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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 8:56:21 GMT -7
I'm guessing it had to do with the fact that the stories on the tapes were meant for kids as young as 3 years old, and weren't being put on television, where they have a certain length of time. As for the crystals and all that, they were removed from the original "The Missing Princess" due to the PSA at the end, but were meant to be in the storyline of the WoW series, as they're used in later stories (Take a Good Look, Double Grubby, The Third Crystal etc), and even mentioned where they were found. Backpack returned that element to the stories for their book and tape sets.
TV show slots are between 30 and 60 minutes, with specials being up to 120 minutes (2 hours), so any show has to have more than 15 minutes of material. However the Teddy Ruxpin tv episodes are only about five minutes longer than the original WoW tapes, but the episodes on tv are thirty minutes because of commercials. So when they expanded the story for the episodes, they were only adding about 5 minutes of additional material.
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Post by thelunarfox on Mar 30, 2012 10:06:57 GMT -7
So when they expanded the story for the episodes, they were only adding about 5 minutes of additional material. That sounds like a little, but it's really a lot. That five minutes wasn't just put on at the end of the original stories. They had to set out to make a story that would last the appropriate amount of time and have the appropriate elements (good guy, bad guy, turning points and all that.) Then the best reason really is the demographic and intended audience. I forget that Teddy was originally aimed at three year olds and up. (Which is crazy! I could hardly handle the bear at age five, and I thrashed the poor guy good.) But the show's aimed for audience was older. Maybe that's part of why Gimmick would have made more appearances in the show? That and he is pretty useful with his smarts and as that all important mode of transportation, haha.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 10:49:22 GMT -7
There's another thing, too, and I think that this might be more a little bit more pertinent than the target age-groups (though they are undoubtedly a factor, too): The tapes have to be as self-contained as they can possibly be, and cannot assume that every single one has been puchased, and as a result are more separated and fable-like.
I like this about them, very much, myself. I felt that BackPack's revised versions have a major failing here, because you are left with unfinished stories that require you to go out and buy more cartridges - indeed, the second track on BackPack's version of The Airship, which finishes halfway through the story, is essentially an ad for the Adventure Series 1 and Adventure Series 2 book-and-cartridge packages. This is something that people wouldn't have been happy about given how poor the economy was back when Teddy first launched!
That's not to say that an overarching story wasn't possible, and indeed the elements for it were all there, but I'm guessing that these elements needed to be prevented from detracting from individual tapes for this reason.
I would imagine that many people did not have all of the tapes, after all*, and the experience would have been ruined if the BackPack approach had been taken initially.
*(I had/have three with my Teddy, myself - The Airship, Wooly and the Giant Snowzos, and Lullabies II. I believe I had three or four during the brief period that I had a Teddy I, before that, but aside from The Airship, I can only really remember having Teddy and the Mudblups.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 11:17:10 GMT -7
I certainly didn't have all of the book and tape sets with my Teddy Ruxpins. I had about half or slightly under half of them. I still have those ones, but my grandmother wasn't able to find certain ones, so I got what she could find.
I agree with you that having an arcing storyline for the original series, wasn't feasible. Though they did sort of have one, as "The Medicine Wagon" was a sequel of sorts to "Tweeg and the Bounders", "Anything in the Soup" was a sequel to "The Mushroom Forest", "Teddy and the Mudblups" was a sequel to the first part of "The Missing Princess" with the Mudblups, and "Grubby's Romance" was a sequel to "Take a Good Look" concerning the reducing machines and the crystals. So they weren't completely self-contained, but definitely more so than the television series was.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 13:46:05 GMT -7
Exactly. There is something of a connection and an order, but it was clearly kept as minimal as possible, and I do think that this was the right way to go about it. If we ever see a Teddy V, I'd like to see a return to that approach - leave the fully-connected saga for TV and movie versions, and play to the toy's strengths, without making parents mad!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 14:07:14 GMT -7
That'd be cool. I mean, it's the parents who buy these toys for their children, and they can't or won't necessarily shell out loads of money to buy every set in the series, just so the kid can follow a storyline. It's like tv these days. Everything is serialized and you can't start watching a show in the middle of a season, because you've missed the first however many episodes, and don't know what's going on.
Even adult and teen fans like the ones on this forum can't get every set in the series, because certain sets may not be available in the fan's area, or they can't afford to buy every set.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 14:08:08 GMT -7
Precisely, as our dear Gimmick would say. To be honest, I'd imagine that in some cases, not all stories will be of interest to any given individual, too. It's another good reason to not link them too closely, in my opinion.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 14:14:02 GMT -7
That's true. Listening to the MP3s of the stories now, I've found there are certain stories that aren't as interesting as others. Like, I don't like "Lullabies II" as much as I do "Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies", or "The Medicine Wagon" as much as I like "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos". But, it's great to be able to listen to all of them just the same.
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