The Traumatic Trials of Me and Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin has traumatized me not once, but twice.

Every kid has 3 or 4 dreams–one is to eat at McDonald’s everyday; one is to be able to fly; and one is to have stuffed animals with the ability to talk. I’ll tack on a 4th childhood dream of mine: to eat a whole bag of shredded mozzarella cheese, by myself. My mother of course, never let me, and now that I’m an adult, I won’t let myself do this either.

When Teddy Ruxpin was introduced in 1985, he fulfilled one of those dreams: talking stuffed animal. Produced by Worlds of Wonder, a company founded by ex-Atari employees, Teddy Ruxpin was a surprise hit. I wanted one bad. We all have That Toy, the toy we never got. Teddy Ruxpin was the toy I never got. You’d think I’d be haunted something cooler–like never getting a Power Wheel or a Castle Grayskull–but it’s the bear that stays with me. Come on, it was a TALKING BEAR.

You have to imagine how futuristic a moving-mouth bear looked to a 4 year old in 1985, like a freaking animatronic at your kitchen table. Pirates of the Carribbean? Pfft. It wasn’t like you pressed its hand and you heard a muffled sound coming from the speaker in its ass. The sound came out of the mouth, and the eyes moved. You didn’t have to pretend; the bear was really talking. It was magic. It was Disneyworld. It was your own ET. It was a friend. And I knew if I could get one, I’d find a way to communicate with the bear beyond the cassette tapes.

My parents refused to buy me the bear. (They also refused to let me crawl in the dog’s house in the backyard. They were cruel.) They said I had human parents to talk to me, and that I knew human children to be friends with. They explained that only parents who didn’t love their kids bought them the bear to occupy their time. I didn’t tell my parents my secret plan to teach the bear to become self-aware.

The bear was hugely popular. It spawned a cartoon, lunchboxes, bedsheets, pillows, videos, books, and even a peripheral doll named Grubby,who connected to Ruxpin via cables, interacting with him. Ho. Lee. Shit. Not only had the world invented talking stuffed animals, but the world had invented talking stuffed animals that talked to each other.

The whole marketing was about friends. Teddy was your friend, a friend for life, and Grubby was Teddy’s friend, the friend of your friend. And you could be friends with Grubby too, but only if Teddy was around, because it was kind of awkward without him–seeing how Teddy was the “social glue” to it all. I made that last part up.

Well the years passed and I moved on. The world invented dolls and figures that did all kinds of things, like eat, dance, and scalp little girls [see: Cabbage Patch Snack Time Doll]. But one day a few years ago, while at the flea market, I came across a Teddy Ruxpin for sale. I thought I’d be quite clever and buy it, taking it home to tease my mother with for never buying it for me. So I bought him. The vendor asked me if I wanted a bag. No thank you, I said. I’d walk around the rest of this redneck flea market proudly carrying Teddy Ruxpin.

As I walked past one table, a girl yelled out, Teddy Ruxpin! I looked up to see….how shall I say this….a scary flea market woman. She began sharing her Teddy Ruxpin memories with me. Man, there was something weird about this lady. She seemed nervous, or eager, talking to me. Like I wasn’t just holding Teddy Ruxpin, but that I was actually Teddy Ruxpin myself.

She went on to tell me about her kid, her ex-husband, and whatever else I have blocked out since. I smiled and listened, but almost instantly, something had changed within me. Ruxpin was bringing me unwanted attention from weird flea market people. I silently cursed myself for not taking the bag.

At some point she stopped talking, I smiled my way off, and searched the rest of the flea market, still clutching the stupid bear. A short while later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around with a heavy feeling in my stomach, like I’d eaten a whole bowl of Cookie Crisp. It was of course, the woman. In her hand, she was holding two golf balls, and her hand was shaking. I held the bear, my hand sweating around its paw.

Her friend had urged her to “get some balls”, she explained, and she was here to give me her phone number. Oh, this was awkward, weird, and all Teddy Ruxpin’s fault. It was the golf ball gimmick that weirded me out the most, I think. But then she explained that if her ex-husband answered the phone when I called, to just ask for her. Yes, maybe that weirded me out more. Or maybe it was just that I was getting hit on at the redneck flea market, on a 100 degree summer day, while I walked around with a big ass Teddy Ruxpin in my hand.

I did the only thing I could. I took the number from her shaking hand.

I ran to my car, tossing the bear in the backseat. And when I got home, I shoved him in the closet, where he remained for the last 8 years. As for the flea market woman’s phone number? Wouldn’t it be a fun ending to the story if I said that woman is now “The Girlfriend”? Well, it’s not. Sorry to disappoint. I met the girlfriend in a much classier way–at a bar, on karaoke night.

Looking back on it, maybe I’m flattering myself. Maybe she wasn’t hitting on me. Maybe she just wanted to talk about Teddy Ruxpin some more.

I just recently moved Ruxpin to his new home, the Trunk of My Car, which is basically a penthouse compared to his former closet. Ruxpin’s going to the Goodwill. That’s the trunk of my car–the perpetual “going to Goodwill” pile that I never actually get around to taking.

THE END.