Movie tie-ins are a common marketing tool for toy manufacturers. It’s also a successful way to promote a film to younger consumers. The popular film Home Alone did just that with its Talkboy and Talkboy FX Plus.
If you happen to still have the Home Alone Talkboy, you might be wondering whether it’s worth keeping. Is it junk or not junk? The following will help you decide if it should stay on your shelf or be set aside for the junk removal team.
What is the Talkboy?
The Home Alone Talkboy was a portable cassette recorder not unlike other recorders available in the market. Its distinguishing feature was that it could vary the speed of playback, thereby altering a recorded message.
It was first manufactured by Tiger Electronics, and modeled after the prop used in the film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. A year after the film’s release, the toy was put on the market, as a result of demands from the film’s younger fans.
The variable speed function of the device gave uses the ability to alter the pitch of a voice recording, as was done in the film by the main character. For young fans, the potential to fool unsuspecting victims made the toy incredibly appealing.
Various Talkboy Models
Other models were soon introduced to cash in on the popularity of the Talkboy device. This included the Deluxe Talkboy, Talkgirl (for the female demographic) and the Talkboy FX Plus.
The Talkboy FX Plus was designed as a writing pen that had a recorder built into it, and was complete with sound effects. Similarly, a Talkgirl FX Plus was also introduced.
Soon, the Talk Boy/Talk Girl Jr. models appeared with an integrated recording technology that removed the need for a cassette tape.
What’s It Worth?
Is your Talkboy or Talkboy FX Plus actually worth anything? The biggest consideration is the functionality. Cassette tapes are no longer widely used and hardly available on the market. This alone makes the Talkboy a fairly obsolete item for even the most die-hard collector.
Does your Talkboy still work? If it’s been kept in its original package, protecting it from sunlight and moisture, it probably still functions. But the nature of the toy makes it highly unlikely that it was never taken out of its original package for use.
There’s a very small demographic of people interested in the TalkBoy, but that small market is still paying upwards of $100CAD on eBay for a working Talkboy. It’s unlikely that the Talkboy will increase in value more than its current market price, so feel confident that you’re not selling anything that will be more valuable in the future.