Next week, Mill Creek Entertainment will release the final 25 episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin… and when they do, the final mysteries in the series that I missed on my original 1987 recordings will be unraveled. This is a day I’ve been waiting for- for a heck of a long time. One of the reasons I started my website, 10 years ago next month, was to make sure everyone knew Teddy was far from forgotten. With Teddy now returning not only in the TV series DVD releases but also of course the toy products, I hope that myself and others who have put their time into making sure Teddy was remembered played at least a small part in the process of bringing Teddy full-circle. It was the least I could do for a world of characters who brought wonder, adventure and friendship to my youth (and now my adult years). Nothing else in the fictional realm has even come half as close to touching me so profoundly as Teddy has.
At the same time, my old VHS tapes suddenly no longer being irreplacable will be quite a change and a little bittersweet. They are my Doc and DeLorean in a way… a link to a place back in time that was much more innocent and carefree. While the episodes themselves are of course most important, even the commercials bring back fond memories. (For those of you who record TV programming- don’t always skip the commercials, someday they will be a kick to watch and remember) for the final time in my life next week, I will watch an episode of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin for the first time, and even though the quality of the show will far supercede that of my old relic VHS recordings and I will finally be able to see the entire series from front to back and back again, a very small piece of the nostalgia, mystery and mystique of this series I have been waiting so long to see in it’s entirety will be complete and no more. I can’t help but think that just as Teddy has come full-circle, returning once again to our TV screens and toy store shelves, that my friendship with Teddy has also come full-circle, as next week, for one final time, I’ll be a wide-eyed kid watching a Teddy Ruxpin mystery I havent seen before unravel.
