???? – 2000retired
64DD
“Arrived late to its own party, brought a clock, and rewrote time anyway”
“It slowed your voice down and sped up the holidays; no kid ever asked it to stop.”
The Talkboy began life as a movie prop: Tiger Electronics built it at the request of John Hughes and 20th Century Fox so Kevin MacCallister could outsmart adults in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Given permission to sell a retail version, Tiger shipped a cassette recorder in 1992, then added the film's variable-speed voice changer for the Deluxe Talkboy in April 1993. After the movie hit home video that July, plus a
The first version, lacking the voice changer, had sold only moderately; the Deluxe proved that one feature was the whole magic. But by 1999 the line was gone, despite demand that had made it the must-find gift of multiple holidays. It left behind a generation who still hears their own voice played back just a little too slow.
Spotted something wrong? Every fact on this page traces to a dated source. Fixes make the graveyard better for everyone.
“Arrived late to its own party, brought a clock, and rewrote time anyway”
“He fought on-screen villains, 9/11-era skepticism, and a 2016 reboot — only the reboot beat him.”
“Sixteen bits, eight audio channels, and infinite weekends on the carpet in front of the TV.”