1987 Playmates Talking Jill Doll Fully Functional with Original Audio Tape

For the kids and kids at heart :
Meet Jill! She’s a lot like you…
Jill was produced by the playmates toy company in 1987 and is the big sister to Cricket and Corky. She stands 33” tall and not only moves and talks, she is interactive. Allowing you to choose your own options that guide your story. Jill came dressed in her 80s tastic sweater, leggings, and leg warmers of course. She also has 6 other outfits and tapes you could buy separately. Jill runs on a 2AA and 4 D batteries and will only turn on if you have one of her special tapes.
The adult story:
Meet Jill! The 1987 Talking and moving doll that single handedly almost collapsed an iconic toy company and put them in bankruptcy!
The late 80s was a time of toy renaissance, and at the top of that mountain were the talking toys. From Teddy Ruxpin to Mother Goose, every main toy company had their stake in the game. In 1986 toy titan Playmates came on the scene with Cricket, a sweet little girl that told stories with the help of a cassette tape. Cricket was so successful that playmates quickly expanded in 1987 with Crickets little brother Corky, and their big sister Jill! By this time Cricket had multiple tapes and outfits, so Playmates followed suit with the other two talking dolls. Corky and Jill came on the scene with immediate costume changes and different tapes.
Cricket and Corky are pretty straight forward. They are basically cassette players with arms and legs and a simple control mechanism for their mouth and eye movement. Then there’s Jill.
Playmates decided they wanted to be a game changer in the talking toy industry, and set out to make Jill the most advanced robotic toy of its age. Jill was to not only talk and move her eyes, but also blink, turn her head, and move her arms. The biggest feature was that she would be interactive. That’s right in 1987 they made a toy that revived vocal recognition. Jill was set with a story that had breaks where the child could choose options. Their choice would determine what Jill said next and change the story some, so you could have multiple adventures out of one tape vs just hearing the same story over and over. Jill was too advanced for her time, and this came back to bite Playmates.
Jill came out with a whopping price tag of $149 , the equivalent of $355 today! Playmates first huge error was marketing this doll with commercials and having every little girl want one, and then making her where few could afford her. Their reasoning was that the doll was so complex that she cost almost that much to produce, so they were getting very little profit. So many children were disappointed and parents angry that a toy would be so expensive.
The next flaw was was her construct. She is NOT a toy, but a full on robotic marvel. Kids want to play with toys, take them places, drag them around, have a best friend. There is none of that with Jill. She is made almost completely of hard plastic, and she is crammed full of tiny intricate wires, gears, and motors…and all those gears and parts..made of plastic! Even her head which has a skin of soft vinyl, is filled with motors and wires. So kids were getting this toy and almost immediately breaking it. Playmates was already losing money on Jill and then the returns began. I’ve talked to several parents and they said they exchanged Jill several times and at some point had enough and told their kid sorry no more Jill.
Her last flaw was how complicated she was to operate. Again, these were made for kids. Cricket and Corky both had cassettes and a player that popped open, big buttons to stop, play, all the normal functions. Jill on the other hand has a complex cassette and they gave her no buttons and no on or off switch. You could not control anything. The only way to stop the tape was to yank it out of her and there was no way to rewind. It would only rewind automatically at the end of the tape. Since there was no on and off switch you could only turn her on by inserting a tape and turn her off by pulling it out. For a child this all became very overwhelming.
Playmates lost so much money that Jill was pulled, and Cricket and Corky became casualties as well. On the verge of bankruptcy Playmates swore off talking toys all together. The only reason they are still around today is that in a last ditch effort they put their money in a little toy called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which became a mega hit. Jill later resurfaced as a plush doll so they could use spare parts and recoup some money. This doll had her head, hands, and outfits from the line. No tapes or accessories were used again.
Today Jill is 35 years old and a rare find. She is always broken and extremely tedious to repair. You also have to find one of her rare tapes to even work on her. The Jill in this video took me a year to get fully operational. I’m afraid with time she will continue to deteriorate and parts will break. So I will be documenting all her tapes! To be continued.