Cricket dolls

Cricket is a talking doll that was first unveiled in February 1986 at the American International Toy Fair in New York. It was the first major offering by Playmates Toys, a Hong Kong-based company that, until that time, had mostly imported toys from overseas and distributed them for the U.S. market.[1]

Cricket was designed by Larry Jones at California R&D Center. Talking animal toys such as Worlds of Wonder's Teddy Ruxpin and Mother Goose dolls had previously been sold, but Playmates' concept was to create a humanistic doll with simulated speech capability. Scripts and songs were written for the doll by Robin Frederick and Jay Tverdak. Cricket's catchphrases, including "Are we having fun or what?" and "I'll be talkin' to ya!" were written by Jones. Cricket was voiced by nine-year-old Laura Mooney.

The Cricket dolls operated in similar fashion to that of Teddy Ruxpin, but with two-sided cassette tapes instead of those with sound and movement data on separate tracks. The doll required four "C" batteries for the player and one nine-volt battery for the mouth movement.

Cricket was available in both black- and white-skinned models. The black Cricket doll was released with two different hairstyles. One featured hair identical to that of the white version with two curly pigtails tied with pink yarn. The other version had short curly hair with no ribbons.

Cricket was sold wearing a pink sweater, yellow underpants, pleated mint green skirt, yellow socks and pink high-top sneakers with monogrammed laces. Her sweater came in two variations, one knitted and the other velour. Cricket also came with her "health plan" and two tapes, one labeled "Operating & Caring for Cricket" and the other, which was unlabeled, featured songs, jokes and stories.

Book & Tapes Sets

Cricket Books were all hardcover and featured interesting facts and instructions for various crafts and activities.

  • Cricket's Clubhouse
  • Holiday Fun with Cricket
  • Growing Up with Cricket
  • Cricket Takes a Vacation
  • Around the World with Cricket
  • Cricket Goes to the Circus
  • Cricket Visits Australia
  • Cricket Visits Spain
  • Camping with Cricket
  • Cricket Visits the Zoo
  • Cricket's Special Surprise

Outfit & Tape Sets

These sets included a tape with games, jokes and stories and a coordinating outfit with accessories.

  • Cricket goes to the County Fair
  • Time for Outdoor Fun
  • Sleepy Time
  • Party Time
  • Indoor Play Time
  • School Time
  • Time for Health and Exercise
  • Cricket Goes to a Wedding
  • Cricket Tours the Hospital

Other Playsets
  • Cricket Kitty Shadow (Grey plush cat included)
  • Cricket's Chair
  • Cooking with Cricket (Included plastic utensils & recipe book)
  • Cricket's Favorite Games (Board Game)
  • Crickets Sneakers (Available in blue, red, purple or yellow)

Cricket had a younger brother named Corky, voiced by seven-year-old Edan Gross, which was released in 1987, and an older sister named Jill (voice actress currently unknown), both of whom operated in much the same way as did Cricket. However, Jill used cartridges instead of tapes and had voice-recognition capabilities. In 1989, an inanimate version of Jill, with no speech capability, was produced.

Other Merchandise

In addition to the collection of Cricket books, outfits and tapes, Playmates produced home videos, coloring books and paper dolls.

References
  1. Ward, Arthur (2020). Action Figures: From Action Man to Zelda. Crowood. ISBN 9781785006883.
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