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Following
the wildly successful toy line,
"The World of Teddy Ruxpin" from Worlds of Wonder,
Teddy
Ruxpin got his own TV show in the fall of 1987.
"The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin" was a
joint venture of
Worlds of Wonder and AlchemyII, and was produced by DiC.
Atkinson Film Arts of Ottawa, Canada handled the principal
animation. Phil Baron and Will Ryan returned as the
voices of Teddy & Grubby, (and Phil was also the head
writer on the series) while the rest of the cast from the WoW book
& tape series were replaced by Canadian voice talent,
the most prominent changes were John Stocker taking over the role of
Gimmick from Tony Pope, and John Koensgen taking over Tweeg's voice
from Will Ryan. Les Lye, a Canadian actor most famous for his
live-action role in the Nickelodeon TV series "You Can't Do
That on Television" played Quellor.
The
series was different from most other cartoon series, past and present,
in that most episodes continued the plot from the previous. More
specifically, Ken Forsse and the producers had invisioned 13 blocks of
episodes, or 13 mini-storylines, airing one half our episode per day.
At the beginning of each week, the show would take a slightly
different direction, with the main bulk of that week's conflict solved
by the end of the Friday episode. This worked great when the show aired
in sequential order during first-run syndication in 1987 and 1988, but
when original syndication ended and stations were free to air episodes
in any order, the series sometimes got muddled and people had a hard
time following it if it didn't air in sequence.
Worlds of Wonder released parts of the first 15 episodes on VHS,
editing some episodes together and cutting some in length to form
mini-movies, which they also in most cases re-titled. Until 2006, these
were the only episodes ever released on home video, and the bulk of the
series hadn't been available for viewing since it last aired in the
United States in 1992.
The series had common themes among several general plot changes-
friendship, adventure, and solving problems peacefully when possible,
and also showing that being a bad guy isn't always what it's cracked up
to be (see Tweeg)
The initial episodes followed the general storylines of the first
several book & tape adventures released by Worlds of Wonder for
the Teddy Ruxpin toy. In fact, the first 5 episodes of The Adventures
of Teddy Ruxpin were made not only as a pilot for the series, but also
to help advertise the talker.
After the initial blocks of episodes, where Teddy and Grubby travel to
Grundo from Rillonia, meet Gimmick, Tweeg, LB, Wooly, Prince Arin,
Princess Aruzia, the Grunges and the Wizard, search for the treasure,
find the six Crystals at the Hard to Find City, and help rescue the
Princess, a few episodes concentrated less on good vs. bad guy, were a
little less epic, and more focused on day to day adventures in
Gimmick's valley, such as "Take a Good Look" and Grubby's
Romance both of which are favorite episodes of
mine. No matter what the changes in the backstory of the week were,
however, the plot had a continuation rarely seen in cartoon series, and
every episode connected to the next one, in a good number of the shows
there were even "cliffhanger" scenes, where you wouldn't find out the
ending of one episode until the beginning of another. Very rare for a
cartoon series, This kept it fresh and exciting. The series followed a
similar pattern throughout. When Teddy & co would fight gutangs
and Monsters & Villains for awhile, they would then return home
and have a week's adventures dealing with a rather harmless but greedy
and scheming Tweeg (such as in "The Medicine Wagon") and helping Grundo
residents solve problems (Such as the episodes dealing with Wooly going
to school and "The Faded Fobs") The series never ran a particular plot
or idea into the ground, which also helped it stay fresh and not
generalize it into any particular category. My favorite episodes
include both heart racing action such as the battle with MAVO and The
Gutangs, and the day to day storytelling where character relationships
were also formed to a greater degree than the more adventure intense
shows.
The series began to inch towards the conclusion when mysteries that
surfaced in the first blocks of episodes began to be solved and new
mysteries unfolded, such as one by one finding out the purpose of the
six crystals. Episode #33, Captured, is generally where I see the
turning point begin. Over the next twenty-nine episodes, Teddy unravels
several mysteries behind The Hard to Find City, his long-lost father,
and the history of his own life and Illiops in general. A few more
episodes dealing with day to day Grundo happenings were next, and then
the Trio begin to wrap up the series with a return to Rillonia, where
it all started. The final episode, titled "The Mystery Unravels" was
the only one I can think of that didn't have a quite coherent plotline
from beginning to end, fueling speculation the episode may have been
hastily changed due to cancellation of a second season. Teddy and
Grubby end the series singing the song "Adventuring We Go" - to which I
loved Grubby's line- "Adventurin!? Oh No!"
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