AG Bear
AG Bear is a teddy bear designed by Ron Milner, and manufactured by Axlon, a company formed by Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, through his Catalyst Technologies venture capital firm. A look at the manufacturer's tag on AG—which stands for "Almost Grown"--lists their production date as 1985.
Overview
The bear was a commercial success, due to its interactive capabilities. AG Bear is equipped with a voicebox which, although originally intended to mimic the intonation of the human voice or other louder sounds, transcended all expectations when children discovered that AG could respond with a spontaneous voice. AG Bear's voice is synth with some "growling". The company referred to this as "bear talk". When two AG bears were placed beside each other, they would interact once one was set talking (sound is what makes AG bear react. so the sound of one AG Bear would set the other one talking, and so on).
AG Bear was released in several colors. The traditional bear is brown. Other bear colors included white and grey. Several other bears were released over time, including GrandPaw AG and GrandMaw AG, Bearonica AG's sister, and several Baby AG's.
AG's traditional clothing is a blue corduroy shirt with a gold AG Bear monogram, although a red corduroy version also exists.
Axlon was eventually sold to Hasbro, and AG Bear production halted.
In the late 1990s, a multi-year lobbying effort resulted in an agreement to resume production of the original AG in a limited run edition.
See also
References/External links
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