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Post by Paul on Aug 21, 2015 13:21:53 GMT -7
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Aug 23, 2015 6:22:08 GMT -7
You can probably blame Chucky for part of that.
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Aug 25, 2015 23:34:27 GMT -7
You can probably blame Chucky for part of that. Yes, I think there may be some truth to this remark for sure. I do however think there is a bit of another phenomenon at work. Most stuff these children today play with are not items that most of us here would have had as children. Cellphones with cameras and the ability to access the internet from anywhere, iPods, iPhones, iPads, tablets, nooks, laptops. These things were existent in my childhood, some in a more limited fashion than others, but as a child I did not play with them. They were far too expensive for starters. My parents had to prioritize their spending habits on other things besides technology. Now it seems no one cares if they are in debt up to their eyeballs. As long as they have their house, their two cars, their family cellphone plan, their TV, Internet and Home phone bundles they do not care. Bring the debt on, everyone else is in debt too. In many ways it is really cool that technology is getting into everyone's hands, but there are some downsides to it. This has really changed the way that things are done. Some changes I think really stink. I don't like what digital media has done to music. I really don't like what cloud computing is further doing to music! I don't like what the nook is doing to novels and books. Internet employment applications have utterly DESTROYED the hiring and interviewing process!! But here's one children are interested in: A cereal box. A Modern cereal box almost makes me sick to see. They used to have games, word puzzles, Mazes, "What's wrong with this picture?" and "What is different in these two pictures?" Now it is just 2-d barcodes and URL's to look up on a phone. I'll give a rough estimate of what I saw: Can you help Toucan Sam follow his nose out of the jungle to his Froot Loops? Log onto Frootloopscrappyinternetsite(dot)com to play. Get your parents' permission first. Standard data rates and message rates may apply.
You have to log on. meaning you have to create a profile and password, likely linked to an email so they can spam you darn inbox with general mills junk and then spam your phone with junk texts. But I digress. These technological devices are really taking away from imagination and wonder with some things. I was shocked beyond words one time when I went to a Cracker Barrel, bought a gyroscope and showed it to my ex girlfriend. She had never seen one. I showed her how it worked and what could be done with it and she was not impressed. I later took it to our regular Pokemon trading card card league and only two children there knew what it was. Those two children were being raised by their grandfather, I might add. I don't think that modern parents are spending money on toys to spark imagination and creativity when they can buy electronics, even super tough Playskool versions of these devices that small children cannot hurt. Why should mom let her kids play with Playdough or finger paints when they can use some crummy digital app on a notebook to do the same thing? She won't have to spend time cleaning up a mess, or Heaven forbid, get into it all with them and get her hands dirty with them, like my mother did. I am getting into the weeds a bit here so I need to bring it back. When children can look up everything they hear and see on the internet and learn how it works it spoils the magic of an animatronic bear. I think Teddy could be made in a manner to get more interest, but it is going to require much more sophistication for these modern day tech-toddlers. |
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Aug 26, 2015 6:59:45 GMT -7
^ Agreed. Kids today just aren't impressed with non-electronic things anymore.
I know how Teddy works, but if anything, knowing how he works just makes me that much more impressed with Mr. Forsse and Alchemy II. Just knowing that they could create something as complex as Teddy in the early 1980s is just amazing to me. Even more amazing is the fact that, if taken care of, Teddy can still be working 20+ years later.
How many Playstations, Xboxes, and iPhones are still going to be functional some twenty years from now?
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Aug 26, 2015 11:39:57 GMT -7
Kayla, I like your response and i want to give each thought in it the attention and focus it deserves so I am going to split it up and handle it piecemeal. ^ Agreed. Kids today just aren't impressed with non-electronic things anymore. I find this very sad, personally. There are a great number of toys out there that are not electronic that have a lot of fun that can be had with them. The Gyroscope was one of them. It almost scares me to know that there is at least one generation of children who do not know what a gyroscope is. Or a Spirograph. My ex had never seen a Spirograph either! I know how Teddy works, but if anything, knowing how he works just makes me that much more impressed with Mr. Forsse and Alchemy II. Just knowing that they could create something as complex as Teddy in the early 1980s is just amazing to me. Even more amazing is the fact that, if taken care of, Teddy can still be working 20+ years later. How many Playstations, Xboxes, and iPhones are still going to be functional some twenty years from now? Knowing how it works is not what takes away for someone like you. We appreciate the trouble it took to design, fabricate and assemble a Teddy Ruxpin and what effort it took to get him from prototype, to beta model to production model. (There are always things that need tweaking and fixing, pulling, poking and prodding when you go from a bench test model to beta test model then to full production model. This is true for software, electronics, mechanical devices, even chemical reactions and processes to make chemicals from the lab bench scale to the production scale.) Knowing how something works doesn't necessarily take away from the wonder or enjoyment of that something. I can share a story. For as long as I can remember I have always been fascinated by things which turn or spin. My mother said it surprised her to see me when I was an infant, I would spin a little rattling toy that was on my baby crib. She said later it surprised her and my father when I was about 3, 4 and 5, when we would go to an amusement park, I would ride a ride and I would be staring at the motor, pulleys, belts and gear-works of the ride, trying to figure it all out. Only recently she told me about this. She then told me she wondered if I even enjoyed the ride because all the other children riding, say a carousel, would wave as they went by, but I had my head turned looking at the motion system of the ride. They knew I was happy because I wasn't crying to get off. But I was fascinated by the stuff turning. I liked to turn over my sister's ten speed bike and crank the pedals and watch the entire system of sprockets and chains run the wheel. I loved to watch all the stuff under the hood of a car turn when the engine was running. I can't tell you why. My grandfather willed me his grandfather clock when he passed away and he went into details why in his will. He said he could remember when I was little, I would get a chair from the dining room table, stand on it, open the side panels of the clock and look at the entire clockworks inside it moving. He said I would get very excited at the movements which were responsible for Westminster Chime and hour gongs. He also said I used to make him a nervous wreck that I would put my fingers or some foreign object inside and mess it up but I never did, I only watched the entire ensemble of gears and cogs moving. He said when he would wind and reset it, it made him think of me and he wanted me to have it and cherish it. The entire ensemble is like a symphony of motion to me. I cannot explain it better than that. Each gear and wheel in a mechanical object has its part like the strings, woodwinds and percussion in an orchestra. Perhaps I was a mechanical engineer in a past life. My parents saw this and nurtured it. They sacrificed to get me pretty expensive toys with mechanical parts in them. Technic Lego, Gear and pegboard sets, Capsela, Visible V-8 engine models, see through car models, live model steam engines that really boiled water and ran from the steam created and all sorts of stuff like it. That did not take away from toys like Teddy Ruxpin. You are 100% correct. I wrote that thinking that many others do not have such toys for their children. I guess it was a pretty silly thought. Computer and digital cannot be everything. Well rounded is best. I just do not see toys like that in places like Toys R Us anymore. In fact, when I wanted to buy a Spirograph quite recently, I could not find one in Target, Wal-Mart or Toys R Us, I had to go to ebay to get it. The Science Aisle that used to be in Toys R Us was my favorite Aisle and was rivaled only by the Lego, Mega-Blocks and Tyco Superblocks Aisle. (That was years ago now. They haven't had Aisles in many years.) If these toys still exist, they are not for sale in normal channels anymore. Few things I have have held up 20+ years. I still have my Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and all the game cartridges. They are a little finicky but I can usually get them to work with a little bit of finagling. And over the years, since I was a kid, I have had to really take great care of these game systems and their cartridges. I often mowed lawns to buy them with my own money or ask for them for months for Christmas or my birthday. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were bought with stamps I earned selling stuff for Boy Scout Fund Raisers. It made me care well for them. that having been said, my P.S.One has already bit the dust. I replaced it with a P.S.2. I also find it fascinating that many of the Teddy Ruxpins, which are now pushing closer to 30 years old, just need some minor TLC to make them work proper. That says volumes for the quality and workmanship of the design. Wow! I am off topic. What would be cool and I think might reach more children, is to have Teddy more interacting, perhaps give him a Furby brain and have that level of interaction with him. Make him possibly Bluetooth enabled and have him able to connect to some of these devices. I think it is the only way to fascinate the modern child with him. |
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Aug 26, 2015 12:31:16 GMT -7
That's such a sweet story about your grandfather, Sylverwolfe. Thank you for sharing it.
They really did build things to last back in the 80s and early 90s, didn't they? My little cousin doesn't know what to think about Teddy, but I'm hoping that she'll appreciate him more when she gets older.
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Aug 26, 2015 15:49:16 GMT -7
That's such a sweet story about your grandfather, Sylverwolfe. Thank you for sharing it. Your welcome. I wanted to share it. My mother was executor of the will. My brother got my grandfather's prized electric organ, because he is musical, and I got the clock. I think my grandfather put the story in the will in case there was any bickering or arguing over who should have the clock with other relatives. When my mother read it, I was grinning ear to ear with tears in my eyes. It was fun telling the story again. My grandfather was quite a man and he is missed. I am glad you appreciated it. I enjoyed telling it. They really did build things to last back in the 80s and early 90s, didn't they? Well they did in other places. Things to last that were made in the United States were made before the late 1960's and early 1970's. The plastic that was good in the United States was Bakelite. They make nothing of Bakelite anymore. The first touch tone phones were made of this virtually indestructible plastic. But you could go to Japan or Korea and get good quality stuff inexpensively there. Matchbox Cars and Hotwheels cars were still made of metal. I don't know now. I don't even know where to look in a modern Toys R Us for such cars. It seems as if the "make-it-to-break" style of making toys caught on even in places such as Korea and Japan as well. Most do not hold up like the used to. My little cousin doesn't know what to think about Teddy, but I'm hoping that she'll appreciate him more when she gets older. If you make Teddy something to be loved and cherished, your cousin will love and cherish Teddy. |
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Aug 26, 2015 18:30:26 GMT -7
I was very close to my grandfather, too. I'll always look at a cookie jar with fondness, because one of the rituals we go through whenever we'd visit him and my grandfather was sitting in front of the television and munching on vanilla wafers and peanut butter. The cookies were always kept in a jar, so I always smile whenever I see one.
I'll bet cheapness is probably to blame for a lot of it. Corporations are just too cheap to make something that will stand the test of time, yet charge consumers an arm, a leg, and their firstborn for their products.
You can be certain I will. I've already started singing the occasional song for "Lullabies I" to her. I've also heard that her and her older brother both enjoyed the cartoon, so fingers crossed.
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Post by Fen on Nov 6, 2015 12:04:15 GMT -7
Sylverwolfe: I like your idea of having more interaction with Teddy. At one point I believe they did have a Teddy Ruxpin accessory that allowed Teddy to "interact" with a child while watching a VHS. I'm not sure how it worked, beyond maybe the same sort of concept as a remote control? A light would flash from the console on the TV attached to the VHS which would trigger a response from Teddy. However, Furby brought a new level of interaction and I think the technology was under-appreciated at the time it came out. I never liked Furby because the "learning" curve meant you had to listen to a lot of gibberish before the AI would start to reproduce actual words and phrases. However, the sensors and the concept could be applied to Teddy. In that, the same AI that runs Siri could be used as a type of interface for Teddy. The stories could be downloaded, and the hardware upgraded to a smoother running appliance that reduces noise and would allow for more plush in the head and body. As I recall, the original Teddy Ruxpin was quite hard in places. The doll could also be charged and attached to a PC or MAC via a USB cable to eliminate bulky batteries. The problem with the way technology is today, is that it is instant gratification, but I still don't think it can replace actual hands on play. My son loves to get his hands dirty in the yard and he prefers the sand pit over electric toys which he gets bored of once he learns all the cycles and how they work. I think that was the beauty of Teddy Ruxpin, the toy bridged the gap and allowed for imaginative play to continue on after the story had finished. I can't really see that with a games console or with even a phone. The latest attempt at this though has been the rise of collectable figures that started with Skylanders and the more recently Nintendo's Amibos. The idea is quite cool, in particular what Nintendo has done with allowing the amibos to interact via the hand held part of the Wii U. Compared to Disney's Infinity, Lego, and Skylanders which require a base attached to the console in order for the figures to interact. Still the concept is a good one at bridging the gap. I don't think it really promotes imaginative play in the same way that we had growing up. Yes we had action figures, and toys... and we had favourite shows, but once the shows were over, we used our own imaginations to make up new stories and come up with new ideas. In that respect, there really has not been much advancement in the toy industry that has changed beyond the cost for action figures has gone up, and they are far more articulated than ours were.
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Post by lachlant1984 on Nov 7, 2015 2:32:53 GMT -7
That Is Really Sad. But Just Wait Till He Comes Out Next Summer. XD I agree that it's sad, but what I'm really interested in is the other things you said. "But wait until he come out next Summer". Has a new version of Teddy Ruxpin actually been announced? Do you know for certain a new version is coming out? What did you mean by that comment. |
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Post by teddyruxpin24 on Nov 8, 2015 20:40:01 GMT -7
the answer is yes, he is coming back next summer. I found this out by going on trademarkia.com and when I looked up "teddy ruxpin", a new trademark was filed for him by alchemy 2 back in april 2015.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2015 7:00:41 GMT -7
Just because a new copyright is filed, doesn't mean that they're actually bringing Teddy back. I mean, a lot of things have copyrights filed, and then nothing ends up happening because they can't get any backing for it. It's the same for movies and TV shows. Until we hear an official announcement, I would advise not getting our hopes up, in case for whatever reason, Teddy isn't able to make a comeback.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2015 7:01:32 GMT -7
Also, who says that the copyright is for a new Teddy Ruxpin toy? What if it's for a new animated series or a movie?
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Post by herdmentality on Nov 26, 2015 17:23:01 GMT -7
Leapster has ruined a generation of children who can now have a bear remember their birthday favorite color and sing their name in a song, but nothing compares to the gob smacked ore of coming home after school on my 5th birthday to find my nan had bought me gabby bear and my mum had bought me Ruxpin spent the whole night playing with both.
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Post by lachlant1984 on Nov 27, 2015 14:02:03 GMT -7
the answer is yes, he is coming back next summer. I found this out by going on trademarkia.com and when I looked up "teddy ruxpin", a new trademark was filed for him by alchemy 2 back in april 2015. Teddy Ruxpin means a great deal to everyone on this forum, we've all had our history with Teddy Ruxpin one way or another be it growing up with one as a child or discovering it later on in life, many of us have told our Teddy Ruxpin stories over the years. Teddy Ruxpin means a lot to me too. Whilst I've been wanting to see a new version of Teddy Ruxpin for some time now, I will say that the rumours of a new version of Teddy being released are actually starting to annoy me to be brutally honest with you, I'm beginning to get tired of people saying things like this. How can you be certain that a new version of Teddy Ruxpin is coming out next Summer? You specifically talk about Summer, but how do you know that's when one will be released? Whilst I know of the Teddy Ruxpin related article on Trademarkia, I haven't read the article properly, I've only glanced at it very briefly, I need to read the article in full before I can say anything conclusive. The forum user monkeyboy5185 (I hope I got the name right), posed some very good questions and replies to your comments. Whilst a new cartoon show or Teddy Ruxpin themed movie of sorts is not the same as a new toy, it's a step in the right direction, but we will see what happens in the fullness of time. The big problem is, people read articles like the one everyone's talking about and then they immediately come to a conclusion that a new version of Teddy Ruxpin is coming out, they tell everyone and everyone gets excited, then gets upset when nothing happens, ti is a problem. |
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