|
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!"
|
