WoW Teddy Ruxpin Appearing in his own show

[Deleted]

Sorry Cassia but, I beg to differ. While you're right that "Guests of the Grunges" as a whole was not part of the animatronic movie, two scenes were. 1) Where the Trio and Arin meet Wooly, which is universal across all the versions of Teddy Ruxpin, and 2) the scene with Tweeg and LB crossing through the jungle in the wagon. That was in the animatronic movie, and was added to the Backpack Teddy Ruxpin version of the story. But, the rest of the episode, with the Fobs, and Grunges was made specifically for the cartoon.

[Fen]

Um I think we are agreeing on the same thing then.

"Guest of the Grunges" was in the cartoon only.

What I'm talking about is why it was not included in the live action film, and my only guess is that it would have cost too much. Yet, in the recesses of my mind, I *DO* recall watching a VHS version of the live action film with that scene included in it. Yet every version I've seen since has it cut from the Wooly What's It straight to the Wizard of Wee Gee's place. For all I know, it was aired only on TV in 1987, and if you caught it there then you were a lucky camper. For the rest of the Teddy fans who were yet to be born or too young to know, that scene is lost.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhaTx-AGOYc&feature=related

If you watch, you will see the grunge Louie put the movie on as the Wizard talks to the adventurers. 3:13 in.

[Deleted]

I have a VHS copy of the film in question, and it cuts right to the group arriving at the Wizard's Fortress. And, so does the two versions of it on Youtube. With the exception of the meeting Wooly scene, and the Tweeg and LB scene, "Guests of the Grunges" was made specifically for the television show, not for the animatronic movie, since by the time the movie was made, they'd decided not to make it the pilot film for the series, as they'd cancelled the animatronic series by then, and were considering going to traditional animation for the tv show.

They had to write the third episode, except for the scenes I mentioned, which they adapted from the original stories and the animatronic movie, because the Adventure series (books/tapes) don't have any reference to Grunges in them until "Grunge Music", and Louie is a new character made for the animatronic movie that carried over to the animated series, once it started.

There are a few things that first made their appearance in the animatronic movie, such as Louie, and the discovery of the crystals, along with the scene when Teddy and Grubby are going through Bounder Pass and get chased by the Bounders. All that was made for the animatronic movie and was carried over to the tv show. Though, one popular theory is that the discovery of the crystals was supposed to take place in "The Missing Princess", but because of the public service announcement at the end of that story, it was removed, as the PSA made the tape longer than the standard Teddy Ruxpin tapes.

Did I get that right Josh?

[Fen]

Ok that makes sense! I do remember in the first few VHS "Hi Tops" Videos the PSA announcements by animatronic Teddy before the show and after. I remember in the Hi Tops VHS Teddy would talk about what happened in the episode and then announce the preview for the next episode.

[Deleted]

I think when we talk about the PSA, we're talking about the PSA at the end of "The Missing Princess" cassette tape, but yes, similar PSA's DID make their way onto the Hi-Tops videos as well, especially "The Treasure of Grundo" as I recall, since it dealt with that story arc.

While I'm not familiar with the history of the series as some of you clearly are, I've always held the series to be canon. It is my reference point for the Teddy-verse (Ruxpin-verse?). Even if the episode with the Grunges WAS thought of before the animatronic series, it would've made "The Missing Princess" epic in length compared to the other Teddy tapes of that era. Also, I can't imagine how expensive it would've been to try and produce an entire Grunge Village as well as the morphing Prince Arin into the Iron Warrior (though that would've been AWESOME to see!)

I believe Mr. Forsse (I hope I spelled that right...) probably had some ideas about the Crystals, if only because the Medallion does appear on the map in "The Airship" book, and there are little Crystlas sitting around it.

It's interesting that The Crystals started out as representing "powers of the spirit" but eventually became simply magic talismans of sorts. The words on them in "Escape From the Treacherous Mountain" (as well as the animatronic movie) really have nothing to do with their power, though Gimmick's Crystal Stethoscope did shed some light on that little phenomenon.

In any event, it's clear the story evolved over time and based on whatever medium was being used to tell it. The BackPack Toys Teddy Ruxpin probably has the most complete telling of the story, since it incorporates aspects of the original WoW books as well as things from the animatronic movie. In my opinion, however, the series will always be canon, though some stories are told better (also my opinion) in the book/tape set.

As far as the CGI debate, George Lucas once said "Special effects are just a tool: they're a means for telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."

Pixar seems more story-centered to me, whereas DreamWorks always seems eager to churn out another colorful romp chock full of as many pop-culture references as they can manage in 90 minutes. Just my opinion. They're fun, but Pixar seems to have a broader scope.

Walt Disney once said, "You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are just kids grown up, anyway." Watch the old Disney movies. They're still entertaining to me as an adult. Everything up to "The Lion King." Then Disney decided they had to make everything cute and funny instead of trying to actually speak to their audience or let them experience something.

And of course, when it comes to George Lucas, the Star Wars prequels speak for themselves. A dose of irony, anyone?

Teddy always spoke to me on a deeper level than simple entertainment, and I think most of us here can agree that we've had that same experience. That's what made it so great to me. I can still watch it today and I get chills because I feel like he is still trying to teach me something. It's the kind of story I've always wanted to tell and to share with others: the story that lasts...it becomes timeless.

On a side-note, Josh, I was wondering, do you know if Mr. Forsse had any stories in mind if the series had continued? I know you can't give out details, but a simple "yes" or "no" would suffice.

Just my 2 cents...hey, why is there a "$" but not symbol for cents? lol...

[Deleted]

On the keyboard, I mean...

[Fen]

hmmmm a valid point
the WoW books *did* tell and present the stories differently than the tv series I remember having the book/tape "Anything in the Soup" and then watching the same story animated on the DVD and noticing how instead of there being one long story, it was broken up into two episodes the songs also being presented at different times in the book than on the animated show.

It has made me curious as to how far the deviation went between the books and the tv show, as many of us never had the opportunity to read the books and hear the tapes due to fiancial constraints and now due to the rarity of them.

[TRO Admin]

I am lucky enough to know at least a rough outline of what comes next, but there will be much more to it than what I know of I am sure. Eventually I have no doubt the story will continue on in some fashion. There is some discussion going on as we speak as to the next outlet for Teddy's storyline. Keep your fingers crossed! We are simply cursed with a bad economy right now which doesn't help matters.

The BackPack stories were deliberately enhanced by Mr. Forsse to complete the storytelling of those first few stories/episodes, even before BackPack signed on. The actual audio from the Animatronic Movie was used in the BackPack stories and Phil Baron did some additional recordings in 2005. I think it's great that you all pay so much attention to the little things as well as the big picture. Teddy really has the greatest fan base in the world.

[Deleted]

Yeah. I was actually wondering about that since I listened to the Backpack version of "The Airship" and the additional dialogue sounded like it came directly from the animatronic movie.

It's the little things that give us the big picture, so why focus on the larger picture, without acknowledging the little things. As for the Illiop himself, I'm sure that however he returns, it'll be awesome and that we will all enjoy it.

To answer Cassia's question. The tv show did it's best to keep the storylines presented in the original books and tapes. However, because it was tv, they expanded the stories to include B-plots, additional characters and so on. If you take a look at certain episodes, like any ones that have titles similar to titles from the books and tapes, many of the things added, usually involved Tweeg & LB, MAVO, and new characters like King Nogburt, the Queen of Grundo, Eunice the court physician and a combination of other characters. And, because they had to fit into the continuing storyline of the week, and the larger storyline of the series, elements were added that connected episodes that weren't together originally, into a clear story, beyond the episodic one.

But there were some problems with this. For example, in the original books and tapes, "Winter Adventure" was released and took place long before "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos", but for the tv show, they put those too episodes together. Now, normally there wouldn't be any inconsistency, because of the flexibility of Teddy Ruxpin. However there was a piece of dialogue from "Winter Adventure" that doesn't fit in with it being aired right after "Wooly and the Snowzos". As the trio is about to take off in the airship to deliver their gifts, Grubby mentions that they'd never flown the airship in the winter before. However, it was winter time in the previous episode, so Grubby's statement is now incorrect for the tv show, but for the original books and tapes, it's a perfectly valid comment.

[Fen]

hmmm so with that in mind then, it does not surprise me one bit that there *was* some artistic license taken with the animated series
although I did not know the following characters were invented for the cartoon
King Nogburt, Queen Lillibut, Eunice, Old Beanly, Ickley

I always thought that Ken Forsse had these characters in mind, and was the creative influence behind them.

Hmmm...

[TRO Admin]

AlchemyII created nearly everything in the T.R. universe, including all of the material in The Adventure Series and the overwhelming majority of the stories and characters in the TV show. Phil Baron was Alchemy's liason from a writing standpoint to the Canadian production of the show, and David High- an artist on The Adventure Series , was the liason from the visual perspective so AlchemyII definitely had a large role in the TV series. Where it got a bit off track was in how some of the characters behaved and their motivations more so than the Canadian writers inventing things from scratch. For example MAVO was a Ken Forsse invention but the MAVO as we know it was primarily the television producers' idea.

[Deleted]

It's pretty much the same thing for any tv show, cartoon or live action that's based off something that appeared in a different medium, like comic books, novels, movies etc. They're trying to adapt that character and that story from one medium to another and not everyone working on the show or movie, or even comic book, is going to know what that thing is about, or if they do, they have to make sure they're able to adapt it to the screen or print medium, depending on what it is they're trying to make.

In the case of Teddy Ruxpin, there was a visual aspect to it already, so the producers couldn't change how Teddy, Grubby or any of the other characters looked, but they also needed to adapt the stories, originally told in static pictures, and in audio form to the visual screen. For the animatronic movie, they really only added Tweeg, LB, and Louie to the original story, along with the discovery of the crystals and various other little scenes that weren't in the original two stories. For the animated series, they had to expand Teddy's world, by adding more characters, larger stories and more exciting situations because they knew that they'd have at least 65 episodes to sustain a story in and the material, especially in the first five episodes, from the books and tapes weren't enough to fulfill that role. Which explains why they added the third episode, with the first encounter with the Grunges. And some material just couldn't be used because they were sing-alongs or things like that.

[kaylathehedgehog]

Compared to other animated shows at the time, the series was actually an oddball as far as having an over-reaching plot. Hardly any 80's properties had as much world-building.

[Fen]

That's very true. For a children's show, Teddy Ruxpin did create a following for it's rich world and interesting characters and character groups. The only other show I can recall that had the same development of story and world building was "David the Gnome."

[Deleted]

What about shows like "Care Bears" and "Rainbow Brite"? They were '80s shows like Teddy Ruxpin and their worlds were highly developed.