Awww, how cute!
Aimed at preschoolers, Alphie II was one of those fun little “robot learning toys” that ever so popular in the 1980s. In fact, as you may have guessed, Alphie II is the sequel to Playskool’s Alphie.
I got this little dude back in Christmas of ’86 and I remember just having so much fun touching all the buttons and watching his face light up. He came with a number of different index cards that you place in him and then you’d go on to learn about colors, math, etc. but let’s be honest– the real enjoyment for a kid was to be found in mashing the buttons and hearing all the beeps and boops he would make. All powered by four good ol’ AA batteries.
It goes without saying that I would eventually lose all of the index cards, but he stilled beeped and booped and lit up, so that’s a win in my book when most of my electronic toys simply died or I broke them either through accident or evil intentions.
Just stumbled across your blog searching for Alphie II, and had to say thanks for the trip down memory lane! Alphie II was my FAVORITE toy as a kid. Like, until an unnaturally late age. I never lost the cards, but he did eventually short out…my dad couldn’t fix him, so he got tossed. I still pine for Alphie II. One day…one day.