Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin

This article relates to High Bias

The portability and low price point of cassette tapes meant that they were easily integrated into many areas of technology, as Marc Masters explores in High Bias. Toys began incorporating tapes too, and the most famous tape-playing toy of all was named Teddy Ruxpin. First introduced in 1985, Teddy was quickly a favorite cutting-edge toy as well as the first fully animatronic one.

Inventor Ken Forsse was Teddy Ruxpin's creator. A longtime engineer for Disney, Forsse created the first animatronic animals at Disney theme parks, as well as the Haunted Mansion ride. His career also included stints at Chuck E. Cheese and Atari. Once he had the idea, Forsse assembled a four-person team to bring Teddy Ruxpin to life. (A similar toy named AG Bear was already on the market; AG Bear could talk, but did not sing or tell stories.) If you want to learn more about Forsse, Billy Tooma's docuseries Come Dream with Me offers a robust nine hours.

Teddy's internal mechanics sound like a steampunk nightmare, with three motors in the bear's head to power his eyes and mouth. Most of the heavy lifting was done by the cassette player in his back — the tape played the audio and also controlled how he moved his eyes and mouth.

Forsse wrote the songs that Teddy Ruxpin sang; Phil Baron was the toy's voice. Baron was prolific in his work as a voice actor, musician, and puppeteer. He was best known for voicing Piglet in the Disney Channel's live-action puppet show based on Winnie the Pooh. As Teddy Ruxpin, Baron was told to pitch his voice up and read the script slowly. The recordings were then sped up so that he would sound more otherworldly.

Teddy pulled in $93 million his first year. Soon he had a live-action movie, a cartoon, and related merchandise. He owed some of his success to a backstory Forsse wrote for him inspired by Lord of the Rings. For starters, his stories claimed Teddy Ruxpin was not a bear but a mythical creature called an "Illiop," which just happens to look like a bear. He was written to be age 16 and a native of "Rillonia," a town on the south side of the island of "Grundo." He pals around with an insect (Grubby) and an inventor (Newton Gimmick) while dodging the evils of an aspiring wizard (Tweeg).

A company called Worlds of Wonder manufactured and marketed Teddy Ruxpin; despite the toy's massive profits, they filed for bankruptcy in 1988, meaning that Teddy Ruxpin's heyday only lasted a few years. Other manufacturers have put out their own versions of the toy, but none of the others have been as successful.

Teddy Ruxpin still makes appearances, including some Forsse might have disapproved of. The 2019 movie Camp Wedding's plot centers around a possessed Teddy Ruxpin. YouTubers frequently post videos of Teddy Ruxpins "singing" vulgar songs. Hackers delight in making modifications to the original toy — making his eyes look ghostly or making his whole body shake. In a Jimmy Kimmel segment, the host asked fashion show attendees what they thought of the work of various fictional designers, including Teddy Ruxpin.

For someone whose popularity consisted of a three-year stint in the mid-'80s, Teddy Ruxpin has shown staying power. Not bad for a 16-year-old Illiop.

Filed under Cultural Curiosities

This article relates to High Bias. It first ran in the November 1, 2023 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.