The toy's mouth and eyes move while he tells stories about his adventures played on an audio tape cassette deck built into his back.

[7] Teddy's extreme popularity in 1986 buoyed the controversial launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System, also distributed by Worlds of Wonder.

The data stream controls the motors that move the eyes and mouth and can also redirect the audio signal to Grubby, who is an octopede and the companion toy, by means of a proprietary cable.

Shortly after his debut, Teddy Ruxpin was dubbed the "Official Spokesbear for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children" in 1985.

[citation needed] Actress Joanna Kerns served as Teddy's spokesperson shortly after its introduction, while at the height of her fame as Maggie Seaver on the ABC-TV sitcom Growing Pains.

[14] Worlds of Wonder launched a series of safety messages for children, with different partners including firefighters[15] and the United States Lifesaving Association.

[16] WoW became the exclusive distributor for the launch of the smash hit Nintendo Entertainment System, based on leveraging the undeniable strength of Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag.

Historian Steven Kent wrote: "Anyone who wanted to sell Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag, including Sears and Toys R Us, was going to hear about the Nintendo Entertainment System."

WoW received windfall sales commissions from selling the NES,[14] and $800 million in back orders for the Christmas season, mainly for Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag.

[citation needed] Teddy Ruxpin characters joined the Ice Capades program, which toured the country.

[18] In 1987, management staff of Worlds of Wonder grossly overestimated the popularity and inventory requirements of Teddy Ruxpin, which was actually in declining demand and was dwarfed by the NES.

The TV Teddy system consists of a series of specially encoded VHS cassettes, an RF-transmitter that relays signals encoded on the video track to the toy, and an animatronic RF-receiver consisting of a loudspeaker, and two servos which provide much-simplified eye and mouth movements compared to both the WoW and Playskool versions.

Entertainment's corporate management and financial troubles ultimately resulted in Alchemy II withdrawing the licensing for Teddy.

[citation needed] In 2005, BackPack Toys announced a fourth version of Teddy Ruxpin, which replaced the audio tapes with digital ROM cartridges.

[27] In May 2018, Alchemy and The Jim Henson Company made a deal to make a new Teddy Ruxpin series, animated as digital puppetry, aimed at preschoolers.

He and other AlchemyII voice actors in the 1980s did not reprise their roles in the television series because production was moved to Canada, starring John Stocker as Gimmick.

Elsewhere, a less pronounced threat routinely besieges the trio: the wannabe villain Jack W. Tweeg, a greedy troll intending to join MAVO.

The sixty-five episode series unfolds gradually, as the trio meet interesting and often friendly creatures while visiting intriguing lands and going on wondrous adventures.

At least two other companies (Vector Intercontinental and Veritel Learning Systems) produced tapes that work with the Teddy Ruxpin toy.

[35] The 2019 comedy-horror film Camp Wedding featured a possessed Teddy Ruxpin toy as a central plot point.