|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 24, 2012 5:21:19 GMT -7
That was my thoughts exactly. The NES systems were horrible for this, well that, and the "bent pin" issue which mine suffered. I didn't follow the instruction manual and left games in there, and because they were at an angle which bent the pins, eventually those pins stayed that way, and I had to install a new pin connector. Works perfectly now, and I was thinking about those dirty pins on the games could cause Teddy IV to do similar things, as they are cartridges now, and not cassette tapes. I know this is starting to get off topic, but are you saying you're not supposed to leave game cartridges in the original front loader NES when not in use? I didn't know that, but then again I didn't ever own a NES myself. But did you know that Mattel Toys distributed for Nintendo in Australia in the 80's when the NES came out? They also distributed the Super NES, the GameBoy I think, and they also distributed, wait for it, Teddy Ruxpin! Yes, that correct! I've been told that Mattel Toys distributed Teddy Ruxpin outside of the USA. But I realise now I'm going way off topic here.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 24, 2012 5:14:53 GMT -7
I was 8 years old in 1992 and I attended a school for blind children being legally blind myself, we had show and tell sessions on Friday afternoons, one day at the end of the show and tell session the teacher reminded us to remember to bring something the following week, a girl named in the class said "I'll bring Teddy Ruxpin," I thought, OK, a toy teddy bear, not interesting, oh how wrong I was, the next week we were all sitting around in a circle, the aforementioned girl was the first to present her toy, she turned Teddy Ruxpin on and it was passed around the circle, as The Airship tape played, Teddy's eyes and mouth were moving as the tape played. Eventually Come And Discover started playing, but at that point the tape started playing unevenly, it started slowing down a bit, my best friend thought the tape was caught in the machine or getting chewed up, I should point out that none of us had examined the back panel on Teddy Ruxpin, we all assumed it used a tape of some sort, but we didn't look to find out exactly. By the time Teddy came to me the song was almost over and the tape wasn't playing too well, I examined Teddy but didn't lift the tunic at the back, I did however locate the volume control and started to adjust it, I discovered that the volume control was also the on/off switch as is the case with so many cheap pocket radios, I turned the volume down until the switch went click and Teddy Ruxpin was switched off. I should explained that at age 8 I was fascinated by radios, tape recorders and other electronic devices, soon I discovered that another class member had a Teddy Ruxpin, I went to this class member's house one night and we both listened to The Airship, that was when I discovered that Teddy Ruxpin took regular cassette tapes and used 4 C size batteries. I couldn't believe such toys existed, I told my parents I wanted a Teddy Ruxpin for Christmas, by this time it was late 1992, I was soon to find out that Teddy wasn't made anymore, none of us knew of the later Playskool version of Teddy Ruxpin, also I pronounced Teddy Ruxpin as Teddy Rupspin, that wouldn't have helped my parents find one for me. For Christmas that year I received a My Pal 2, you can imagine how sad I was that I didn't get a Teddy Ruxpin, by this stage I'd also found out about Gabby Bear and wanted one too, but of course I didn't get one. Long live Teddy Ruxpin, you're so awesome, thanks very much for everything you've done for all of us.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 24, 2012 4:58:22 GMT -7
I know that Josh knows Ken Forsse, I've read the interviews he did with Ken and they're really good, all the same if the people involved with Teddy Ruxpin actually interacted with the fanbase on this forum, on YouTube and Facebook that would truly be so wonderful, they'd really get a feel for the current fanbase even though there's not current Teddy Ruxpin merchandise available aside from the new DVD's.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 22, 2012 17:41:34 GMT -7
Hi everyone, forgive me if this subject has been raised before, I may have previously raised it myself, so please forgive me for that, but I wanted to put this to all of you. I wonder if the creators involved with Teddy Ruxpin are aware of this forum, BlueOctopede's Facebook wall, the Teddy Ruxpin online Facebook page, and the many many many YouTube videos related to Teddy Ruxpin, particularly videos uploaded by people like blueoctopede, applesocks89, myself and various others who have made lots of videos about Teddy Ruxpin. I just wonder if they realise how wide and diverse the Teddy Ruxpin fanbase really is, I mean on YouTube and Facebook and here you've got many many people of all ages talking about Teddy Ruxpin all over sites like this and YouTube, wouldn't it be wonderful if the creators of Teddy Ruxpin, people Ken Forsse, Phil Baron, Will Ryan and the others in the creation team were on this forum and posted replies to people's threads? It would also be wonderful if people like that would also comment on YouTube videos relating to Teddy Ruxpin. I may be dreaming here, but I think I've seen Kin Forsse's wife's name show up on Facebook a few times if I'm not mistaken, but I may be wrong. I just wonder if the creators behind Teddy Ruxpin realise how much we all love the toy and the TV show and everything Teddy Ruxpin related.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 22, 2012 17:16:51 GMT -7
If it's the BackPack version which runs on cartridge, why not try cleaning the cartridge with a little rubbing alcohol and a q-tip, as some dust or dirt could be causing the signal to be crossed. The IV Teddy uses one motor for both the eyes and mouth, so it's not like the motors would have been switched. Hmm, I wouldn't have thought that Teddy Ruxpin would act like that because it's digital, but then again you'll remember what used to happen with the original NES when the cartridges had dirty contacts, games wouldn't start, if they started they've be all glitchy with corrupt images and all sorts of weird issues that would generally make the game unplayable, so I guess the same thing could happen with the BPT Teddy Ruxpin, i've certainly not had issues like that with my BPT Teddy Ruxpin, but it's not to say that things like that couldn't happen.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 19, 2012 18:07:11 GMT -7
I don't think the BackPack Teddy Ruxpin uses the same Frequency Modulation animation system, however I understand it still uses the same physical animation system where the same motor drives both the eyes and mouth, I wonder if the previous owner took that Teddy Ruxpin apart and maybe put something back incorrectly. Teddy Ruxpin's eyes should not close when Teddy Ruxpin isn't speaking, they blink every so often, but they shouldn't close as soon as speech stops. When you turn the power on nothing should happen until ypu press the play button, if Teddy's eyes are close when you press play they should open immediately and then Teddy Ruxpin should start to speak. I don't know if I can help anymore than this, but yes that's definatately very bizarre, really strange.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Aug 11, 2012 2:14:16 GMT -7
I've had 2 dreams about Teddy Ruxpin this week, in one i was using what looked like the YES! Teddy Ruxpin, I found a small button on Teddy Ruxpin's stomach and when I pressed it it sounded like the spoken language in the program changed, I think I was listening to the Lullabies program. Pressing the button at one point appeared to put Teddy Ruxpin into some kind of service mode which caused his eyes to blink very rapidly. In another dream I had I appeared to be watching a video posted by the YouTube user vWestlife, he appeared to be repairing a Teddy Ruxpin, in reality vWestlife probably may know what a Teddy Ruxpin is, but if he has one I don't know about it because I don't think he's made any videos about Teddy Ruxpin, anyway I don't think vWestlife is the type of person who'd be interested in Teddy Ruxpin.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Jun 7, 2012 18:07:50 GMT -7
I thought July would be a big month for new movies etc in America, I mean it's summer over there and "School's out" and all that sort of thing.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 9, 2012 15:11:12 GMT -7
I've had yet more Teddy Ruxpin related dreams this week, I had a dream in which I was visiting relatives and they gave me a Coleco talking ALF toy, I played with it for a while, then I played The Airship in it and I was singing along to Come And Discover, but I wasn't singing in time with the song.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 7, 2012 1:51:41 GMT -7
Hmm, I'm sure you could write some software on one of those computers you speak of that would interface with the motors in the original Teddy Ruxpin that would allow you to do some pretty cool animation tricks, you could make it fully self-contained so you wouldn't need to hook Teddy Ruxpin up to anything and therefore possibly avoid drilling any holes in the plastic, I'm thinking of a mod that would involve installing an SD card reader in place of the cassette player and writing some software that would allow Teddy Ruxpin to play MP3 audio files with animation coding for the eyes and mouth. I'm not capable of doing this myself, but that's a great idea of putting one of those computer things into a Teddy Ruxpin.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 6, 2012 4:39:28 GMT -7
I think RadioShack had a teddy bear radio back in the 90's, I seem to remember playing with one at Tandy once, the volume control, tuning knob and AM/FM switch were on the bear's chest and the bear was really small, it was made of a soft fur, but I don't know how huggable it was because of the hard plastic controls on the front. I also remember that a friend of mine had a toy dog of sorts that had an AM radio in it, I think RadioShack made a Snoopy radio as well in the early 90's, but I'm not sure if they were available here, I've just seen them on the RadioShack catalogues website at www.radioshackcatalogs.com, I believe that's the web address.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 5, 2012 18:32:25 GMT -7
Hi everyone. I had an interesting idea recently, some of you may be familiar with the process of circuit bending, taking a device, usually a kid's toy like Speak And Spell or a toy keyboard and modifying it to make all kinds of sounds. I personally don't like circuit bending very much at all, and it worries me that people are buying up products like Speak And Spell for the purpose of modifying them, these are usually products that aren't made anymore so there's a shrinking finite supply of them, but I've thought of a pretty interesting idea for a Teddy Ruxpin modification. Sometimes people modify products in other ways like taking an electronic device and putting it inside the housing of another electronic device, for example, people taking a standard desktop PC and cramming it into a Nintendo Entertainment System case, the YouTube user lukemorse1 once took an NEC PC Engine and installed it into the casing for a Nintendo Famicom Disk System disk drive, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Here's my idea, take a non working Teddy Ruxpin and remove the cassette player, then take the circuit board from a small portable radio and install it into Teddy Ruxpin, wire up the volume control and on/off switch on the back of Teddy Ruxpin so that the power switch and volume control operate the radio. Connect the audio output from the radio to Teddy Ruxpin's internal speaker, install the radio so that the tuning control and AM/FM Switch are operated by the rotating spindles where the tape sprockets normally sit and you've got a Teddy Ruxpin radio. What do the rest of you out there think? I'd kind of like to see it done, and of course the radio should be powered by the 4 C cell batteries normally used by Teddy Ruxpin if that can be managed, and perhaps the connector port could be converted into an FM antenna jack or headphone output or AC Adaptor socket.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 4, 2012 15:32:23 GMT -7
Thank you.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 4, 2012 5:24:11 GMT -7
I had another dream about Teddy Ruxpin this morning, I was in my parents' bedroom I think, there was an electronic keyboard and a digital piano in there and they were both on stands, I think I somehow accidentally managed to knock both of them off their stands, and as I was trying to put them back on their stands I was listening to a radio program of some sorts and Come And Discover The World With Me was playing, the original version that is, then another version started playing, only this other version was slower than the original, the song was being played on a piano, the the person singing it sounded like an elderly man with a Middle Eastern or very strong European accent.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 2, 2012 18:46:55 GMT -7
I had another Teddy Ruxpin related dream this morning, i believe I was at Woolworths with my sister and they were selling stuffed Teddy Ruxpin and Grubby toys, but they didn't look very much like what Teddy Ruxpin really looks like, they were pretty ugly actually, and they didn't talk, they were just stuffed.
|
|