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ActiMates are a short-lived and discontinued series of interactive toys released by Microsoft Kids in September 1997. The toys are in the form of licensed dolls which can interact with episodes of their respective television series from 1997 to 2000 or on special ActiMates-compatible VHS tapes and computer games. The toys were marketed as educational tools and gave positive affirmations for correct answers from the user.
Microsoft released seven characters based on their three respective television series: Barney in 1997, Arthur, with his sister D.W. from the 1996 series in 1998 and the Teletubbies in 1999. Barney was the first to be released, was first displayed at the New York Toy Fair that year and became a success during the holiday season.
The dolls can interact with a television set and computer (the Teletubbies can't interact with the computer) using TV and PC packs. They can also be played standalone without the VCR, even with taped recordings on a blank VHS and computer packs. The barcode on the left side of the video frame and screen indicates that the show is ActiMates-compatible.
Three ActiMates Barney PC games released at launch, [1] [2] with more additional software to be released for Barney.
Microsoft discontinued the dolls in 2000 and lost the patent rights to the toys five years later.
However, despite the dolls and technology being discontinued in 2000, Teletubbies episodes were ActiMates-compatible up until 2001, the toys still interacted with reruns of their respective shows (from ActiMates-compatible years) during that time for a few more years, and Arthur and D.W. could still interact with Arthur VHS releases from 2000 to 2005 (releases that feature episodes from seasons 1-4). ActiMates Barney could also interact with airings of seasons 4-6 of Barney & Friends on PBS Kids Sprout.
Teletubbies is a British children's television series created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport for the BBC. The programme focuses on four differently coloured characters known as the Teletubbies, named after the television screens on their bellies. Recognised throughout popular culture for the uniquely shaped antenna protruding from the head of each character, the Teletubbies communicate through gibberish and were designed to bear resemblance to toddlers.
Arthur is an animated television series for children ages 4 to 8, developed by Kathy Waugh for PBS and produced by WGBH. The show is set in the fictional U.S. city of Elwood City and revolves around the lives of Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other.
Bob the Builder is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series follows the adventures of Bob, a general contractor, specialising in masonry, along with his colleague Wendy, various neighbours, and friends, and equipment, and their gang of anthropomorphised work-vehicles, Scoop, Muck, Dizzy, Roley, Lofty and many others. The series ran from 12 April 1999 to 31 December 2011 in the United Kingdom through the CBBC strand and later CBeebies. The series originally used stop-motion from 1999 to 2009, but later used CGI animation starting with the spin-off series Ready, Steady, Build! (2010-2011). The British proprietors of Bob the Builder and Thomas & Friends sold the enterprise in 2011 to US toy-maker Mattel for $680 million.
Boohbah is a British preschool television series created by Anne Wood and produced by Wood's company, Ragdoll Productions, in association with GMTV. It premiered on ITV on 14 April 2003. The series was later broadcast on Nick Jr. UK beginning on 2 April 2005.
Tweenies is a British live-action puppet children's television series created by Will Brenton and Iain Lauchlan. The programme is focused on four preschool-aged characters, known as the "Tweenies", playing, singing, dancing, and learning in a fictional playgroup in England. They are cared for by two adult Tweenies and two dogs.
Rescue Heroes are a line of action figures targeted towards preschool-age children, released by Fisher-Price. The line was first introduced in 1997, depicting various rescue personnel, such as firefighters, police officers, and construction workers, which included interchangeable tool packs that attached to the back of figures and featured various electronic or mechanical gimmicks. In 1999 an animated television series of the same name debuted. A film titled Rescue Heroes: The Movie was released in 2003.
Playskool is an American brand of educational toys and games for children. The former Playskool manufacturing company was a subsidiary of the Milton Bradley Company and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Playskool's last remaining plant in the aforementioned city was shut down in 1984, and Playskool became a brand of Hasbro, which had acquired Milton Bradley that same year.
Sabrina: The Animated Series is an American animated television series based on the Archie Comics series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Produced by Savage Studios Ltd. and Hartbreak Films in association with DIC Productions, L.P., the series is an animated spin-off of the 1996–2003 live-action series Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Play Along Toys was a Florida-based toy company, and a wholly owned division of Jakks Pacific.
Xuxa is an American children's television series hosted by Xuxa Meneghel that aired in first-run syndication between September 13 and December 10, 1993, for a total of 65 episodes. The program was based on Rede Globo's Xou da Xuxa and was created by Thomas W. Lynch and Marlene Mattos, with MTM Enterprises handling production. The show is made up of various segments of games, famous guests, and educational lessons.
Maxie's World is an American animated children's television program produced by DIC Animation City. Distributed by Claster Television and Saban International and originally aired in first-run syndication in the United States from September 18, 1989 through October 30, 1989. It consists of one season, comprising a total of 32 episodes, each 15 minutes long. In the series' original run, Maxie's World alternated on weekdays with Beverly Hills Teens and It's Punky Brewster. The series was briefly rerun on USA Network in 1994.
Merchandise for the Thomas & Friends has been produced to capitalize on the success of the television series Thomas & Friends. Whilst merchandise was produced alongside due to the popularity of the first of The Railway Series by the Rev. W. Awdry since 1945, and the original broadcast of the television series in 1984 in the United Kingdom, large numbers of manufacturers have sought to produce Thomas-branded items after the television series was broadcast in the United States and Japan.
Microsoft Corporation has been selling branded hardware since 1980, and developing devices in-house since 1982, when the Microsoft Hardware division was formed to design a computer mouse for use with Microsoft Word for DOS. Since then, Microsoft has developed computer hardware, gaming hardware and mobile hardware. It also produced drivers and other software for integrating the hardware with Microsoft Windows.
Arthur's Teacher Trouble is a book in the Arthur series, released in 1986. It was written by Marc Brown and published by Little, Brown and Company and The Living Books Company.
CatDog is an American animated television series created by Peter Hannan for Nickelodeon. The series follows the zany hijinks of orange-furred conjoined brothers of different species, with one half of the resultant animal being a cat and the other a dog. Nickelodeon produced the series from Burbank, California. The first episode aired on April 4, 1998, following the 1998 Kids' Choice Awards, before the show officially premiered on October 5, 1998. Similarly, the Season 2 episode "Fetch" was shown in theaters in 1998 before airing on television.
Teddybears is a British children's television programme broadcast on ITV from early 1998 to 2000, based on the books by Susanna Gretz. The show was about the life of five coloured teddy bears and their dog Fred. The show was filmed by Meridian Broadcasting. Journalists have compared Teddybears as being similar to and a rival of Teletubbies which was also produced around that time. However the series was targeted at older children.
Disney's Animated Storybook is a point-and-click adventure interactive storybook video game series based on Walt Disney feature animations and Pixar films that were released throughout the 1990s. They were published by Disney Interactive for personal computers for children ages four to eight years old. Starting from 1994, most of the entries in the series were developed by Media Station. They have the same plots as their respective films, though abridged due to the limited medium.
Toys-to-life is a video game feature using physical figurines or action figures to interact within the game. These toys use a near field communication (NFC), radio frequency identification (RFID), or image recognition data protocol to determine the individual figurine's proximity, and save a player's progress data to a storage medium located within that piece. It was one of the most lucrative branches of the video game industry especially during the late 1990s and 2010s, with the Skylanders franchise alone selling more than $3 billion worth over the course of four years.
The Arthur video games franchise was a series of learning and interactive story video games based on the American-Canadian children's TV show Arthur. The games were released in the 1990s and 2000s for PlayStation and Game Boy Color alongside Windows and Mac OS computers.
JumpStart Toddlers is a 1996 educational video game, the fourth within the JumpStart franchise. An enhanced version was released in 2000.
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