The Story of Axlon: Nolan Bushnell’s “Other” Gaming Company: Part 2
- Cassie
- Sep 22
- 6 min read
Previously we discussed the humble start of electronics company Axlon. Founded originally by Atari alumni in the early 1980’s (you can find part one here), it represents an interesting and lesser known chapter of gaming and Atari history. As Axlon pivoted from a computer peripheral manufacture to electronic toy company, their most successful toys were of a more soft and swishy variety. Mixing electronics with plush animals wasn’t a new concept by the mid 1980’s but innovations in electronics during this era allowed for more advanced interactive experiences with these huggable (and sometimes not so huggable) soft friends. I mean, who doesn’t want to hug a robot?
Petster
The best known of Axlon’s electronic plush toys is Petster. Originally called “Micropets”, Petsters were marketed as “The World’s First Electronic Pet”. Petster was a remote controlled cat shaped stuffed animal which also responded to noise . Arriving on store shelves in late Spring of 1985, Petster was a hit for Axlon thanks in part to heavy television advertising and it’s relatively affordable price. It’s cute design also was appealing to its target demographics, kids under the age of 12.
Petster is essentially a traditional remote control car with a cat body that can respond to a series of claps (or any loud noise). Depending on the sequence of claps and pauses between claps, Petster would respond in a number of ways. Petster will also produce purring like sounds if touched or meow if commanded to do so. Petster came in “Deluxe” and “Junior” model variations. The deluxe model included better sensors (with an obstacle detector), included a “leash” remote control, and according to collectors contains more robust gearing. In comparison, the junior models’ gearing can fail more often due to the brittleness of plastics used in the manufacturing process.(1)
Petster was cute, and by an non-scientific investigation into the number of vintage Petsters on EBay, seemed to be quite popular. From 1985 to 1986 Axlon sold over 20 million dollars worth of the robotic kitties. (2) Numerous spin off variants hit store shelves in time including a dog, a hamster in a ball, a penguin, a spider, and even an officially licensed Godzilla Petster. The original cat model was by far the most popular and sold for several years until the public moved onto other toys.
A.G. Bear
Not satisfied with having only electronic cats on toy shelves, Axlon also decided to get into high-tech teddy bears. A.G. Bear is a soft friendly looking teddy bear that talks back to you. A.G. Bear stands for “almost grown bear” and uses a clever synth device that responds to short bursts of conversation with a response with similar inflection via a small speaker and microphone. The synth box, named “Growl-Back” (Axlon would advertise it as “Bear Talk”) was created by Applied Design Laboratories, another Nolan Bushnell backed company from the 1980’s.
"Our idea was to make the bear take the speaker's voice pattern, print its own inflection on it, then mumble it back. The result would be a soft murmur that sounded like a response to the speaker. We built a prototype of our concept on speculation, figuring that the best way to explain it was to show the idea in action. One week later, we demonstrated it to Axlon and they signed a contract. Over the next few weeks, we designed 3 different breadboards using discrete components. As our "mumbling" algorithms improved, each new version sounded better. The third time around we hit pay-dirt, meeting Axlon's cost and sound quality goals. Elapsed time? One month.”
- Ron Miller of Applied Design Laboratories (3)
A.G. Bear wasn’t going to be the lone technology driven teddy bear on toy shelves that year. Axlon faced heavy bear competition from another Silicon Valley newcomer Worlds of Wonder, Teddy Ruxpin. Ruxpin was an animatronic talking teddy bear who’s vocal talent originated not from a synth voice box but a built in cassette tape player that synchronized to special pre-recorded story cassettes, sold separately of course. Rubxin could also connect with additional plush friends for a more interactive experience. It soon became one of the hottest toys of the 1985 Christmas holiday even at the lofty price of $79 (about $240 adjusted for inflation).(4) Despite this completion Axlon sold a large number of A.G.’s. A.G. might not have had they staying power in the pop culture lexicon like Teddy Ruxpin but it was an extremely successful product for Axlon.
A.G. Bear did have a few advantages over Teddy Rupskin; first it was more “huggable” since A.G.’s torso wasn’t a hard plastic shell hiding a small tape recorder inside. The second advantage was the price, Teddy was an expensive bear. A.G. was a bit cheaper at around $39 dollars. A.G. would eventually be joined by a few other family members, including a sister model (Bearonica), a Baby (which had a higher pitched voice), GranPa and GranMan AG. The grandparents including moving mouths and the ability to be connected to a tape recorder much like it’s bear rival.The AG line-up sold up until the demise of Axlon in the early 1990’s but would return for a short time in the mid-90’s from Hasbro who still owns the copyright.
Other plush toys
Axlon produced a few other soft toy items with built-in electronics. Party Animals are soft hand puppets that have electronic sound effects when activated by the user using a light sensor. These are fairly basic puppets, if the mouth opens on the puppet and exposes the sensor to light a sound is made. Party Animals came in various animal varieties and sometimes included accessories to make them seem more likely to be “partying down” or perhaps even “taking it to the max”.
FurFlings were even more simplistic than Party Animals in concept and technology. A small circular stuffed animal, which came in different colors and somewhat resembled a bat that would make sounds if thrown or tossed. FurFlings were inexpensive at around 10 dollars each and don’t seem to have been sold for more than a year or two.
Gross Out Toys
One of the stranger trends in childhood goods during the 1980’s was the rise of gross out toys and games. This fad was led by the popularity of the Topp’s Garbage Pail Kids series of cards/stickers which were a gross-out parody of the more wholesome Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Axlon saw a opportunity for themselves in this fad and released two very odd toy lines.
Rude Ralph is sort of a ball or disembodied head similar to the toy line Madballs (another gross out toy of the era) but isn’t really meant to be tossed around. Ralph has a eyeball you can pull out connected to a retractable string. When pulled, Ralph rewards you with one of “four rude sounds”. This is a strange toy even for the gross out genre since it’s play value is limited.
Even more bizarre would be Axlon’s Breath Blasters, small plastic handheld figure when squeezed would emit a disgusting scent. The scents included “dogs breath”, “dead fish”, and “vomit”. Axlon saw these as nothing more than a trend chasing cheap item to raise money. Axlon’s then director of marketing Jim Simmons explained, “This is a flash-in-the-pan toy that’s only involved in the current peak of gross tours that appeal to 9-year-old boys” (5). These types of crude humor and grotesque toys were not without controversy. Breath Blasters were “honored” with an official denouncement from Americans for Democratic Action which labeled 1986 “The Year of the Ugly Toy” (6).
Another Atari Alumni Joins the Company
Around 1986 another famous former Atari employee joined the Axlon family, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak. Steve was brought in specifically for a top secret new project code named NEMO (which stood for Never Ever Mention Outside) along with new corporate partners Hasbro. This seemed like the start of bigger and better things for Axlon, but would ultimately become it’s major downfall. (7)
Next time in the 3rd and final part of the Axlon story, we discuss NEMO along with the final days of Nolan’s innovative electronic toy company.