AG Bear (short for Almost Grown Bear) is a talking

teddy bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy b ...

that responds to the sound of human voice. He was designed by Ron Milner, and manufactured by

Axlon The Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group was one of the first technology company incubators. It was founded in 1981 in Sunnyvale, California Nolan Bushnell Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consu ...

, founder of

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...

and

Chuck E. Cheese Chuck E. Cheese (formerly known as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza and simply Chuck E. Cheese's) is an American family entertainment center and pizza restaurant chain founded in 1977 by Atari's co-founder Nolan Bus ...

, through his

Catalyst Technologies The Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group was one of the first technology company incubators. It was founded in 1981 in Sunnyvale, California venture capital firm Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

. The manufacturer's tag lists the bear's production date as 1985. The bear wears a durable collared blue shirt with its name embroidered in yellow letters on the front. The shirt has a

velcro Velcro, officially known as Velcro IP Holdings LLC and trading as Velcro Companies, is a British privately held company, founded by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in the 1950s. It is the original manufacturer of hook-and-loop fast ...

strap in the back and the bear has a zipper that secures the internal black voice box.

Description

The bear was a commercial success due to its interactive capabilities: AG Bear is equipped with a voice box which was originally intended to mimic the intonation of the human voice or other sounds in the environment, but expectations changed when children discovered that AG could respond with a spontaneous voice. AG Bear's voice is

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

with some "growling". The company referred to this as "bear talk". When two AG bears are placed beside each other, they interact once one of them starts talking (sound is what makes AG bear react, so the sound of one AG Bear would set the other one talking, and so on). AG Bear was released in several different fur colors: the traditional bear is brown, while other bear colors include white and grey. AG's traditional clothing is a blue corduroy shirt with a gold AG Bear monogram, although a red corduroy version also exists. Several other versions of the bear were released over time, including GrandPaw AG, GrandMaw AG, Bearonica (AG's sister), and several Baby AG's. When Axlon was eventually sold to

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

, AG Bear production was halted. But in the late 1990s, a multi-year lobbying effort resulted in an agreement to resume production of the original AG in a limited run edition.

External links

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AG Fan Site
Teddy bears 1980s toys {{Toy-stub

Description

See also

External links