Version History: Furby
3/8/20261 hr 15 min
In 1997, David Hampton and Caleb Chung took one look at a Tamagotchi and decided they could bring the virtual pet craze into the real world. Their robotic companion, Furby, packed a bunch of advanced technology into a small, adorable, often annoying package. But for all the irritation it caused (Furby famously had no on-off switch) there was a surprising amount of thoughtful philosophy in its design. The Verge’s Vee Song, Sean Hollister and host David Pierce are joined by Coco the Furby to discuss the lore behind the hottest toy of 1998. Geocities chat with Furby co-inventor David Hampton If you like the show, follow the Version History audio podcast feed to get every new episode.Version History is also on video! Check us out on YouTube.Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDavid Pierce· Host0:00
Hey, it's your friend David Pierce here. Just wanted to let you know that our new season of Version History is launching today, and we're dropping the first episode in the Verge cast feed. This is one of my favorite episodes of this whole season, a true delight to make, and I think you're gonna enjoy it. But before we get into it, I have a big favor to ask. We just split Version History off into its own YouTube channel, and if you've ever launched a new YouTube channel from scratch, it, it's awful. It's, it's hard out there for a new channel. So please, if you like the show, if you like us, if you just want me to stop begging you to do this, please subscribe to the podcast. It's at Version History Podcast. We'll link to it in the show notes. Please subscribe. You're gonna get clips. We have huge plans for what we're gonna do with this channel, so please subscribe. Also, frankly, the show is just beautifully shot, and we're, we're very proud of the way that it looks. Go check it out. Thank you, and please enjoy Version History. Let me pitch you on a toy.
Speaker 10:53
Warning.
David Pierce· Host0:54
It doesn't do very much. It just kind of makes noises. [laughs] But it doesn't make noises that you understand, and you don't really have any control over them, and it will at some point wake up in the middle of the night and terrify you and everyone you love. It's small, it's furry, and I promise you're gonna love it.
Speaker 11:13
Yeah.
David Pierce· Host1:14
From The Verge and Vox Media, this is Version History, a show about the best and worst and most important products in tech history. I'm David Pierce, and on this episode, we are, of course, talking about Furby.
Speaker 11:25
La, la, la, la, la.
Unknown speaker1:25
[upbeat music]