Furby

A Furby (plural Furbys or Furbies) was a popular electronic robotic toy resembling a hamster/owl-like creature which went through a period of being a “must-have” toy following its launch in the holiday season of 1998, with continual sales until 2000. Furbies sold 1.8 million units in 1998, 14 million units in 1999, and altogether in its three years of original production, Furbies sold over 40 million units. Its speaking capabilities were translated into 24 languages.

Furbies were the first successful attempt to produce and sell a domestically-aimed robot. A newly purchased Furby starts out speaking entirely Furbish, the unique language that all Furbies use, but are programmed to speak less Furbish as they gradually start using English. English is learned automatically, and no matter what culture they are nurtured in, they learn English. In 2005, new Furbies were released, with voice-recognition and more complex facial movements, and many other changes and improvements. The Emoto-Tronic Furbies (Furby, Furby Baby, and Funky Furby) continued to be sold until late 2007, when these toys became extremely rare.

8 Comments to Furby

1. 

   I put a seat of headphones on one of these for a week with an Insane Clown Posse CD set to repeat trying to teach it to say the F word…it didn’t work.
Viper on April 5th, 2011
2. 

   LOL @ Viper. I remember there were riots over these fugly things one year for Christmas. They were selling for a couple of G’s that year too.
MOE DIRT on April 7th, 2011
3. 

   wasnt there a thing with them that people thought they were sending info to the FBI or something?
Trude on April 7th, 2011
4. 

   I read an article that the style of them had to be changed because they closely resembled the moguies (sp) from Grimlens, but they eventually lost and were removed from the market.
SoonerGirl on April 14th, 2011
5. 

   I’ve had friends of mine tell me that if you had two, sometimes they would wake up in the middle of the night and start talking to each other. Creepy!
Emily on April 19th, 2011
6. 

   I seriously remember them being huge like Cabbage Patch and Tickle Me Elmo. My parents nearly got trampled trying to get my sister one, and like most things like this, they SOUNDED better than they actually were. As in they didn’t quite live up to the hype.

   I remember them being a bit pricey and hard to get for awhile. Then back in 2002 I noticed them for like 9.99 at KBtoys. It was like they could no longer GIVE the things away.

   NOW, fastforward to 2011 and a few of them are going for big bucks on amazon.
Alyssa on May 15th, 2011
7. 

   I had some of these, but they were the crappy figurine ones you got in a McDonalds happy meal. they always (and still do) freaked me out because they reminded me of the Gremlins lol
Sidney on May 31st, 2011
8. 

   I remember having to wait in line overnight at Toys R Us in an unsafe neighborhood, just to get one of these horrid things for my little brother for Xmas.
Dawnieangel76 on August 16th, 2011

Leave a comment