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| THE ADVENTURES OF
TEDDY RUXPIN* animated series synopsis 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, (Phil was also a writer on the series, but went uncredited) 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 animated 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 hour 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. DVD's have been released by (so far) three different distributors - most recently by Madacy Entertainment - and the entire series is now available on home video. The series had common themes among the evolving plot - 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 toy. 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 found by Teddy & co early on in the storyline. Episode #33, Captured, is where the turning point seems to 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. The series began to wrap up with the characters returning to Rillonia, Teddy's homeland, 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". teddyruxpinonline.com is not affiliated with AlchemyII, Inc, (who own the World of Teddy Ruxpin and all copyrights and trademarks) or any other manufacturer of Teddy Ruxpin merchandise. |
  the series was produced by DiC Entertainment (now Cookie Jar Entertainment) |