Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2011 20:10:19 GMT -7
Hi everyone.
I'm new here, though I did send Josh an e-mail recently, which, knowing my luck, got caught in a spam-catcher or some such thing.
I discovered the site a few weeks ago, and having exhausted all of the material on it, I've been trawling as much of the forum as I could possibly read. It seems like a nice place, so I opted to cease lurking and join you all.
I especially enjoyed reading all of the fantastic interviews, though I was a little disappointed that there's no coverage of Worlds of Wonder's "Teddy II" model (the one from the end of the company's life, which Playskool later picked up and adjusted the appearance of slightly, by giving him tighter sleeves, bigger paws and rounder feet, a different shade of brown fur, and bright red clothing instead of the darker shade on the WoW version), as that was the type of Teddy that I had, and still have.
I suppose I should introduce myself, with all of that said!
I got my first Teddy Ruxpin at the age of four or five, but he had to be returned for a replacement or two and later a refund due to unreliability. I was immensely lucky enough to get a Worlds of Wonder talking Mickey Mouse, after this, though, who I still have. In spite of not having a Teddy of my own for a long time, I remained a steadfast Teddy fan thanks to the TV series, and a couple of years later I received the later, smaller Worlds of Wonder model (pre-Playskool, as mentioned above) for Christmas. What a Christmas that was! Whilst he, too, had to be replaced once or twice within a couple of days (eep! That had me worried that I would NEVER have a Teddy Ruxpin, I can tell you!), I soon had a Teddy Ruxpin of my very own, who remains with me until this day. I'm hoping to retrieve him from storage next week - I'm under no illusions that he'll still animate, but hope springs eternal. (Funnily enough, over here in the UK, the WoW "Teddy II"s were considered to be more reliable than the earlier ones, and from what I've seen they are not difficult to find.)
I credit Teddy with teaching me a lot of useful things, though not all of them were taught in his books and TV series (I adored the TV series; As an aside, I don't believe that they ever aired or released the live-action pilot in any form here - indeed, I only learned of its existence in very recent times). For example, it's partly from him that I learned to treat my possessions with great care - I'm very proud to say that I've never once broken or lost my things, and whilst this is something that my parents impressed on me, I'm quite sure that Teddy Ruxpin, being a "delicate" toy who I very much loved, himself acted as a great motivator to keep this in mind.
I'm a proud geek, and pretty much have been from birth, and always found Teddy fascinating for partly this reason. Only partly, though; Technology isn't everything - it's telling a good story that's much more important, and that's yet another thing that I learned.
I'm hoping to pick up the complete TV series on DVD sometime soon, but I gather from posts I've seen around here that I should perhaps wait a while longer on that front. I'm hoping for worldwide availability, but if that doesn't pan out, that's not a problem, since region-free DVD players are commonplace throughout the UK and Europe and importing DVDs is easy.
I'm a budding toy-maker now that I'm grown up (I can design and make a plush just from studying artwork, without maquettes or other three-dimensional references to check), which I'm pretty sure was at least partly influenced by the completeness of Teddy's world and the associated toy-line! Lately I've been reading about the the work Stephen Key and Janan Fairbairn did for Worlds of Wonder. What I've seen and read (such as, for example, the Goofy and Tweeg prototypes here, and this article by Stephen Key) has actually inspired me to try to break into doing prototyping and design for the toy industry, along with continuing to make one-off projects as I already do. As a result of that, I would like to learn to work with animatronics to some degree, so I've also been learning about restoring the original WoW Teddy Ruxpin models lately (way to bring the geekery full-circle, right?
). Now that I'm confident in my understanding of how to deal with most of the common issues that affect them, I hope to try to buy and fix one soon so that I can catch up on all of the books and tapes that I missed out on before (which seem to be more abundant for the original model - did they even release the whole selection in continuous-loop-cartridge form for the WoW/Playskool "Teddy II"? I got the impression that they did not). There are quite a few, as even once I got a Teddy who would never leave me, the economy of the time wasn't very conducive to having many book-and-tape sets! (I had The Airship, as does everyone, along with Lullabies II, and Wooly and the Giant Snowzos. All three are very much imprinted on my memory! I never did find out if they made a cartridge version of Teddy and the Mudblups, though, even though I recall that being my favourite story back when I briefly had the earlier WoW model.)
As time's gone by, I've never forgotten Teddy's influence, but I've also frequently been surprised that nobody else has stepped up to the plate to try to compete with the phenomenon that he was and is. There have been many wannabes that I've seen, from bears with microphones that moved their mouths to your voice in the late 1980s (I actually had one of these after my original WoW Teddy failed, though I don't remember what the packaging called him; I know that I haven't yet seen any pictures online, or even here on this forum, but he resembled Teddy a tiny little bit in his colouring and overall structure), to TV Teddy (who always seemed to me to be the anti-thesis of Teddy Ruxpin - Teddy was all about reading and imagination and good messages, and while I won't doubt that TV Teddy tried at least some of this, focussing him around watching television struck me as something that went against what Teddy had done), to TJ Bearytales (who looked like nightmare-fuel to me the second I set eyes on him - I don't like his facial design at all, and I find him a bit aesthetically displeasing; I know that's subjective, though, and that what I find cute others may not, and vice-versa ).
From what I've seen, not one has ever come close to offering the same sort of adventures, magical atmosphere, world-building (the Teddy Ruxpin franchise was my first experience with such a fully-fleshed-out universe, and that's definitely stayed with me and helped me as a writer), and subtle good (but mercifully not at all preachy) lessons, or the same overall magic and quality. I always find it odd when I see Teddy Ruxpin compared disfavourably to some of these, such as recently when I read a piece comparing him to TJ Bearytales, which proclaimed that Teddy's stories were too scary for youngsters (and posited that because of this scariness they were outdated, because apparently nowadays we're more careful about what we give to kids) and that TJ Bearytales' stories had morals whilst implying that Teddy's lacked them. I actually found it a little sad that some parents now would deny their kids the sort of growing-up that us of the Teddy Ruxpin Generation were lucky to get, in favour of stuff that appears to talk down to the audience. I know where I got my sense of adventure from!
More infuriating than that, though, is when I see Teddy Ruxpin simply dismissed as some sort of icon representing blind consumerism, which I always felt that he was quite the opposite of!
As for my handle; My other great passion is stories about robots, and since some folks describe the animatronics of the Teddy Ruxpin toys as "robot parts" or similar, the name had to be Cyborg Illiop. It's nice to meet you all, and my apologies for my introductory post being so very long!
I'm new here, though I did send Josh an e-mail recently, which, knowing my luck, got caught in a spam-catcher or some such thing.
I discovered the site a few weeks ago, and having exhausted all of the material on it, I've been trawling as much of the forum as I could possibly read. It seems like a nice place, so I opted to cease lurking and join you all.
I especially enjoyed reading all of the fantastic interviews, though I was a little disappointed that there's no coverage of Worlds of Wonder's "Teddy II" model (the one from the end of the company's life, which Playskool later picked up and adjusted the appearance of slightly, by giving him tighter sleeves, bigger paws and rounder feet, a different shade of brown fur, and bright red clothing instead of the darker shade on the WoW version), as that was the type of Teddy that I had, and still have.
I suppose I should introduce myself, with all of that said!
I got my first Teddy Ruxpin at the age of four or five, but he had to be returned for a replacement or two and later a refund due to unreliability. I was immensely lucky enough to get a Worlds of Wonder talking Mickey Mouse, after this, though, who I still have. In spite of not having a Teddy of my own for a long time, I remained a steadfast Teddy fan thanks to the TV series, and a couple of years later I received the later, smaller Worlds of Wonder model (pre-Playskool, as mentioned above) for Christmas. What a Christmas that was! Whilst he, too, had to be replaced once or twice within a couple of days (eep! That had me worried that I would NEVER have a Teddy Ruxpin, I can tell you!), I soon had a Teddy Ruxpin of my very own, who remains with me until this day. I'm hoping to retrieve him from storage next week - I'm under no illusions that he'll still animate, but hope springs eternal.
(Funnily enough, over here in the UK, the WoW "Teddy II"s were considered to be more reliable than the earlier ones, and from what I've seen they are not difficult to find.)I credit Teddy with teaching me a lot of useful things, though not all of them were taught in his books and TV series (I adored the TV series; As an aside, I don't believe that they ever aired or released the live-action pilot in any form here - indeed, I only learned of its existence in very recent times). For example, it's partly from him that I learned to treat my possessions with great care - I'm very proud to say that I've never once broken or lost my things, and whilst this is something that my parents impressed on me, I'm quite sure that Teddy Ruxpin, being a "delicate" toy who I very much loved, himself acted as a great motivator to keep this in mind.
I'm a proud geek, and pretty much have been from birth, and always found Teddy fascinating for partly this reason. Only partly, though; Technology isn't everything - it's telling a good story that's much more important, and that's yet another thing that I learned.
I'm hoping to pick up the complete TV series on DVD sometime soon, but I gather from posts I've seen around here that I should perhaps wait a while longer on that front. I'm hoping for worldwide availability, but if that doesn't pan out, that's not a problem, since region-free DVD players are commonplace throughout the UK and Europe and importing DVDs is easy.
I'm a budding toy-maker now that I'm grown up (I can design and make a plush just from studying artwork, without maquettes or other three-dimensional references to check), which I'm pretty sure was at least partly influenced by the completeness of Teddy's world and the associated toy-line! Lately I've been reading about the the work Stephen Key and Janan Fairbairn did for Worlds of Wonder. What I've seen and read (such as, for example, the Goofy and Tweeg prototypes here, and this article by Stephen Key) has actually inspired me to try to break into doing prototyping and design for the toy industry, along with continuing to make one-off projects as I already do. As a result of that, I would like to learn to work with animatronics to some degree, so I've also been learning about restoring the original WoW Teddy Ruxpin models lately (way to bring the geekery full-circle, right?
). Now that I'm confident in my understanding of how to deal with most of the common issues that affect them, I hope to try to buy and fix one soon so that I can catch up on all of the books and tapes that I missed out on before (which seem to be more abundant for the original model - did they even release the whole selection in continuous-loop-cartridge form for the WoW/Playskool "Teddy II"? I got the impression that they did not). There are quite a few, as even once I got a Teddy who would never leave me, the economy of the time wasn't very conducive to having many book-and-tape sets! (I had The Airship, as does everyone, along with Lullabies II, and Wooly and the Giant Snowzos. All three are very much imprinted on my memory! I never did find out if they made a cartridge version of Teddy and the Mudblups, though, even though I recall that being my favourite story back when I briefly had the earlier WoW model.)As time's gone by, I've never forgotten Teddy's influence, but I've also frequently been surprised that nobody else has stepped up to the plate to try to compete with the phenomenon that he was and is. There have been many wannabes that I've seen, from bears with microphones that moved their mouths to your voice in the late 1980s (I actually had one of these after my original WoW Teddy failed, though I don't remember what the packaging called him; I know that I haven't yet seen any pictures online, or even here on this forum, but he resembled Teddy a tiny little bit in his colouring and overall structure), to TV Teddy (who always seemed to me to be the anti-thesis of Teddy Ruxpin - Teddy was all about reading and imagination and good messages, and while I won't doubt that TV Teddy tried at least some of this, focussing him around watching television struck me as something that went against what Teddy had done), to TJ Bearytales (who looked like nightmare-fuel to me the second I set eyes on him - I don't like his facial design at all, and I find him a bit aesthetically displeasing; I know that's subjective, though, and that what I find cute others may not, and vice-versa
).From what I've seen, not one has ever come close to offering the same sort of adventures, magical atmosphere, world-building (the Teddy Ruxpin franchise was my first experience with such a fully-fleshed-out universe, and that's definitely stayed with me and helped me as a writer), and subtle good (but mercifully not at all preachy) lessons, or the same overall magic and quality. I always find it odd when I see Teddy Ruxpin compared disfavourably to some of these, such as recently when I read a piece comparing him to TJ Bearytales, which proclaimed that Teddy's stories were too scary for youngsters (and posited that because of this scariness they were outdated, because apparently nowadays we're more careful about what we give to kids) and that TJ Bearytales' stories had morals whilst implying that Teddy's lacked them. I actually found it a little sad that some parents now would deny their kids the sort of growing-up that us of the Teddy Ruxpin Generation were lucky to get, in favour of stuff that appears to talk down to the audience. I know where I got my sense of adventure from!
More infuriating than that, though, is when I see Teddy Ruxpin simply dismissed as some sort of icon representing blind consumerism, which I always felt that he was quite the opposite of!
As for my handle; My other great passion is stories about robots, and since some folks describe the animatronics of the Teddy Ruxpin toys as "robot parts" or similar, the name had to be Cyborg Illiop.
It's nice to meet you all, and my apologies for my introductory post being so very long!
My favourite character in the series is Teddy, by the way - I always identified with him more readily than the others, for some reason.