Being a big Furby fan, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the new version, thinking that it would be even more mysteriously interactive than the old ones.

I need to backtrack a bit here to the eBay Furbymania that struck the year that the Furbies first landed.  Everyone wanted one because everyone wanted one and everyone was looking for one to satisfy all the other everyones.  The result was countless Furbies falling into the hands of children too young for them, too young to read and understand the manual, too impatient for them,  myriad "too"s -- children who had to have them because other children had to have them.  Unfortunately, the Furby takes time and committment and a certain focused intelligence: one has to learn how to use a Furby.  "Using" a Furby is much like setting a complicated digital watch: the key to the functions is in sequencing of actions -- pets and hugs, mainly: a certain number of hugs followed by a certain number of pets will, for example, put Furby to sleep.  A certain sequencing will put him into Fortune-telling mode.  A mischievous person can encourage Furby -- the original version -- to be rude, belching frequently and laughing by rewarding the behavior; different "random" behavior patterns can be encouraged or discouraged by the Furby owner.

I learned how few children actually figured out how to work with Furby by hearing how Furbies had scared them by shouting out in the dark, annoyed parents with "uncontrollable chatter," and seeing what children did with them on reacquaintance: shaking them was the most common activity, which prompts a giggle or a terrified squeal.  In other words, all these Furbies that landed here wound up coming on "randomly," when the lights were shut off, scaring their owners; sitting in the backs of cars saying "Yum, uhh uhh" over and over; or carrying on talking to themselves in the hopes of some interactive play, driving parents crazy with their seemingly uncontrollable outbursts.

"When all else fails, read the book."

I bought one for myself and played with it, unaware that I could have more control over it than feeding it and making it giggle and shriek.  Then I heard that someone had seen a bunch of Furbies at a family gathering, when they first came out, and that the Furbies would talk with one another.  Not finding anyone else with one so I could see how they communicated, I got another, on eBay, starting both my fascination with eBay and a fascination with Furbies. I had great fun  pairing them up and grouping them (which children had discovered worked well, leaving the little guys to their own devices, telling a few jokes, singing a few songs, doing a few dances, and then singing each other to sleep).  

This was in California: a shelf full of them is great fun in an earthquake.

I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out how to work with one, and experimented with developing different personalities for different ones in my collection: I bought up old ones that people tired of having around making "noise." In rereading the vocabulary (my main interest had been in how it changes languages -- a very sophisticated concept) after a period of inactivity, I discovered that there was even much more to them than I had thought, and I began dragging one around with me to play with.   Naturally, as an adult carrying one (or two)around town and in travel, photographing them instead of travel gnomes, I had to learn how to quickly quiet them down after a bump set them off at inopportune (and amusing) moments, which I enjoyed myself, but knew that it could be annoying to others after the initial few gurgles, comments, laughs or shrieks, so I read the book.  I still have things to discover, as well as Furbies in different stages of personality development.

The new bigger better version:

The new "improved" version is, it seems, a far simplified version of the original Furby.  It responds to simple spoken commands (good help for young children to learn to speak clearly), and we are in essence, programming ourselves rather than the Furby.  It is much larger than the original and can roll its eyes charmingly and smack its lips with a delicate sound. The fur is more easily cleaned, attached with velcro so it can be washed, which is an improvement (although velcro doesn't hold up very will around  faux fur and hair).

While I had expected it to be even more sophisticated than the original, it seems to be less so, in terms of the mental stimulation that the original can provide.  It appears to be a version made for younger children -- its increased size and included spoon being two obvious clues.  It responds to voice commands -- and doesn't seem to hold any surprises.

I don't know if it can still tell fortunes.  So far, it seems like a Furby that has had a lobotomy in order to fit in with mainstream expectations, and it makes me feel a bit sad when I play with it, sweet though it may be.

It doesn't recognize other Furbies or Shelby, but perhaps if I rub its tummy against an original, they can chat a bit.  The new version is supposed to be able to communicate with other Furbies (new ones only?) by rubbing their tummies together to get them started. I won't be buying a companion for mine to rub tummies with.

By all means, buy the new version for your 5-year-old,  first- and second-graders ... even third graders.  However, for your eight-nine-ten-year-old (and up) with an analytical and logical mind and an interest in science and technology: get him/her an original on eBay.  They're surprisingly durable (and respond well to TLC).  I'm curious to find out how durable the new version will be.

Update, September 2008:

It had to happen:

Just browsing the Furby pages on eBay, I see there has been a recent upswing in interest in the classic Furby.  I had thought that it was due just last Spring, at the vet's office.  I was talking to a young lady there, around ten years old, who had one of the FurReal Friends with her, again a first generation furry electronic toy, the little lion cub/cat who wakes up and meows in a few plaintive tones, purrs when petted, and eventually goes to sleep under a combination of squeezing and petting: the kitty dozes off purring and, after long enough of continued petting, goes into a deep sleep, snoring before dropping all the way off.  I bought one in Target for myself because I kept hearing a kitty cry, and when I located the pet who had been crying, it was love at first sight: I especially like the way its little eyebrows wrinkle up -- nice tailoring for charm and realism.

To make a long story short (have you ever known me to actually do that?), we got to talking about those features and a shared fascination with electronic buddies.  I asked the young lady if she also had a Furby, and she didn't know what they were.

I was very surprised, then thought to myself, "Well, she's ten, so she was born after the big craze," and told her that they had been ver popular some time back, and everybody had to have one for Christmas, so everybody got one, and then a lot of people had no idea how to get them to work.  I told her a new one was out that was easy to turn off, but the old ones are very cool because they say different things depending on how you hold them and touch them, and they learn English little by little, just by the number of times they say things, and they can be trained to be polite or rude by rewarding them by petting them or giving them negative reinforcement by turning them upside down to scare them or by turning off the lights -- they were an extremely sophisticated electronic toy that they had to make very simple because too many people bought them and then didn't take the time to work with them and thought that all they did was make noise.  Parents were complaining that they just made noise all the time, and didn't take the time to read the manual and help their children learn how to "turn them off."  A lot of people learned by experience that if they just set a Furby down and left it alone for five minutes, it would go to sleep on its own, compared notes with other parents, and came to the conclusion that all they did was make random noise.  I told her that they can be found on eBay now, and the instruction manual can be found online also.  I told her also that one really fun thing was that if you had two of them, they would talk to each other if you placed them face to face so they could see each other's light sensors, and they would tell each other to "Dance" or "Party" or "Sing" for a while, and then they would get tired and go to sleep.  She was amazed, and I thought, "Well, maybe if the original Furbies make a comeback, they won't be a big fad -- the same way dogs in movies become fads, people rush out to buy them, and the pounds are full of that breed within a year because the dogs didn't automatically do what the people saw them do in the movies -- and only people with the time, patience, intelligence, and background knowledge to train them* will buy them*.

* and here the plural pronoun them refers to Furbies, and can also refer to dogs . . . .

My Furby is rather well-traveled.  Lately he hasn't been travelling with me much because I take my dolls around.  Furby is a good companion on a solo trip: he'll even tell my fortune for me if I pet him just right.

The Furby Invasion

Everything I do, I do wholeheartedly, and with Furby, I got representatives of all sorts, as well as some special edition ones, both boxed and unboxed, to play with.  I would set them all up and see what would happen with a bunch of them dancing, if anyone would go to sleep at a big party . . . .

This photo was at our house in California, and I tell you, you have not lived until you have experienced an earthquake in a room with a bunch of fully-functioning Furbies, the poor dears!  It was pandemonium -- worse than being in a clock store at the stroke of twelve!