![]() Later that same year, Nintendo ended its partnership with the company, followed by the largest stock market crash in history that October. Worlds of Wonder staggered under the bad press. One April night in 1987, a sheriff's deputy near LA shot and killed 19-year-old Leonard Falcon - mistaking the $40 Lazer Tag gun he was carrying for a real weapon. And Tony Pope, who gave voice to Teddy's pal Gimmick, would later become the voice of another popular toy: Furby.Ī tragic incident halted the momentum. Will Ryan, who voiced Teddy's pal Grubby, can be heard as Goofy. The voice of the fairy Leota is also the voice of Minnie Mouse. ![]() Teddy's creative team reached across pop culture. His experience with Teddy led him to puppeteer a more sinister toy: Chucky in "Child's Play III." Fountain also puppeteered Salem the talking cat on the TV series "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch." His movements were recorded onto a large spool of magnetic tape. Fountain, a self-described Pac-Man fanatic, says the joystick was his electronic paintbrush. ![]() A slow pace helped puppeteer Thom Fountain.īy rolling a joystick, Fountain controlled Teddy's mouth, which had two motors to separately move the upper and lower jaw. When recording for Teddy, Baron had to speak extra slowly since audio was sped up slightly to make him sound other-worldly. "Hi Bridget," he says, shifting his voice to a slightly higher pitch. "Let's go to far-off places and search for treasures bright." Sarah Tew/CNET Decades later, I got goosebumps hearing my childhood toy speak to me over the phone. Voice actor Phil Baron also wrote many song lyrics and stories. "At that moment we realized this was important stuff," Wilkins says. A year into the project, Alchemy received a letter from a young girl dying of leukemia who requested the Teddy lullaby, " Will you go to sleep before I do?" be played at her funeral. Wilkins, now 83, says one song is particularly unforgettable. (His theme song for the Horizons ride will forever be in my brain.) He wrote about 150 songs for Teddy's story tapes and related shows, often three or four songs a week. One of them was George Wilkins, who had just finished composing music for the 1982 opening of Disney's Epcot theme park in Florida. Sally Neiman/CNETįorsse's connections with Hollywood and Disney helped him assemble a talented pool of professionals, including a puppeteer, television voice actors and a director of music for Disney's theme parks. At home, Forsse tinkered with ways to use that technology in smaller form, even scripting a puppet show about a little bear's adventures.Īs with any good fantasy, the universe he created was a land of magical kingdoms, creatures and crystals - a bit like "Lord of the Rings" but with more fuzz.Īn early Teddy Ruxpin prototype is preserved in a glass case. He was inspired by the way Disney animatronic figures moved, commanded by giant spools of magnetic tape. He sculpted the heads of animatronic bears at the Country Bear Jamboree and painted the eyes of dolls in "It's a Small World." Forsse, Teddy Ruxpin's very own toy-making Geppetto, started out, appropriately, at Disney, where he was on the creative team designing Disneyland's attractions. Cheese - there's even a strand connected to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Teddy's DNA included traces of Disney theme parks, Atari, Chuck E. His widow, Jan Forsse, is now president of his company, Alchemy II. Many of the original members of his team have reunited for Teddy's 2017 return. Sally Neiman/CNETįor the return of the king, I spoke to more than a dozen people involved with Teddy's past and present, including the family of his creator, Ken Forsse, and the team that sewed his stuffing and programmed him into existence. ![]() Teddy has gone through a few evolutions over the years.
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