Because having a whole story dedicated to winter adventures wasn’t enough, Teddy Ruxpin needed another snow day! But, this isn’t any ordinary snow day…he has a product to plug!
Previously, on Pop Culture Retrorama…
Teddy Ruxpin went the corporate shill/shameless promoter route to plug Crest toothpaste and dentist visits to children going to the dentist for the first time. As it turns out, this venture into product placement was not his first, nor was this the last time Teddy would be plugging anything outside of his own world.
Teddy had his furry hand in promoting many things for the interest of children. He was the spokesbear for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, when an animated version of Teddy Ruxpin introduces a young celebrity friend (popular child actors of the day) with a tip on protecting oneself.
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Though I think Teddy needed to be protected from Corey Feldman. Just sayin’.
And then there was the time Teddy pushed Quaker Oats on children!
Teddy Ruxpin, For Quaker Oats!
Anyway, Quaker Oats (yes, the oatmeal Wilford Brimley did commercials for in the 1980s and 1990s) also had Teddy Ruxpin as its spokesperson – er, bear – for an in-store promotional tool. This tape was created for employees to help promote the offer to customers.
On January 11th (1986? 1987?), Teddy Ruxpin was going to be doing something BIG!
Care to listen?
Yes, you do!
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A full page advertisement, free story book (with two proofs of purchase!), a sweepstakes (many will enter, 2000 will win!), and a 900 telephone number?!
Why does all this stuff have to be so hard to find?
Adventure in the Snow
The storybook, available with two proofs of purchase from any type of Quaker Instant Oatmeal, is a special storybook exclusive to the promotional offer. But that’s not even the biggest part of it.
As the cost of Teddy Ruxpin was high in its prime – according to this marketing, as high as $90 – this price usually was the cost of Teddy ($69.99), combined with the purchase of an additional tape-and-storybook set (you can only listen to The Airship so many times before you crave a different adventure!), as those ran for about $20, Quaker Oats was going to give away 2000 Teddy Ruxpins to 2000 very lucky kids.
This very lucky kid got one in 1986 for an Easter present!
And no, I never had this book – I had The Airship and six additional stories. We owned one of those take-a-long cases that stored six tapes and seven books, so one of the tapes was always in Teddy Ruxpin.
There isn’t much information to go on with this promotion. Aside from the cover of the book and picture of the cassette, there isn’t much else. The story obviously talks of the power of eating a good breakfast to tackle the snowiest of January days, but there’s no pictures to show off!
I guess this is one of those great mysteries…like the seven crystals.
If you know anything about Teddy Ruxpin, you’ll get that reference.
I dig deep for stuff like that.
Guilty pleasure reveal time.
Not many folks know this but Teddy Ruxpin is one of my favorite all time cartoons. The weird sense of continuity, the characters and the story kept me hooked. I have seen the complete cartoon show 3 times over.
As for the Ruxpin toy I regrettably didnt have it. The closest I came to getting one was seeing on a neighbor’s lawn during garbage day someone had the Toys R Us display case Ruxpin with Teddy still inside sitting on the curb for garbage pick up! I never had the never to go ask for it. Still bothers me to this day.
Eitherway..great post as usual Vic!!
My brother and I liked the cartoon too, mainly because we liked the books and tapes. It was serialized and that really made it stand out among cartoons of this nature (serialization was obviously more common among those more sophisticated toyline cartoons)