Dead Media Project: Phonograph Doll and Beyond

The phonograph had its first origins in 1877 when Thomas Edison was “experimenting with a machine that could reproduce the message given by a voice on the telephone.” Not long after (1878), Edison patented the phonograph doll in an attempt to make childrens’ toys seem more realistic. Edison’s first dolls recited nursery rhymes through a little needle tracing grooves on a wax covered disc. French took the phonograph doll a step further by allowing a wider variety of phrases to be said by one doll by creating multiple cylinders. They even made them in three different languages: French, Spanish and English. Companies in America and in Europe stole ideas from each other, especially around the time of the first World War.

As a little girl, I remember having a teddy bear with a music box inside of it as well as several dolls that had several phrases they could say when their hand was squeezed or a button was pushed. While the music box bear was an older technology (available in the late 18th century), the speaking dolls that I owned as a little girl were much more advanced than the originals from the early 1900s. My dolls ran on battery power and had a microchip that recorded what they were supposed to say.

It seems that the goal of toy manufacturers is to make children’s toys increasingly more realistic; when I was about 8, I remember the Furby toy was released. I never owned one, but I heard from my friends that when you first buy a Furby, they speak only their language, “Furbish.” But as you have them their knowledge of English grows and they speak less Furbish and more English. “The more English they learn, the more they "grow", thus placing them under the autonomous robot category.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furby) After reading http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/toys/tn080205.htm, I learned that the Furby was re-released in 2005. “The new FURBY now has an off switch so the chatterbox toy won’t break into song or story-telling mode during the middle of the night!” (http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/toys/tn080205.htm) This was one of the main complaints I had from my friends; they would be awakened in the middle of the night to a creepy voice saying “Fuuuuurby looooooooove yooouuu.” I would have been frightened too. During a UN Plaza event, Furbies were used to allow children who spoken different language to communicate using Furbish. The technology of Furby indicates the possibilities for its expansion, like new ways to teach children to acquire languages or even simply as educational electronic playmates. Especially because so many cultures value the education of their children, interactive playtime technology will only expand from Edison’s phonograph doll to become more advanced as time goes on.