Sunday Surprise: WuvLuvs by Trendmasters!

In the comments section of my recent Hatchimal Colleggtibles review, Caroline mentioned a beloved surprise-themed toy from her childhood.  The toy was called a WuvLuv.  Caroline described this vintage toy as having "eggs and surprises," which was more than enough to get my attention.  I love vintage toys...especially ones with surprises.  I read Caroline's comment and went immediately to eBay, where I found a mint-in-box yellow WuvLuv for under $50.  That's a hefty price, but it's more reasonable than many of the surprise-themed vintage toys I've encountered--especially considering that this WuvLuv's box had never even been opened.  Needless to say, I bought it instantly.

So today, thanks to Caroline, we get to hatch a secret egg and see a mystery baby that's been hidden for almost 18 years!

A WuvLuv (1999) by Trendmaster.

I'd never heard of WuvLuvs before Caroline mentioned them, so I did a little online research while I was waiting for my fuzzy friend to arrive.  

Basically, WuvLuvs are interactive electronic creatures with mystery eggs hidden inside of their bodies.  A WuvLuv's egg can be hatched to reveal a surprise baby, and then mommy and baby can chat and sing together.  The mommy WuvLuvs are only 11 inches tall, but they're about that same size in all dimensions, so they feel bulky and substantial.

Ghost of the Doll has an excellent overview of the brand, including detailed descriptions and pictures of most of the varieties.  Apparently the critters are known as "Wuvvies" in the United Kingdom and "Lovies" in France.

I enjoy the fact that--despite the differences in branding--the American packaging says "a wee surprise inside."  Americans don't typically use the word "wee," but we should.

The box has many photographs of different mommy and baby combinations, with snippets of text detailing the features of the toy--like the surprise nature of the baby, and the ability of the mommy and baby to interact and sing together:

I was especially intrigued by this little blurb:

An original version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider song?  I'm really excited to hear that!

There's a child model on the front of the box, and she's gripping a pair of WuvLuvs in her arms.  I have to say, there's something about this kid's intense stare that doesn't fit her surroundings:

If she were aiming a bow and arrow at my head--or guarding a hoard of jewels--the whole thing would make more sense to me.

In any case, the WuvLuvs were made by Trendmasters, an American company that's known for producing action figures from movies like Godzilla, Ghostbusters and The Iron Giant.  Trendmasters also made toys from television shows like Gumby and The PowerPuff Girls.  I don't own any Trendmasters toys other than my WuvLuv.  Trendmasters closed in 2002 and their intellectual property was purchased by Jakks Pacific.

The sides of the WuvLuv box show a few photos from the surprise egg-laying process:

The egg appears to come out of a pouch in the WuvLuv's belly.  I can definitely see why Hatchimals and Furbys remind Carloine of this toy.

This particular baby matches its blue mother, which made me wonder if all the babies share their mother's coloring?  We'll find out!

The back of the box has a group shot with a wide variety of WuvLuv characters:

Here's a closer look:

I really like the orange WuvLuvs--especially that baby!

I always like to understand what surprises are in store for me before I open a toy like this.  The text on the back of the box offers some clues.  For example, it seems that there's a chance of getting twin baby WuvLuvs.  Also, it says "mommy names baby!"  Look:

That is pretty exciting.  At first, I assumed that this was just a cleverly-worded way of saying that I would pick a name and "help" the mommy WuvLuv name her baby, but Ghost of the Doll clearly states that, the bond between mother and baby is immediately established as mommy WuvLuv chooses one of 60 names for her wee offspring and they begin to communicate.  

How amazing is that??  It reminds me a little of the Sweet e.Baby.

Another surprise will be the baby's facial features (and maybe the body color).  There's certainly a wide variety of options:

Not only do the babies have different mouths and eyes, but they have different antennae.

And the antennae glow!

Looking at the box made me very eager to hatch my WuvLuv's egg!

I opened the box and pulled out a large, sturdy cardboard backdrop:

On the left side of the backdrop there was a plastic bag containing four colorful flowers:

The WuvLuv was attached to the bottom of the backdrop with four thick metal wires.  I untwisted the wires and pulled the WuvLuv out.  Here's what the backdrop looks like on its own: 

It has a repeating pattern of these two cute little babies:

Here's my WuvLuv!  She barely fits on my studio table:

She has large inset googly eyes that jiggle back and forth a little bit in their sockets.  The eyes have a vaguely side-glancing stare, but aren't able to look directly at the camera--one eye is pointing off in a slightly different direction:

Each eye has some simple blue iris detail and a large black pupil with a heart-shaped reflective dot.  The eyes are surrounded by large velvet-like black eyelashes:

WuvLuv's open mouth is lined with pink fabric and has a painted red tongue:

She has a strange pink plastic antenna on her head.  This structure has a painted black heart on the front and a clear area on each side (presumably this is where the glowing light will shine through?).  

The antenna on my WuvLuv tips forward and cannot be completely straightened:

WuvLuv has a rectangle-shaped bottom and a narrower, rounded head:

Her yellow fur-like covering is loose and movable.  The fur sits directly over a hard plastic body.

WuvLuv has a pouch on the front of her body that's visible because of a few folds in her fuzzy covering.  I couldn't open the pouch at this stage.

She reminds me a little bit of those furry animal-shaped tissue box covers.  You know, like this:

I was surprised to discover that WuvLuv isn't plush at all--except for her four pink feet.  She's made almost entirely out of hard plastic--with a furry covering.  I wish she was a little bit cuddly.  Her happy face is just begging for cuddles.

The bottom of her body is the only area that isn't covered with fabric.  There's a lot going here:

At the top, you can see two of the four loops of plastic that held the packaging wires, along with a 1999 Trendmasters copyright:

There's also a battery compartment with some simple directions about removing the key pendant from around WuvLuv's neck.  The key seems to be necessary for activating a few labeled buttons that are located around the battery compartment:

The re-birth button?  Can't wait to see what that's all about...

I carefully inspected the heart pendant around WuvLuv's neck.  It has the WuvLuvs logo on one side:

And it says "key to my heart" on the opposite side:

It's more like the key to her bottom, but never mind.

The pendant doesn't loop around WuvLuv's neck.  It's tied with thread into an area just under her chin:

Just as the directions suggest, pulling gently on the pendant is enough to release it.

Here's the pendant on its own:

Releasing the pendant also allows the WuvLuv's front pouch to open.  The pouch can be re-closed with a small velcro attachment site:

Here's a side view of the opened pouch:

The pouch is quite roomy.  In fact, it can accommodate three mini dolls!

WuvLuv with My Generation, Shiba-Cutie and My Life As mini dolls.

At the back of the fuzzy pouch, there's a hard plastic egg compartment that's covered with plain yellow muslin fabric:

The egg compartment is locked closed and cannot be pulled open:

The egg compartment is a little difficult to photograph.  Here's another view with slightly better lighting:

For some reason the shape of this compartment reminds me of a grouper's mouth:

It's actually possible to see a glimpse of the (purple!) egg through the small opening in the egg compartment:

WuvLuv did not come with batteries.  I probably wouldn't have trusted 17-year-old batteries anyway.

I unscrewed the battery compartment and added four fully-charged AA batteries:

Now that I have the key pendant from around WuvLuv's neck, it's easier to show how its blunt end can be used to depress the re-birth button:

There's also a reset button:

And a pouch release button:

These buttons all imply that WuvLuv was built so that her egg-revealing surprise can be repeated over and over again.  This is excellent thinking on the part of the designers, if you ask me.  So many toys lose their appeal after the initial surprise or gimmick is over.

At this point I didn't even know how to get WuvLuv to lay her egg the first time, though, let alone worry about repeat performances. 

I didn't want to just press the pouch release button.  That seemed like cheating.  So, I searched through the packaging and finally found an instruction booklet taped to the backdrop:

The instructions reiterate the part about removing the heart pendant, but they also describe how to turn WuvLuv on and start interacting with her:

I pushed the re-birth button, closed the battery compartment...and Wuv Luv sprang to life!

Here are a few of the things that she can say:

She speaks when you pat the back of her head or move her around.

I've managed to catalog most of WuvLuv's vocabulary over the last few days, so here's a list of everything I've deciphered:

Kissy-kissy!

Huggle-snuggle!

Happy WuvLuv

A sigh

A high-pitched whine (ear-piercing)

Yeah!

Woooo!

A tired, exasperated sound

A knowing ahhhh!

A giggle

Maniacal laughter

La dee da de doo dee da

Nummy belly!

Wuv you (sounds like woove you)

Wuvvy snoozy (when tired?)

Wuvvy hungry

I find it a little unnerving that WuvLuv talks like a baby...and then proceeds to lay an egg with a baby inside.  It's disorienting.

As WuvLuv speaks, her antenna flashes green.  Here's a look at the antenna when it's not lit-up...

And when it is:

The flashing is really hard to see in normal daylight.

WuvLuv's eyes are supposed to move when she talks, but this feature is broken on my doll.  There's a loud mechanical grinding noise every time she speaks, but her eyes don't budge at all.  In fact, I discovered towards the end of the review (by watching YouTube videos) that WuvLuv's head and mouth are also supposed to move as she talks.  It's pretty cute and I'm bummed that My WuvLuv can't do this at all.

Anyway, the instructions also explain that the flowers that come with WuvLuv are meant to be her food.  She comes with four different flowers:

And, indeed, when a flower is placed in WuvLuv's mouth, like this...

She makes munching noises, like this:

Of course it's not just flowers that will satisfy WuvLuv's appetite.  She'll each just about anything:

WuvLuv is fun to feed, and some of her vocalizations are pretty endearing.  I especially like it when she giggles.  But I was anxious to get to the most exciting part--hatching that baby!

I went back to scan the instructions...and that's when I noticed the part at the very bottom:

It says, After you play with your WuvLuv for 30 MINUTES, she will make a surprising announcement!  Thirty minutes.  Basically, this meant that I'd have to keep WuvLuv entertained and talking for half of an hour if I wanted the egg to be laid.  As much as I like some of WuvLuv's vocalizations, I wasn't super-excited about listening to them non-stop for half of an hour.

But--I really wanted to see that mystery baby!

So, I cradled Wuv Luv in my arms and carried her around the house, diligently petting and bouncing her on my hip for thirty minutes.  I don't like how she giggles quite as much anymore.  Also, my dogs and kids think I'm crazy.

After thirty minutes, WuvLuv is supposed to go through a series of actions (all detailed in the instructions):

And then the egg compartment is supposed to open to reveal the egg. 

Well, at the end of my thirty-minute wait, this is what happened:

The egg compartment did not open. Again, there was a lot of mechanical grinding and whirring, but to no avail.

What's worse, after the egg compartment failed to open, WuvLuv mournfully asked for her baby:

But, I wasn't worried at this point.  Remember the pouch release button?  I figured it was just time for a cesarean section!

Pouch Release to the rescue!

But that didn't work, either.  The pouch release button didn't do anything.

Throughout all of this, poor WuvLuv was repeating her broken-hearted entreaty over and over again.  I finally had to turn her off.

At this point, I was extremely relieved to have instructions for how to re-set WuvLuv:

I hit reset, pushed the pouch release button, pushed the re-birth button, and then turned WuvLuv back on.  

Then I had to cuddle and entertain her for another thirty minutes.  Good thing she's cute:

At this point I was unaware of my WuvLuv's mechanical deficits, so I assumed that I simply didn't pat her head enough while she was doing her egg-laying countdown.  So, in my second attempt, instead of trying to catch the whole thing on camera, I just tended to WuvLuv.  But of course that didn't work, either.  

After a few seconds of watching--yet again--as the mechanical grinding failed to open the egg compartment, I reached in and gently pulled (ok, I pulled somewhat frantically...) on the edges of the compartment, and then I hit the pouch release button.  That worked.

The compartment opened and WuvLuv finally laid her egg!

She looks so pleased with herself!

The egg slides right out of the compartment.

Here's what the opened egg compartment looks like without the egg:

There's a little plastic lever and a sticker describing how to replace the egg and close the compartment. Again--it's great that this whole mechanism can be reset.

I closed the egg compartment and covered it up with WuvLuv's fuzzy pouch.

Now, we finally get to see that surprise baby!

The egg comes with a strip of plastic to keep it tightly closed:

My egg is lavender-colored.  It has a darker purple tip with pink painted designs:

I cracked the egg open just a tiny little bit...

And there's a bit of pink!  I guess the babies do not always match the color of their mother!  Fun!

At this point, the top of the egg rolled away...

...and I could see that half of the shell is filled with a plastic insert.  This is probably where the twin would've been if I'd been lucky enough to get one.

In the other side of the shell, I could clearly see the bottom part of the baby WuvLuv:

There's a large plastic heart that looks like the mommy's key pendant.

I swiveled the egg around...

...and started to pull the baby out!

I see a happy-looking mouth and a tiny piece of one blue eye:

Two blue eyes...

And a little yellow antenna!

Oh, man. The baby is even cuter than the mother!

It has a little sticker on the back with a "pet me here" sign:

Here are mommy and baby together at last!

So happy together!

Ok, this is the part that I was most excited about.  When the baby and the mom first meet, the mom is supposed to actually name her baby!!

I wanted to do this exactly right, so I followed the instructions to the letter.

I pulled the plastic heart tab out of the baby's battery chamber:

The baby comes with batteries already installed...and they still work.

However, when I pet the baby in the designated area of its back (or squeezed it), the pair immediately started to sing their crazy version of the ABC song (where they basically shout at each other)...and then silence.  There was no mention of a name!  See for yourselves:

So...I reset WuvLuv and her baby and I started all over again.

Incidentally, resetting the baby involves simply re-inserting the plastic heart tab:

The heart has the words "keep me" on one side, which is very helpful since this kind of battery tab is usually thrown away after it's removed the first time.

Of course starting all over again meant that I had to entertain WuvLuv for thirty more minutes.

It's probably an understatement to say I was reluctant to carry WuvLuv around the house for another thirty minutes.  But, prompted by desperation, I made a cool discovery: I read through the directions again and realized that I don't have to pet and bounce WuvLuv--singing and chatting will keep her occupied, too.  So, I set WuvLuv in front of the radio and let Maine's Coast 93.1 (with the volume turned way up) do my work for me.  I can't say that this technique was without its problems (it was difficult to answer the phone...) but it was much better than the alternative.

I moved my operation outside onto my deck at this point, too, just to give myself more room to interact with WuvLuv.

This time around, mommy and baby went through their appropriate introduction sequence, including...hurrah!...the declaration of a name:

The problem is, what on earth did she just say??  Is the baby's name Wormy?  Geez, I hope not...

I isolated the name portion of the video in Audacity.  Here's another listen:

And here it is slightly slowed-down (which I don't think helps very much):

What do you guys think?  I'm going to go with Romy, although I'm far from certain about that.  It's better than Wormy, anyway.

I love surprise names, and so I wasn't quite ready to be done with this particular WuvLuv feature--especially after investing almost two hours in getting it to work the first time.  

Empowered by my new hands-free radio babysitting option, I eagerly reset WuvLuv and baby Romy so that I could see what the next name would be!  Just in case it helps, here's the full introduction sequence written out:

Baby: Mommy.

WuvLuv: Baby?

Baby: Mommy.

WuvLuv: Baby!  NAME.  Baby!  NAME.

Baby: Yeah

WuvLuv: Wuv you, NAME!

So, the name is spoken three times.  Have a listen:

This name might be even more garbled than the first one.  Here's the Audacity clip for possible clarification:

Rocco?  Rago?  Wago?  *Shrug*

You'd think that the unintelligible names would deter me from doing this again...but no.  I had to keep trying.  What can I say?  I'm a complete sucker for surprise names.

This time, in an attempt to improve the sound quality, I detached the fuzzy covering from WuvLuv's body and exposed the large speaker on her back: 

I also replaced the batteries so that the sound would be as crisp as possible.  This time, I think I understand the name.  Do you hear it?

I hear "Boogaloo."  That's pretty cute!

I did this seven times.  Yep--seven.  That means re-setting each critter and waiting around for thirty minutes each time...so yeah, I probably need a life.  But, for anyone who's curious, I got Romy twice, Boogaloo twice, Wago once...and then these two names:

Uruguay?  Urgay?  Gurgy?  This one's tough.  But the last one is the hardest of all:

Oocloo?  Boocloo?  Your guess is as good as mine.

There's a WuvLuv commercial on YouTube that shows the egg-laying process, and that baby's name is Oshy.  The other YouTube video I watched has the name Mona.  I wish there was a list of all 60 names somewhere!  Then I could try and figure out exactly what my names are.

At one point during this four-hour marathon of booming pop-rock hits coupled with enthusiastic WuvLuv exclamations, I had another bright idea...

Unfortunately, this didn't work.

I think that leaves us with only one piece of unfinished business.  Remember the original version of Itsy Bitsy Spider that I was so eager to hear at the beginning of the review?

Well, after an entire afternoon of listening to WuvLuv (and after hearing the WuvLuv version of the ABC song) I wasn't quite as eager as I was at the start...but my curiosity still got the best of me.  I will spare you the low-quality video of this musical tour de force, but I do have an audio clip for those among you who are brave enough to listen.

WuvLuv and Romy are trading off lines here.  Be sure to notice the growling undertones of WuvLuv's voice...and the deft, unexpected key changes:



The growling undertones are, of course, my poor WuvLuv's futile attempts to move her head and eyes as she sings.  While her eye mechanism never did work properly, gears must have shifted inside her head during the review because, by the end, she was able to look straight at the camera...sort-of:

I fear that in addition to her malfunctioning head, my WuvLuv is also suffering from some loss of vocal clarity.  Two decades of silence can do that to a critter.

I love uncovering old secrets, especially electronic ones, but WuvLuv and Romy were probably the most charming to me after I turned both of them off and we took a few quiet moments to explore around outside:

At first, Romy was nervous about her surroundings..

But it didn't take long before she spotted a few things in the grass that she wanted to explore!

She couldn't believe that some of the strands of crab crass were taller than her antenna:

Whoa!

And she took special delight in every flower she encountered--no matter how small:

Wuvvy snack!

After a few minutes, she was brave enough to wander off into this exotic-looking moss bed...

...and she even got up the nerve to climb a small tree!

The tree offered a marvelous view, but of course the best view was from the safety of mommy WuvLuv's soft yellow head:

I'm embarrassed that a surprise-themed toy with a freakin' name generator escaped my knowledge for almost two decades, but I'm thrilled to have finally gotten a chance to acquaint myself with the strangely irresistible WuvLuvs.  I definitely got a defective WuvLuv, though.  I've watched several videos at this point, and both the movements and the voices of these creatures should be significantly better than what I've shown here.  Some day I'd love to find a WuvLuv that functions perfectly (can you imagine how much time I'd lose listening to all of the names, though?).  Defects and all, I had plenty of excitement and surprise with this toy and have absolutely no regrets about buying it.  

I hope you've had some fun taking another trip back to the 90s with my noisy WuvLuv and her many-named baby: Romy Wago Boogaloo Gurgi Oocloo.  After the past few days, I can't say that I'm going to be re-activating the sound feature on either of these critters any time soon, but it's comforting to know that any time I want to treat myself to a garbled name-revealing experience...or maybe just relax to the dulcet tones of an original duet...WuvLuv and Romy will be right here to help me out.  In the meantime, their lovable smiles and bright eyes will be more than enough.