Dolly Flashback: Worlds of Wonder Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin is a toy that time will never erase. Manufactured by Worlds of Wonder back in 1985, Teddy Ruxpin was an animatronic brown bear. Teddy Ruxpin was designed to play special cassette tapes that manipulated his mouth and eyes to move with various stories.

Our Worlds of Wonder Family

Teddy was the brainchild of Ken Forsse , who together with Don Kingsborough, a past executive at Atari, created Worlds of Wonder. Teddy was the first of many animatronic toys to come from Worlds of Wonder, including Mother Goose and Mickey Mouse, and is arguably the most popular toy the company produced.

Teddy Ruxpin

One Toys R Us exec is quoted as saying, “Teddy Ruxpin’s are selling better than Cabbage Patch dolls did during their first year”, just after Teddy was released in 1985. That’s a pretty awesome statement if you think about how large the Cabbage Patch craze was when they first hit store shelves in 1983.

Teddy Ruxpin Logo

Teddy Ruxpin was one of the most popular toys of 1985 and 1986, which says a lot seeing as how they were originally priced at US$70.00. One article states the company sold 93 Million (US) dollars worth of Teddy Ruxpin bears by 1988. It even spawned an animated television show.

Alongside Teddy, Worlds of Wonder created a companion doll, Grubby, to work alongside Teddy. The downside of Grubby was that unless you had a Teddy and the proper connection cord, Grubby was just a statue piece.

Teddy’s popularity was sustained through a number of cassette tapes with different stories and clothing packs. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1988 and officially closed its doors in 1990. We can only imagine what they would have continued to create if they hadn’t closed their doors. Teddy Ruxpin was the first of its kind and the original Teddy, I think, still holds up quite well compared to animatronic toys of today.

My history with Teddy started back in 1986 when I received Teddy as a Christmas gift from my grandparents. I was 3. Very quickly, he became one of my best friends! We’d even set places at the table for him to eat with us! Like most toys as complex as him, he eventually stopped working. Years ago I got my Teddy repaired and he’s been working great ever since.

This past month has been a very good one for my Teddy Ruxpin. I had planned a while back to showcase him in a Flahsback post (see Dozzzy’s here) and when I was sidelined by a few of my tapes not playing as well as I remembered. I went on eBay to try to replace the wonky tapes and then caught the eBay bug. You know, what I’m talking about. You look for one thing on eBay, then it leads to another thing and another, until you end up with 5 different shipment tracking codes!

My tape collection for him has grown from six to ten in the span of two weeks! This past week, I replaced two tapes that were working less than perfect (The Airship and Teddy Ruxpin’s Birthday), purchased 3 ‘special’ tapes that were manufactured for fire stations during fire station tours, and ordered something my Teddy has wanted for, well, forever, the Teddy Ruxpin Christmas set (with Santa Suit, book and tape).

Teddy Ruxpin

Kids today have all sort of ‘electronic’ toys they play with, but none of those toys match Teddy Ruxpin. He may not move his hands or feet or connect to wifi, but Worlds of Wonder created an animatronic marvel with Teddy and their other toys. The facial movement on Teddy alone goes unmatched in toy releases since then.

Like with my last Dolly Flashback, I have created a few videos to show off all that Teddy is! The video below features Teddy telling us the story of ‘The Airship’. This tape came with Teddy Ruxpin and introduces us to the characters, Grubby and Newton Gimmick.