Hey guys! How are you all doing today? I'm pretty good. I hope you all had a good weekend. I had a quiet one. Today I'm here to talk about the 1985 live action TV movie, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, which preceded the animated series of the same name, which came out only two years later. Today I'm going to be talking about the movie as well as it's 1986 VHS release, which is actually the only home video release this movie has ever had. Thanks again to Vincent Conroy of the Grundo Gazette for sending me the digitized version of his copy of the tape, as well as all the other ones that he sent me. Let's get into it.
This VHS cover evokes so many fond memories of this movie. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin is an adaptation of the first two books in the The World of Teddy Ruxpin book and tape series sets, "The Airship" and "The Missing Princess". Pretty much all of the dialogue from the book and tape sets were brought to the movie though there are pieces of dialogue that were written for this movie as well. The story was also expanded to include Tweeg and L.B. who weren't introduced until "Tweeg and the Bounders", the fifth book and tape set that was released by Worlds of Wonder, as well as the crystals that rarely popped up in the book and tape series, but became prominent in the animated series beginning with episode 5, "Escape from the Treacherous Mountain".
There were four video rental chains here in Ottawa in the late 80s and early 90s. Rogers Video, Blockbuster, Jumbo Video, and West Coast Video. I'm not old enough to have seen The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin when it aired on TV on the ABC Weekend Specials in 1985, but sometime in the early 90s my parents rented it on VHS from West Coast Video. I don't remember exactly when they first rented it for me but it was before the summer of 1993 because we hadn't moved out of the city yet and the West Coast Video location they rented it from had closed down by 1993.
Rogers Video had a copy though and we rented that all the time. Unlike the copy from West Coast Video, the original VHS cover was slipped into the rental case, which Rogers Video actually stopped doing around 1993 and had their own covers inside the rental cases. Though they still had the retail VHS box in front of the rental case, which you had to take to the counter when you were going to rent a movie. At least for the slipcover cases. For the clamshells, they just had the rental cases.
Eventually Rogers Video was getting rid of some of their old stock and put The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin on sale. My parents bought it for me and I ended up watching the tape a whole lot more once I owned it. Trust me, it did not go unwatched. I wish I still had my old copy, unfortunately it looks like we got rid of it with a few other VHS tapes that I had intended on keeping before we moved. Thankfully Vincent was nice enough to send me the digitized version of his copy, so I at least have it in my collection that way.
One of the things that I love about this movie is the models, animatronic costumes and sets used for it. I'm not a big aesthetics guy when it comes to movies and TV shows. However, the fact that the sets, models, and animatronic costumes were made on such a small budget is impressive. Especially in 1985. Most TV shows and movies that are made in this style are pretty limited. I mean if you look at the first few Barney & The Backyard Gang tapes, the sets look terrible compared to what AlchemyII was able to accomplish for this movie. The airship moves wonderfully, as do the Gutang airplanes. And of course the characters move amazingly too. And the models used for the main locations of the series (Gimmick's House, Tweeg's Tower etc) look spot on as we've seen in them in the books. The Hard to Find City is my favourite of the models. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and exactly how it looks in the book for "The Missing Princess".
The story is also pretty great. I mean yeah, if you've seen the first five episodes of the animated series, or heard "The Airship" and "The Missing Princess" then you know the basic story of this movie. However, there are a few things that made their debut in this movie, even before they appeared in the book and tape series. The first one is Teddy's mother, Ilana Ruxpin. Her first book appearance, "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" wasn't released until AFTER this movie aired on TV, which is interesting, because I had assumed that a good chunk of the book and tape sets, along with Teddy himself, were out before the movie aired on TV. But only some of them were since the toy debuted in September 1985 while this movie aired in November 1985. The other thing that appeared here, that had made two appearances in the book and tape series up to this point are the crystals, though their full importance wouldn't be revealed until the The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin animated series that would come out in 1987. I think even Tweeg and L.B. made their first appearance here, depending on when "Tweeg and the Bounders" was actually released. The final thing that made their first appearance here was Louie, the Grunge reporter/cameraman who works with the Wizard of Wee Gee/the Wizard of Grundo. He didn't appear in the book and tape series at all, and wouldn't make another appearance after this until "Beware the Mudblups" the second episode of the animated series.
The only negative about this movie is the fact that the two songs from "The Airship" are missing from here. Of course "My Friend" didn't appear in the animated series either, but "Come and Discover" did, and so I kind of feel it's absence from this movie. Maybe it's because that song, more than any other in the franchise besides the theme song, perfectly encapsulates what Teddy Ruxpin is and it feels weird not having it here since it's in every other version of this story, including the 2006 Backpack Toys version.
I love this movie. I don't think there's a movie adaptation of a toy from the 80s that was as perfectly made than this one. It has the heart and soul of Teddy, it has the sets that make Grundo what it is, it changed very little from the original story, and it has wonderful characters. If you're a Teddy fan and you HAVEN'T since this movie yet, I definitely recommend you check it out. Or if you have kids this would be a great way for them to be introduced to Teddy Ruxpin if you don't have access to the talking toys and book and tape sets or the animated series. Like I said, it was only ever released on VHS, but a few people have uploaded it to YouTube, so if you can't find a decent VHS copy on eBay, then YouTube is your best bet, unless you have a friend who owns the tape and has digitized it. I'm very lucky that I do.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back either tomorrow or Wednesday for my review of the fourth issue of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew. Then later in the week, either Friday or Saturday I'm going to try a little experiment. I've seen a few YouTube channels who put out a "What We Are/I Am Watching" videos where they talk about everything they've watched in a week or whenever, and do mini-reviews of each movie or show they watched before recording that segment. I mean I've kind of done something similar once before, but it was more of a pickups post. So I'm going to try to make a "What I Am Watching" post at the end of the week and see how it goes. I want to watch movies and TV shows, but I don't always have much to say about them. Like last week I watched the live action version of Mulan on Disney+ but found I didn't have a whole lot to say about it individually, and who knows when I'll be reviewing the original animated version of the movie, so this might be an interesting way to talk about more shows and movies on the blog.
Anyways that is going to be it for me for today. But I will see you on Wednesday for the next review. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you later. Bye.
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