12 Days of Christmas Gifts and Day 10 is Teddy Ruxpin

Day 10 of our 12 Days of Christmas gifts is the friendly trip down memory lane that is Teddy Ruxpin. Teddy Ruxpin first debuted in 1985 as a cassette-player housing, storybook reading bear whose mouth and eyes moved as he talked. This stretched out in a 65 episode television series that still has us humming the familiar theme song “Come dream with me.”

The beloved children’s toy (A review can be found here) has returned in 2017 with a modernized look. Gone is the cassette player in favour of a hard drive and gone are the randomly moving eyes and mouth with a smarter system that properly syncs up with your stories. Here’s why your family is ready to fall for him and his friends all over again

What’s old is new again

Nostalgia seems to be all the rage right now. Nintendo, Sega, and others have discovered a goldmine in their current trips down video game memory lane. But while your little ones can’t really connect as well with the video games of their parents time, stories and teddy bears are timeless. The new Teddy Ruxpin offers a cuddly, lightweight and portable solution for your little ones to take story time around. You don’t even need to have your phone or tablet handy for Teddy to tell your children stories or sing songs. With a simple squeeze of his paw, his eyes light up and he begins to sing or speak with his classic tales taken directly from the 80s story book and television series.

Teddy Ruxpin’s new emotions are more than just a moving mouth and eyes

While we all do have such fond memories of 80s Teddy Ruxpin, he didn’t really show a lot of emotion through his mouth and eyes. The new Teddy Ruxpin changes all of that. Teddy’s mouth syncs up with his own speech through his new TalkSync technology (rather than moving at random like before) and the robotic eyes have been replaced with miniature LCD screens. These eyes mean that Teddy conveys animated emotions during storytime like never before, including happiness, love and confusion. Over 40 different animations are expressed in the stories available out of the box alone, meaning that your children can follow along and understand what Teddy feels as he reads his stories to them.

No need to tote anything but Teddy

One of the great pains of the 80s version of Teddy Ruxpin and related gadgets (like Talking Mother Goose, etc) was the fact that you’d have to carry around all of the cassettes and books. With your smartphone or tablet playing the role of your storybook (it’s optional since he can still tell stories and sing without it) and Teddy’s belly loaded with a hard drive, everything you need is contained within those two things. The batteries in Teddy last for months, if not years, so you’ll never worry about them running out, and he’s now so light that toddlers can carry him themselves. Teddy comes pre-loaded with a small library (3 stories and 7 songs) and more can be purchased directly from the iOS or Google Play store either individually or as part of a package deal.

My daughter has had only one item on her list this Christmas and that is Teddy Ruxpin. Once we reviewed him, her mind was made up. She just went and spoke to Santa this morning and when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, it was Teddy without hesitation. Considering she’s been saying this for the past month (and she’s 3, so you’d expect her answer would change every day at that age), you know it’s a winner.

The new and improved Teddy Ruxpin is now available at your local Best Buy or online at BestBuy.ca

Check out all 12 of our gifts suggestions