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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 19, 2008 8:08:04 GMT -7
Ah Im glad I'm not the only one who was unfortunate to lay eyes on Gabby Bear ... misery like that should be shared so people can bond over it later A guy who worked with the original Teddy team stole the plans, headed overseas and that hidiousity is what we got out of it. Luckily the production was quickly shot down. TJ Bearytales reminded me of Gabby Bear... I think it was the creepy eyes.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 19, 2008 7:59:01 GMT -7
Yes, welcome to this board, hope to see you often. Thanks for stopping by my site and joining, and look forward to you joining our discussions and having alot of fun with us here on the board.
Once again, a warm welcome. Josh
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 22:31:31 GMT -7
Just posted my reviews of "The Wooly Whats It", "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" and "King Nogburt's Castle" and Villicles' review of "Captured" to the guide. For those of you who have also contributed, I just ran out of time to get screen captures tonight but will be posting your reviews soon and thank you again!
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 20:50:24 GMT -7
The responses in this thread continue to warm my heart. Sometimes the fictional realm can bring a level of happiness to one's life that transforms that realm into a place that's not so fictional at all when validated by real life experiences. Meeting my lifelong hero out of the deal is enough to accomplish that in itself... then I meet individuals, here being one example, that so generously offer me the kind of friendship Teddy and co. offered me and each other, and I'm twice as lucky. I'm so thankful and proud to have had so many of you here with me keeping the memories of Teddy alive when he was gone, and that you are all still here now that he has returned, making sure that nobody ever forgets again the special kind of friendship he offers, and also the warm friendships and positive emotions that he fosters between and within others.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 20:31:34 GMT -7
I echo many of your feelings about Quellor, Vincent, and I do think without him the series, particularly the second half, would have had a much different feel. Once again a great voice actor- Les Lye- brought the character to life as well. Some people compare him to Dr. Claw of Inspector Gadget- (The two series had the same executive producer- Andy Heyward) but I think Quellor's aura, while still evil, is much less crazy than that of Dr. Claw, and for that I am thankful. Someone hellbent on destruction with no logic or any other kind of emotion other than evil and anger.. (those were certainly Quellor's overwhelming emotions, but he was more complex) would have overshadowed the good lessons that Teddy was trying to teach. I think without Ken's input on the character we would have seen a much more vile villain leading MAVO. As said before, Ken wanted to keep the villains more like Tweeg and there is certainly an aspect of Quellor that is a failure as the MAVO leader (remember MAVO didn't take posession of the real crystals under his rule) But back to the voice... there was a human quality in that gruff vocal... when he would get exasperated at the low intelligence of Sludge and Drudge, when he would get angry at Tweeg... a villain living only for rage would have simply done away with such underlings... Quellor had much more human emotions dealing with those kind of things and the voice was perfect.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 18:42:19 GMT -7
six new members and a ton of activity here in just the last month... I'm really feeling good about the growth here and all the interest in Teddy! I'm posting an update to the site tonight.... at least 3 new episodes to the guide, at least one new song lyric and maybe more depending on just how long Mr. Maxwell House can keep me going tonight Check it out and leave feedback as always. Josh
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 13:36:39 GMT -7
Re: TJ Bearytales, Playskool had the Teddy licensing for a very long time and chose to do nothing with it but let it sit on a shelf... then as soon as Teddy comes back they roll out a poor man's version of Gabby Bear (another bad knock off of Teddy from the 80s) with said annoying voice to try to capture Teddy's audience. We can see how well that went for them! ) Too often characters who are charismatic and actually have a story to tell, like Teddy, get put on the backburner in order to make room for shallow, cookie-cutter annoyances such as TJ Bearytales. I have several theories as to why, but even my own hypothesis don't make much sense to me.... I said it when he came out and I have been proved right... I doubt anyone will bother to put up even a message board devoted to TJ Bearytales... two years after his release he is in the bargain bins at Kmart while Teddy and co. are doing well enough to release new products next year, 20 plus years after his release. I'm glad people voted with thier buck on this one.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 18, 2008 10:11:18 GMT -7
Very excellent news indeed. There has also been a major aquisition of a great deal of the BackPack Teddy's by a major retailer who hadn't previously been involved, so things are headed in the right direction. I think the new Lullaby and Christmas Teddys, while not talkers, will help promote the property as well as they are a little less expensive and may open up the TR world to a new market.
What a testament to the character and his creator this is... 23 years ago Teddy got the chance to enchant all of us because of the talking toy tech that AlchemyII had produced. Now, after advances in technology, Teddy remains even as other "talking" toys (see the awful TJ Bearytales) bite the dust because of the strength of his character.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 17, 2008 0:21:24 GMT -7
Ah yes the HiTops videos.... they are rather cool in themselves as they had those live-action scenes at the beginning (of most) I'm still looking for brand-new unopened copies of those (obviously quite rare at this late date) for some of the add-ins that were included in those including the "Family Tree" and the Friendship Postcard that was included in the "Grubby's Romance" edition.
Yes! also produced some of these... maybe they would be easier to find unopened.
It's funny, and I've mentioned it before, that as rare as the final 3/4 of this series was to find, the first quarter of it's episodes were perhaps the most widely available of any 1980's cartoon series.... the mass produced copies from WoW, then the Yes! videos, then the "Teddy Ruxpin Movie" then the first five episodes on DVD from FNP.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 17, 2008 0:16:35 GMT -7
Kayla, I think some of the character poses were around from the beginning.... I was in Ken's office when he was doing a lot of small touchups to those including adding more realistic - and very cool looking- eyes to Teddy and Grubby. (I got to choose Princess Aruzia's eyecolor, hehe, I'll go to my grave still being excited about that The newer artwork is most certainly Maggie. She has just done a phenomenal job... she's got a great vision for the characters. Along with Ken's guidance, they make a great team.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 16, 2008 19:19:07 GMT -7
Snowpeck, I had known the first block of eps. was a preview but didn't know it had aired so early... that explains the early start date (Sept. 1986- a year before the series premiered) It must have been during that lag that the writers' strike happened as Jeff Wilson mentioned as well. I researched awhile back and tried to find out when the series had last aired in the U.S. 1992 in the Chicago market was the latest airing that I could find proof of. It was also Chicago-9 TV that I watched the TV series on as a tyke before my parents moved in '90, there are lots of cool old Bozo The Clown previews and some neat Cheers teasers on my old tapes... as great as the new DVDs are and as lucky as I feel to finally have the old series, nothing will ever quite replace watching them from the original syndication taped recordings Ahh... nostalgia.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 16, 2008 19:15:10 GMT -7
Onemouse- Would love your help and thank you for offering!
Kayla- The new Maggie Parr artwork is quite stunning. Ken really worked closely with her on it and the TLC he gives the Teddy Ruxpin property really shows. The updated storylines in the books are also quite cool, and Phil Baron came back to do new voices and didn't miss a beat even 20 years after the original.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 15, 2008 7:52:56 GMT -7
A few of the BackPack ones have been re-mastered to include new artwork and slightly revised storylines... the Playskool books had different cover artwork but the stories were the same. When reviewing, we will just have to show which version we are reviewing, so yes the Playskool and BackPack versions will definately work
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 14, 2008 21:57:35 GMT -7
Tom,
I don't think we will see a 2nd season. It has been 21 years now since the first season, not to mention that childrens' animated TV series are now quite rare (compared to the plethora of different ones we had in the 80s when TAoTR came out)
When Teddy comes back it will likely be in a feature film or a direct to video movie or movies. I would love to see a series, but the realist in me kind of discounts that possibility.
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Post by TRO Admin on Aug 14, 2008 21:54:07 GMT -7
Tom,
I only host very limitied artwork (due to copyright issues) on the board and the site. If you would like to post the artwork on a website somewhere and link to it here that is ok.
Josh
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