I used to work at an amusement facility with “singing” animatronics where we would frequently put other CDs in after or before hours. My favorite was Bone, Thugs, and Harmony through that system.
Teddy Ruxpin was a cartoon to me and I didnt realize he was also a cassette operated doll until I was an adult.
This is the first time I heard of that… and damn it sounds cool!
I’m too young to be a Gen Xer, but I fully comprehend everything going on in this meme, as I grew up around a good deal of ‘older bro’ and ‘cool uncle’ types in my neighborhood, and became a metalhead at a very young age.
I definitely had and used cassette players, grew up around them being used before CD players got cheaper, knew what a Teddy Rumpkin was, just nobody in my family actually had one.
I can posit that the rough Millenial equivalent of this, (arguably more metal), is dousing your pair of Furbies in kerosense, setting them on fire, and then putting that fire out with a baseball bat.
… Those fuckers would not stop yammering eldritch babble at each other, at all times of the day or night.
It’s what Buffy would have done.
I was honestly shocked that my parents did not punish me at all for doing that, they hated the Furbies too, we all agreed that we had made a horrible mistake asking for/getting them.
I’m GenX. Seems the elder Millennials and us are basically on the same page culturally.
Weve been having a huge argument about what happened to GenY, which i swear was a thing, before they extended the end of gen x and the beginning of gen y to overlap it.
It was renamed “millennial”?
Yeah, originally, there were some people using the term Gen Y, but Millennial took prominence over it… but the alphabetical framework remained, which is how we now have Gen Z / Zoomers, and Gen A / Alpha.
Gen Y is millineal
Same way Zoomer is Gen Z
I’m not … sure if I technically count as an ‘elder millenial’.
I lived through less than 2 years of the 80s.
Was born when the Soviet Union still existed, but nooooot for very much longer.
But I did try to keep up with ‘the cool kids’, and was… very, very much more of an early adopter of all kinds of tech than even most of the other nerds my age.
Hooray for undiagnosed autism! Whoo!
I’m too young to be a Gen Xer,
I’m sorry to tell you that if this is how you describe your age range, you are not kids these days. I say this as a zillenial, it’s really hard to accept
Oh I know I am not ‘kids these days’, I am very aware of that, but I am also aware that I was barely alive for any of the 80s, thus missed the uh… cultural heyday of Teddy Ruxpin.
… Which I am now realizing I used the wrong name for in my original post, likely because this image is the first time I’m ever actually read its correct name, now that I am endowed with the ability to read, lol.
I’d only ever heard of and seen them as a very young kid, in commericals or in a mall once or something like that.
On that note: Hey, remember malls? Remember when they weren’t nearly all sad, dying monuments to the failure of society in general?
That was neat.
Fuck, I wonder if arcades even really still exist at all…
Maybe it will end up becoming a sensible business model to try and run a 90s South Korean/Japanese style netcafe in the US, the way computer hardware costs are going…
Simpson did the burning of them for one holiday episode. Though may have been later than the furby was around but I barely notice season numbers anymore except to notice if after say 12 when the ones my old self sees as better. Also we have all the holiday ones (well many animated series, separate one for live action sitcoms) in a bag to pull out during Xmas season to watch a themed one, so just pull find it and hit play, no thinking during these holidays… similar for Halloween month.
I can’t say for 100% certain if I burned my Furbies because of the Simpsons incepting the idea in me… or if I actually beat them to the punch on that.
I can say I don’t actually remember that happening in the Simpsons, and that my parents would not let me watch the Simpsons untill I got into middle school, because it was… too adult, or something.
I well remember sneaking over to a friend’s house to watch Southpark for the first time, and also for us both to figure out how to download and get a Pokemon Gold or Silver rom and emulator working… only for us to eventually realize that it had not been translated yet, and we had next to 0 clue what the hell was happening in the game.
Had to check in Simpsons it’s called Funzo S11E9, it’s not as Christmasy as other ones are for sure. I bet you and your friend still tried to play the game that’d have been an adventure for then. I tried to play a Gundam MMO once but it was only in Japanese, so was awkward and didn’t last long but hard to resist a try.
This is pretty far off the original topic, but, if you want something like an extra insane ‘wtf is going here’ experience in a game?
Get Papers Please.
Set the game language to like, Basque or Catalonian, I know it supports at least one of those.
I attempted to play this way as a kind of ‘custom difficulty’ mode once… it did not go well, but it was extremely confusing and even more kafkaesque.
I knew someone who stripped all the fur off his and played metal tapes in it.
2 live crew, nasty as they wanna be.
2 Live Crew - Nasty as They Wanna Be
Hahaha…
I thought the cassette was a proprietary shape that wouldn’t allow you to put any other ones in.
The one I had, I remember it had a regular cassette. I think it was recorded in some proprietary way, as I remember the mouth and eyes movement was synchronized to the recording, but I was still able to play it in my walkman.
Edit: found this in Wikipedia: “Later versions replaced the cassette with a digital cartridge.[5]”
So you probably had the new version. Mine was from the late 80s.
They could play any tape, but it wouldn’t move to the music unless it was one made for it probably had extra data on the teddy specific cassettes.
I didn’t have this doll, but one with an answering-machine sized tape. It was annoying to mess with, but possible.
Now that you mention it, I can’t think of any sort of proprietary tape. They were either standard or small.
I still have my Teddy Ruxpin. The tape player hasn’t worked in years, tho. I probably could repair the electronics, but I dont want to risk damaging the plushy to get at them.
