The World of Teddy Ruxpin: A Royal Adventure is another one of those three episode tapes that these VHS releases were known for and it's also the last tape to have multiple episodes on it. However, I actually thought there were four episodes on this tape being that episode 23 "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" was in the middle of this four episode story arc. However, just like Wooly's introduction from "Guests of the Grunges" being edited between the end of "Beware of the Mudblups" and "In the Fortress of the Wizard" for The Treasure of Grundo, the end of "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" where King Nogburt is poisoned and everyone hears the Gutangs arriving in their planes, is edited between episode 22 "King Nogburt's Castle" and episode 24 "Secret of the Illiops". But otherwise, there's no material from "The Day Teddy Met Grubby".
Like the opening story arc of the series, this one begins to reveal important details about the world of Grundo and Rillonia. For instance we learn that the Illiops may not have originally been from Rillonia as we were led to believe. There are even hints that they had actually originated from Grundo. While we won't learn the full story, including how the crystals were involved or what the Gutangs had to do with any of it, until the end of the series, the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together in these episodes.
We also find out that the kidnapping of Princess Aruzia by the Gutangs at the beginning of the series was not an isolated attack on King Nogburt and his kingdom as Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick may have assumed. Rather, it was one attack out of many raids and attacks that the Gutangs have attempted on the castle. So basically King Nogburt is at war with the Gutangs. Which makes sense because otherwise the kidnapping of Princess Aruzia seems pretty random if there was no prior history between the Gutangs and the kingdom of King Nogburt. But since we have no idea what the Gutangs had hoped to accomplish by kidnapping the princess, since it was intended to be the classic trope of the villains kidnap the princess and the heroes have to save her, the act itself could still have just been random.
This block of episodes is probably one of the few that didn't need a Tweeg and L.B. subplot added to it. I actually kind of found them to be boring and superfluous throughout the entire arc. We already know that Tweeg sucks at being a villain and at stealing things. This block of episodes is just another example of that. It also just takes away from the more interesting parts of the episode. Their bit is still funny, but because of how lore heavy and action heavy this arc is, they just feel unnecessary here.
There are four new characters that are introduced here. There's King Nogburt, his wife, Queen Lilibet, Old Beanly and Eunice, the court physician who is revealed to basically be Gimmick's girlfriend, or at least a love interest for him. Which kind of surprised Teddy and Grubby. I don't think King Nogburt was introduced in the original book and tape series until one of the later books in the series, "Gizmos and Gadgets", and both Queen Lilibet, Beanly and Eunice are characters created specifically for The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. Old Beanly is probably the most entertaining of all of them, just because he has extremely short-term memory, which makes it ridiculous that he's the court messenger. Yet, he manages to do the job pretty well, even if it takes a bit longer.
I don't know if anyone has ever talked about this before, but I want to talk about why Teddy, Grubby, Gimmick, and the Wooly What's-It were asked to come to King Nogburt's Castle. So Teddy, Grubby, and Gimmick took Prince Arin and Princess Aruzia home at the end of episode 5, "Escape from the Treacherous Mountain". So, why didn't they meet King Nogburt? Did they just drop Arin and Aruzia off and fly the Airship back to Gimmick's house? Who knows, but I just found it strange that this block of episodes takes place a few months after "Escape from the Treacherous Mountain" and it took this long for them to be invited to King Nogburt's Castle for a feast in their honour.
Overall, this is a pretty good tape. There aren't any extras on this tape, and there was nothing included with the tape inside the box originally either. It's just the episodes edited into a feature length special. The editing is pretty good, though I do miss the scene at the end of "King Nogburt's Castle" where Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick meet King Nogburt for the first time. That was edited out for time I guess.
That's it for this tape. The next two, which are also the final two, are a single episode each and no extras. There is a preview for Volume 7, Come Dream with Me Tonight at the end of the next tape, Teddy and the Mudblups, but that's it. So join me again, next Monday for Teddy and the Mudblups where Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick get captured by the Mudblups for the second time. Before that I'll be back tomorrow with my Odd Thomas book review. Later.
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