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What Was the Talkboy Deluxe?
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What I Remember About the Talkboy Deluxe
It’s 1993, and the Holiday season is in full swing. Mrs. Doubtfire is on the big screen, and Doom is about to become an overnight smash hit. However, a 5-year-old boy has his heart set on something else. A movie prop that became a real toy—the Talkboy Deluxe.
Many of us have those “it” toys that we desperately wanted as kids. For me, there are two that specifically come to mind: a Madden video game and the Talkboy Deluxe. I was lucky enough to receive both, but the Talkboy was my gateway to the world of technology—and physical media.
What Was the Talkboy Deluxe?
The Talkboy Deluxe has a more interesting backstory than most toys. It started as a fictional toy for a fictional clever boy. The original Talkboy (sans “Deluxe)” was a prop for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, released to theaters in November 1992.
In the movie, Kevin (Macauley Culkin) uses the device to record his voice and play it back at a slow speed to fool people into thinking he’s an adult. He also uses it to incriminate the burglars who are after him. It was a surprisingly important plot device, and like the Hoverboard in Back to the Future Part II, kids wanted it to be real.
Luckily for us, movie studios love making money, so the Talkboy had to be a real, functional product that could be sold. It was produced by Tiger Electronics and released during the 1992 Holiday season. However, this first model did not match Kevin’s in the movie—it lacked the all-important voice-changing functionality.
That omission was corrected the following year with the Talkboy Deluxe. This model featured a slider switch to go into “Slow” mode, just like the movie. You could make your voice sound fast and high-pitched by recording in slow and playing it back at normal speed, or slow down and deepen your voice by recording at normal speed and playing it back at slow speed. I can still remember seeing the TV commercials.
Talkboy Mania Arrives
The Talkboy Deluxe went to market in April 1993, but it really picked up speed during the Holiday season that year. Home Alone 2 was released to VHS earlier that Summer, and it included advertising that pointed out Kevin’s Talkboy was a real product. Ten million copies of that VHS were sold in December 1993.
Tiger Electronics was feeling the pressure before Christmas trees started appearing, though. The company pulled all TV commercials after Thanksgiving due to a lack of product availability. A spokesperson said they sold “hundreds of thousands” of Talkboy Deluxes—but the demand was for around 2 million. The company’s telephone line was getting more than 500 calls a day about the toy’s availability. Toys “R” Us stores had waitlists in the hundreds. It was a real-life Jingle All the Way situation.
Things didn’t slow down after 1993, either. Home Alone 2 eventually was released for television broadcasts, bringing a whole new wave of demand. The Talkboy Deluxe was once again a hot commodity during the 1994 Holiday season. Some stores sold out within an hour of opening on Black Friday.
This is where my memory gets a bit hazy. I can’t remember if I received the toy in 1993 or 1994. I remember watching Home Alone 2 at home, and many of our VHS movies were TV recordings. I think I probably first saw the movie on TV in 1994, and it would have been a bit easier for Santa Claus to find at that time. Regardless of the year, I was a very happy kid when I opened that gift.
What I Remember About the Talkboy Deluxe
As you’re well aware at this point, the Talkboy Deluxe and Home Alone 2 had an extremely close relationship. It came with a two-sided cassette tape; one side was blank for recording, and the other side had sound bites from the movie—15 minutes on each side.
Now, here’s the thing. It has been over 30 years since I first unwrapped the Talkboy Deluxe. I don’t recall using the sound recorder feature very often, but I do vividly remember literally just lying in bed listening to the movie sound bites. And I did this quite often.
Home Alone 2—specifically the quotes of Home Alone 2—have been permanently seared into my brain.
*whispers* “Yikes, I did it again!”
“Credit card? You got it!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!! AaaaAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhh!!!”
*brick flying through air*
“Owwuhhhh”
“Direct hit!”
I found this video of a guy with the original Talkboy Deluxe and cassette. He plays the entire thing, and it’s glorious nostalgia. Check it out.
Eventually, the novelty of listening to the same 15 minutes of movie sound bites wore off, and the Talkboy Deluxe became my music player for a variety of other cassettes. It’s no surprise that I now have more of an emotional connection to cassette tapes than any other form of physical media.
The Talkboy Deluxe was one of the first bona fide gadgets that was truly mine. I figured out how it worked and reveled in the design. It had such an impact on me that I made a custom Talkboy phone case a few years ago. As a parent, it’s fascinating to think about which seemingly innocuous things will leave a lasting impact on my child. It was a simple gadget that was probably incredibly cheap to produce, but to me, it opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. Here’s to you, Kevin.