Big Bird StoryMagic was a set of Sesame Street books, cassette tapes, and animated dolls created by Ideal Toys in 1986.
Akin to other talking plush dolls like Teddy Ruxpin, the StoryMagic Big Bird plush had a tape player in his back. When one of the "Syncromation" cassette tapes was played inside him, Big Bird's beak would move and his eyes would blink, as if he were telling the story.
Add-on dolls were also available separately in the form of Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster. These toys would only work when they were plugged into the Big Bird doll. Oscar featured an animated mouth, and could withdraw into his trash can, while Cookie Monster's googly eyes moved around.
Storybooks in the series included a mix of original titles as well as adaptations of earlier Sesame Street books, with the narration edited to a first person perspective told by Big Bird. The accompanying cassette tapes featured the recorded voices of Caroll Spinney (as Big Bird and Oscar) and Frank Oz (as Cookie Monster).
After Ideal's purchase by Tyco in 1989, the company re-released the Talking Big Bird doll the following year in 1990. The Tyco version of the doll had many changes when compared to the Ideal counterpart; the main change being that the toy was now a standalone unit, lacking the jacks that would be able to plug in Cookie Monster and Oscar. It was also smaller, and took 2 2 C-sized Batteries instead of 4 AA batteries like the original.
Player[]
Packaging[]
Store display[]
A store display featured all three players operating in the same demo against an illustrated backdrop of 123 Sesame Street with Ernie and Bert in the window of the version with all three, joined by Cookie Monster in the solo Big Bird version.
Booklet[]
Original books[]
These book titles were created as original stories for the Big Bird StoryMagic.
Reused books[]
These book titles were repurposed for the Big Bird StoryMagic from previously released publications.
