Talk:Talkboy

Untitled

What happened to the original version of this article? (See "Article History")

Can this article just be copy/pasted from its orginal form as recorded on the Answers.com entry?

I believe someone was disputing the legibility of the article. If they actually did some research, they'd find their suspicions incorrect. So I've put it back. M3Plus 04:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Tried to add a link to the actual cp, got vandal-botted. I give up. 132.66.7.211 (talk) 21:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Talkboydeluxeandregular.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Inconsistency

A reader (ticket:2016111210006975) noted that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York claims:

The Talkboy cassette recorder used by Kevin in the film was originally a non-working prop during shooting. It was later released due to a popular letter writing campaign by fans along with the film by Tiger Electronics (currently under Hasbro).

While Talkboy claims:

An urban legend has been propagated online claiming that the Talkboy movie prop was developed into a retail product a year after the release of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, solely in response to a letter-writing campaign by young fans of the film who wanted to see the fictional movie prop become reality. However, this legend is completely untrue and has never been properly sourced.

Neither claim is sourced, but at least one is incorrect.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Good catch. The closest thing to a reliable source I'm seeing with initial googling are listicles of dubious value: Buzzfeed, NY Post, news.com.au. These are all in favor of the non-working prop hypothesis. I see no corroboration that it is an urban legend, specifically, but this contemporary article says that it was "produced especially for the movie" and that the producers of the toy were caught off-guard by its popularity - leading to hundreds of calls per day asking where they can get one. It's possible that the toy was produced as a tie-in for the movie and the hundreds of calls per day of people looking for them led to the "letter writing campaign" idea. That said, that article is from December 1993, the movie was released in November 1992. I can't find any information about when the toy was released.

I would say we should keep looking for sources and in the meantime drop the part about both the urban legend and the letter writing campaign, just say that the toy was designed specifically based on John Hughes' specifications in the screenplay, until we can find some reliable sources to back up one version or the other. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 20:54, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Just found this, a Tiger Electronics catalog, Volume II. It has an advertisement in it for the Talkboy, which makes me think that the Talkboy was released at the same time as the movie. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 21:01, 12 November 2016 (UTC)