapes off the market.
Yes, there was a cartoon. It ran from 86-87 and featured Teddy and Grubby leaving their homeland in search of adventure. There is an inventor named Newton Gimmick and treasure and crystals and a whole bunch of additional characters.
At the time, WoW was also distributing Laser Tag, another huge hit, and because of that and Teddy Ruxpin they were awarded exclusive rights to distribute an up and coming game system here in the US. Yep, they were the exclusive distributor for the Nintendo Entertainment System. WoW used the strength of Ruxpin to push retailers to stock the NES, which was a big deal after the video game crash of 83. They basically tod stores if they wanted Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag then they needed to stock NES as well. It worked in case you’re wondering, and WoW made a killing from backorder sales of NES alone.
Teddy Ruxpin was everywhere, including the ice capades and a cross promotion with Wendy’s Kids Meals. WoW was, well on top of the World, but then they made a misstep. You see they overestimated the popularity of Teddy Ruxpin and overextended the company’s assets ordering parts for the “bear”. Oddly enough it was believed to be the popularity of the NES that caused the decline in interest for Teddy Ruxpin. Nervous, WoW made a play and issued what are commonly known as “Junk Bonds” in the stock market world. Investors were spooked and began pulling out, and then in 1987 the market crashed. In 1988 they filed for bankruptcy and in 1990 they were closed for business.
Later versions of Teddy would do away with the cassette deck and switch to digital, but he was winning awards even as far as 2006 and in 2019 the Jim Henson Company announced a new series featuring Henson puppets.
In 1991 Playskool and Hasbro released an updated version, in 1998 Yes! Entertainment released a version, in 2005 BackPack Toys distributed one using ROMS and in 2017 it was Wicked Cool Toys gave us Teddy Ruxpin that used an APP.
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Jason Emmitt, signing off.