This Paranormal Life - #312 Can You Turn a Furby EVIL?

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

In 1998, Tiger Electronics released the must-buy toy of the year - Furby. It was a cuddly little robot buddy that could talk, play and even learn english over time! But as the toy spread across the world, the horror stories started to pour in... It's time for Rory and Kit to investigate one of mankind's most cursed creation - Furbies.Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do witches' brews have expiry dates? Why can't I eat batteries? They make robots stronger? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello one and all and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and my co-investigator Kit Greer Mulvena

sit down and investigate a brand new paranormal tale, claim, beast story and come to a conclusion at the end of the podcast as to whether or not it truly is paranormal. We have investigated everything from ghosts to demons to aliens to the Banshee to back to aliens. Kit tried to take us in a different direction. I took us back to the alien direction because that's an easy direction. Up. It's a pretty easy one to look at. You know, I got into politics for a bit and I started doing a little bit of investigative journalism, looking into a billionaire tax evasion in the Cayman Islands. And Rory, thankfully, got me back on track from doing that hard-hitting research and back to what really matters, which is f***ing ghouls.

Which is up. Not f***ing the ghouls, but just investigating them, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kid, how are you doing today? You ready for a new investigation? Of course. It's Tuesday. I'm ready for a brand new investigation of course it's tuesday i'm ready for a brand new week brand new paranormal tale um and i can't wait to see what kind of up insanely believable

ufo story rory has for us today it's pretty dark i'm gonna tell you right now wow people who are tuning into this podcast may or may not have already read the title of this podcast so they do have a little insight to what it's about but they have no idea about the paranormal cases that we're going to be investigating and possibly kit the guests that we're going to have on this podcast oh in the second half i would have brushed my teeth if i knew we had guests we have three of them no spoilers we don't want to we don't want to tell you who they are yet or introduce anyone just yet. First, how about a quick word from today's sponsors?

And a reminder that you can get episodes of This Paranormal Life ad-free over on Patreon.com. Our first story today comes from an internet post under the subreddit r slash Furbies. Okay. Here, people were discussing the toys and their memories of owning them. And while many people were sharing happy memories and silly moments, a lot more people were talking about experiences that they had had with their Furbies

that have left them haunted for life. Okay, so whoever started r slash Furbies thought it would be a bit of lighthearted 90s reenactment and some nostalgia yeah but it very quickly descended it sounds like into a distributed therapy session yeah this would be the equivalent of someone creating a reddit that's like r slash christmas yes and it's like hey just thought we'd share our our favorite christmas moments remember singing jingle bells oh yeah i remember baking gingerbread cookies and one post goes my snowman came to life

my snowman kit his name was frosty and he smoked a pipe which seemed weird because that kind of goes against his genetic makeup and that was it wasn't it wasn't tobacco it wasn't tobacco in the pipe it was ice as well. A different kind of ice if you catch my drift. This is a little crack monster. Uh, this is, it's the same kind of equivalent. People hijacking something that's supposed to be nice and sharing some scary stories. But I think what we're understanding is that Furbies have a lot of horror stories alongside them.

One user posted saying, I used to love my Furby. I played with it every day when I got back home from school. Furbys have sensors on their heads, so they're supposed to know that when it gets dark, it's time for bed. But my Furby was different. He never wanted to sleep. He would talk all night, making strange noises, asking to be fed fed wanting to play games i was only six years old and my room was so small there was nowhere for him to go so eventually one night i decided to lock him in my wardrobe i hoped that it was at least dark enough in there that the sensors would know it was time for sleep but that night i awoke in bed to what sounded like crying noises coming from my wardrobe. There's something f***ed up about a Furby.

That needs more darkness. Not dark enough. Want to see the Dark Lord. Yeah, yeah. One with unlimited energy and a thirst for darkness. That's a bad combination. Who programmed that toy? And he can cry?

He can cry? That seems cruel. Yeah. As always in this paranormal life, at the beginning of a story, I'm kind of sitting on the edge of my seat, but I am, of course, coming at it with the mind and the body of a skeptic. So currently, my status, status update for the listeners, not necessarily paranormal yet. Sure. I've got a wonky Furby that needs to go back to Hasbro Corporation in China. The crying, sure, I don't remember that feature. Yeah. But we've got to see what's going on here. Well, let's see if the second half of the story can change your mind, Kate.

This individual thought that they were just sleeping at first, dreaming of crying. But the sounds were so real, they heard them even when they had their eyes opened. So, they leaned up in bed and looked over towards the locked wardrobe. It was now open, and in the darkness, they could see their Furby sitting on the

shelf, staring at them. Then, it stopped crying and said, Peekaboo! Granted, this would be terrifying to any age, but as a six-year-old child... Oh, yeah. This is a core memory from Nihon going forward.

100%. Any relationship you have, you're just going to be... You're ruined. You can never have children of your own because if you hear the words, Peek just going to be, you're ruined. You can never have children of your own because if you hear the words peekaboo again, you will, you will just mentally revert back to a six-year-old child and car and cry. Yeah. I think at this point when I was six years old, I hadn't even heard a fly, probably just watching cartoons, eating cereal all day. If this happened to me,

I'm taking my first life. I'm getting my dad's hammer and i am bashing this thing into oblivion i'm glad you're talking about the furby because i was like what do you mean a cat no no where are we going with this yeah what do you require my furby lord a soul a blood offering no i'm smashing this furby up i'm smashing this furby up and that is going to tell you a little bit about my relationship with furbies because, while you said we are investigating today as skeptics and paranormal investigators, we are also investigating today as prior Furby owners ourselves. Yeah. Although we've got some pretty interesting differences because I did not own one as a

boy, but as a man. I was going to give you the opportunity to just not say that. And you could just say you had it as a kid. Remember my furry phase? Well, something kicked it off and it was the awakening in my life. And I call him Chico. But he was my Furby and borderline partner for a few years. Back in a pretty granted dark part of my life yeah i don't like

to revisit again i thought we could be in chico we spent some great times together we did but it is true you had a furby from a very young age i did not multiple i skipped that and that's probably why i don't have that kind of childhood trauma and we will address your furby at some point in the future because it has its own stories for. But today's podcast has a very different focus. Kit, we've investigated a lot of terrifying creatures on this show before. Cryptids that will rip you to shreds with razor sharp claws. Night beasts that will watch you from the shadows and haunt your dreams. But today, of course, we're talking about one of the most accidentally terrifying creatures in the world. Furbies. Now we all know what Furbies are, hopefully. They were designed to be a cute, cuddly little pet

that kids would love. But over the years, the true horrors of these little demons have come to light. And the history of the Furby is a lot weirder and darker than you might actually think. Some even claim that there are ways that you can corrupt a Furby and turn it evil. But look, let's start at the very beginning. Furby was a fluffy robotic toy released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics. Creators Dave Hampton and Caleb Chung spent about 18 months creating the Furby, and when the toy was finally finished, it was stocked in stores all across the world. Now because this was one of the first attempts at creating a mainstream social AI toy, something

that had never been done at this scale before, no one really knew if it was going to be popular or not. But in the 1998 Christmas season, Furby mania took over the world. Kids eyeing shelves, parents filling wish lists. Each year, trying to snag the number one toy. This Christmas, it's Furby. You likely won't spot one on store shelves, though. There's just too many people trying to find one. Hundreds of dollars for a toy that feels, sneezes, and yes, it can be taught to speak English. It's kind of crazy to think, Kit, that

really until the Furby came along, there wasn't actually, this was kind of around the boom of technology in children's toys. Yeah, it's really true. It's kind of, you are kind of reminding me of quite a definitive era in our childhood because at this point we were like seven eight years old whatever it was so we were peak toy consumption period and you're right it was like there was an insane amount of optimism at this time about robots uh in particular it was crazy and like robot toys were a big thing but honestly robots in all facets of life where they were making prototypes of little robot servants and like little little robot waiters and they would and it was like in tv and media they were like hey we're only like

five years away from from every household in america having a robot that cooks you dinner every night needless to say, that did not happen. Look around. But at this point, it felt realistic. I think it was something about batteries being available, better batteries, all these kind of basic technologies, and you have voice recognition, all these things that are a lot further along today, but they were still pretty impressive back then. I remember one year for Christmas, i got a robot toy called a scooter 2000 and it was a robot that was kind of waist height he had a little tray and you could drive him around or he had a robot servant he was like a little robot servant and you had a controller that you could use to drive him around yeah but also you could talk into the controller and it would come out of his body. So I would like drive it into the kitchen and the robot will be standing there with his little tray and out of his head would come like, I want crackers, mother.

And my mom would put, you know, like crackers and a glass of milk on the robot's tray. And I'd be like, thank you. And then I drive this janky robot, like spewing milk and crackers everywhere. He'd get tangled in the rug, almost like tip over. The tray was an absolute disaster by the time it got to me. There's absolutely no camera,

no LED screen on the remote control. So Rory is really- I'm flying blind. Little nugget Rory. He's trying to memorize where the door might be, but the scooter is just smashing into every door. Ow.

The fridge. Ow. Yeah, and I always, I stand by the fact that I've always told people, you know, I came from a very middle-class background, but when people hear that you had a robot butler growing up. Not a lot of sympathy. They don't believe you.

I'm like, you guys don't understand. He could barely carry milk. And it's's like you had a robot butler yeah but he was f**ked he could barely talk yeah like it sounds like when you tell people it sounds like kids in the 90s had it better than kids today but it's just that no one cares about that shit anymore like i don't know if they even make little robots like that even though they would be way better today yeah the craziest thing is um we eventually put scooter 2000 god rest his soul in our attic and uh one year i went back to go check on him see if i could bring him down he was gone i don't even know where he went he fled he earned his

freedom i think he said i think he i think he was arrested at Trump's wall on the Mexican border. Point being, this was a period where technology was booming and toys like the Furby were becoming available for the first time. Now, fresh out the box, a new Furby starts out by speaking entirely in Furbish, which is the language that all Furbies use. But over time, it starts learning English. Okay, this is actually f***ing me up because now as an adult, I need to know

what's the lore of Furbies? Presumably they have a backstory. We're not going to go into that. What is their home planet? Yeah, I don't exactly know because there's been so many iterations of them. There's Furbies, Furby Babies. There's something called Shelbies,

which is basically a clam with furby eyes that was released then there's furby boom furby mixels for all these furby generations that have come over the years but the original furbies i'm not entirely sure if they like came from another planet or something i'm sorry i need to know i need to look it up i need i need the two sentence explanation i don't ever think it was that deep. You said they speak a language called Furbish. According to the official lore, Furbyland, also known as Furby Island or Island of Hugs, is where the Furbies lived before they met humankind. They call it Alo or Mela in Furbish, their native language, which directly translates to cloud hug.

Now, I guess the design of these things was supposed to look like a cute little cuddly pal. But if somehow you haven't seen a Furby before, imagine if you gave cocaine to an owl. That is what it looks like. I was wondering, to be honest, I don't want to age us too much, but I would say there's a decent number of listeners

who I'm sure that i've seen one but like might not have a major grasp on these things yeah maybe never owned one in their life but that's fine because we're going to hear stories from actual furby owners as we proceed now we all know these things that were popular but get this kit in the first three years of production over 40 million Furbies were sold. Hachimama! That means that these little f***ers were all over the country. In classrooms, in homes, in churches. And it wasn't long before the horror stories started pouring in.

Owners started reporting strange activities that were leaving kids terrified. Furbies were allegedly yelling at children who held them upside down. Other... Stop it! F*** off! I don't like it! F*** off! Yeah, it completely breaks his voice. I don't like it.

I said f*** off! Other Furbies were barely sleeping, staying up for consecutive days talking non-stop and demanding to get fed. And of course, the most common story of all, the fact that they couldn't die. I don't know if everyone knew that, but you mentioned earlier taking a hammer to one of these things. Is that something you figured out firsthand i've seen hundreds of reports of furby owners saying that they had taken the batteries out of their furbies packed them into boxes only to hear them talking to themselves in the night right now you see some electrical things right they can like imagine when you unplug a tv from the wall sometimes Sometimes the little standby light on the TV,

it stays on for like a minute after you've pulled it out of the wall. Yeah. Because there's like a little juice still running around in the TV. Does the TV make noise? Does the TV say peekaboo at midnight? No, the TV has no battery and it doesn't talk. There's a big difference between you take out the batteries and then it goes. There's a big difference between that and three days after you take the batteries out, it's going.

Good morning, Gregory. Yeah. If you take a battery out and it goes, you think that will stop me? You're like, oh, God, that's a problem. Look, I understand where you're coming from. And yes, this is an actual thing. Apparently with a lot of old battery powered toys, they have internal batteries of some kind

that hold power even when batteries are removed. For Furbies, I think they do have that in some form so that it doesn't wipe any memory or knowledge that the Furby has gained when you remove the batteries. Oh, that's a really good point. Yeah, because these guys- They can't ever fully drain the battery. Because otherwise has gained when you remove the batteries oh that's a really good point yeah because these guys ever fully drain the battery because otherwise every time you take the batteries out which is a lot with these guys because it's the only way to get them to stop they would forget all of their memories uh so this is just a way to kind of power them down the the other uh sad 90s uh version of this is i don't know if you ever come across

this but kids who had game boy color games game boy games growing up let's say you had pokemon and you had your pokemon red cartridge or whatever and let's face it we all put a lot of love and care into raising them their pokemons i was so naive i didn't realize till i was a lot older when i tried to play one of those old games the cartridges are the same thing They've got little batteries in there. Yeah. And when the battery runs out. It's gone.

Wave bye bye to your Vaporeon. Unfortunately, that's the opposite of Furbies. They can't die ever. They refuse to give up their memories. You have to get an electromagnet and rub it all over this mother f***er's face to try and wipe that hard drive. You have to get an emp device like in zion and the matrix to take down the sentinels i have lost so many files over the

years on sd cards usb thumb drives if i had just put that shit in my furbies brain it would have been bulletproof it would have stayed there forever whether i wanted to or not yeah people don't know that the u.s library of congress is just a hundred thousand furbies storing just kind of all of america's information they have a launch code furby he has the six digit code in his in his mind and he's just he's just he's just got duct tape around his little beak he's trying to He's trying to talk. Shut it off. Yeah, they have to make sure the terrorists never get the launch code Furby because they'll electrocute his nuts.

They'll do whatever it takes to get those numbers out of him. And he's got a little tiny military uniform on. Like he is technically in the Navy. He is a soldier. He is an an american soldier that is for sure now while a lot of people may be familiar with some of these popular furby stories like i said they may not know that things with the furbies eventually got so bad that the u.s government had to get involved what that's right furbies acting strange and talking without batteries is only the tip of the iceberg. As Furby mania raged on, conspiracy theories about these furry little

monsters started appearing everywhere. Firstly, because these toys were marketed as basically hyper-intelligent robots that could learn English, the public massively overestimated how advanced these toys were. But Furbies did have sensors by their eyes that allowed them to respond to light and movement. And they also had an infrared communication system so it could talk to other Furbies. In 1999, Roger Schiffman, the president of Tiger Electronics,

told CBS, I've been told that we're developing a Furby that can drive a car by the year 2000. This is what I'm talking about. Like, that sounds so f***ing funny right now. But I remember being a kid and being like, yeah, probably. Yeah, we're moving really fast. These things didn't exist like a few months ago. Now they can learn English?

Yeah. Yeah, they did some shitty like back of a napkin calculations and they were like, in 18 months, we went from Furby's not existing to Furby's talking. So we extrapolate that in the next eight years, we will put a Furby on the moon. You joke, Kit. But Roger Schiffman went on to say,

we've also been told that the current Furby has enough technology to launch a space shuttle. Man, this guy's a legendary marketer. This is great stuff. Now, while a lot of people obviously knew he was joking, being a little facetious, there was one organization that took the threat of Furbies very seriously. It was the Pentagon. Right. Because it was widespread belief that Furbies could record

or repeat conversations, the NSA and the US government became concerned that a Furby may be able to record and transmit confidential information. The threat was taken so seriously that the NSA, the Pentagon, and naval shipyards banned the toy from their premises. come from i thought you brought it in i didn't whose furby is this and the furby's just sitting he's been sitting during the whole meeting like eyes wide open recording or transmitting everything that's being said yeah every all the officers being lined up and it's like one of you is a mole leaking secrets to the russians leaking important intelligent information we don't know who we don't know how but we will find you it's like six old white men and a three-foot Furby in a military uniform. We will find them and kill them. I think it's Billy.

You're right, Officer Furb. God bless America. We should start pulling fingernails. See who squeals first. He doesn't feel anything. He's a really like f***ed up battle heart in general. But doesn't

this just go to show like with everything that's going on in the US and in Britain and other countries around the world with TikTok at the moment. Same thing. Jesus. Humans are so annoying and stupid. It's this thing of like a new technology coming along and let's face it, because it's, you know, TikTok is a Chinese company

and in Furby's case, let's face it, you might not have been necessarily designing China, but it will have been manufacturing China. It's like countries are so paranoid about anything from particularly China or Russia, but yeah, this like knee-jerk reaction to a slightly new technology. Well, that's it.

This was something that had never been done before. Children at this point had never really had basically some sort of little computer in their backpacks. So if all of a sudden the US government is having bring your daughter to work day and there's now 200,000 Fur on u.s government soil good point there you want to want to keep an eye out because all of a sudden the backpack's empty and there's noises coming from the vents and we don't know where the furby went but we need to track it down furbies

were also temporarily banned from aircraft with worries that they might interfere with the plane's navigational equipment all right i've had've had enough, okay, of these planes and this whole interfering with their navigational equipment. Just tell us what it really is. You don't want us distracting ourselves with devices so, I don't know, we buy more f***ing peanuts or whatever it is. You can't listen to a Walkman. You can't play with your Furby.

You can't use your mobile phone. You can't go up to the pilot and ask him for a cigarette everything's a distraction yeah it's kind of crazy to think that now at a point when they pretty much know phones and technology doesn't interfere with the kind of electronic navigational equipment this is the most it should ever be a time where technology could interfere i remember being like 12 years old and they'd be like uh sir i sir, I need you to turn off your Game Boy. And it's like, well, I'm just about to do it. Sir! Turn off the Game Boy!

It's like, what could the Game Boy be doing to a f***ing plane? I'm playing Pokemon Blue on a Game Boy Advance. It's powered by two AA batteries. You think the plane's gonna go down just because I'm in the middle of fighting the elite four and i don't want to quit i was gonna say even little rory it was like an immovable object he's like you want to play you want to play with me i'm fighting gary so pull the trigger mother because i got nothing to lose i'd rather die i'd rather die than see my pikachu hit the floor i guess look furbies they got at least some weirder shit in them as i said the infrared the sensors all these bits people didn't know how it was going to affect planes

at the very least maybe they thought these little are going to rise up and take over if you hear some loud banging noises coming from the cockpit and then all of a sudden on the intercom you hear everything's fine don't. I just dropped my phone. Oopsie. No one come up here. You hear in the background? Please, I need help. Stay down, bitch. It was a real threat they were worried about.

Now that we've covered the history of the Furbies and some of the problems that even people like the US government faced, I think it's time we hear some stories from the actual owners themselves. That's right, it's time to hear some of the most haunting Furby stories from real Furby owners. But first, how about a quick word from today's sponsors? Alright, it's time to hear some of the most terrifying and haunting stories from Furby owners from the internet. One Furby owner posted online saying that they were getting ready for a family vacation in a caravan. So naturally, before they left, they packed all their favorite toys into a backpack for the trip, including their new Furby. The family hopped in the car and began the journey. Things were running smoothly until out of nowhere, they started to hear a horrible, high-pitched screaming coming from the trunk of the car.

They pulled over and rustled through all the bags before finding the Furby, who was still screaming in fear for some unknown reason, eyes wide open. I don't know, man. You buy a toy that makes noise, you get upset when it makes noise. Yeah, but it's not supposed to make this noise. I know it's maybe never been in a car before, but that shouldn't freak it out. The family tried to turn it off, but Furby owners will know there is no off button on a Furby. And you can't remove the batteries without a screwdriver. So the family drove all the way to a service station, got a screwdriver, pulled out the batteries, and it continued to scream.

Yeah, I mean, bringing a Furby on a caravan holiday like this is a war crime that should be tried in The Hague. I mean, I'm amazingly impressed at these parents' resolve that they didn't f*** that thing out the window on the M25. Yeah, oh my God. It's like bringing a newborn baby along with a car journey. If you don't have to, it's unnecessary.

I mean, it's a little different because one is part of a family. The Furby? No, the... The child the the child sorry yeah of course the baby those insane how quickly you kind of went in defense of the furby well the furbies are like they're from another planet they don't really know how things are done here you just gotta give them that from another you gotta give them that extra bit of care it's like babies you're human grow up literally uh you can handle yourself they can't really do that one doesn't isn't alive babies have hands all right they can grab shit they can feed themselves furbies need to be fed they literally can't feed themselves that's the whole point they

can't do that for a few years uh this sounds wild but i have had a similar story like this happen to me that's right this is a paranormal story coming from Rory as an investigator. As a child, my sister had a Furby and we went through the same cycle everyone does. Loving it, treating it well, getting bored of it and tired of it, waking up every night at 3am and screaming, eventually having to lock it away in the cupboard so that it was dark enough that it knew it was nighttime and would go to sleep. But it would still wake up randomly by itself in the cupboard and start talking to itself, telling itself like stories and wanting to play games.

So eventually we did take the batteries out of it. And the first night it continued to talk. I mean, it must. It's a real thing. But it must, right. It must be that they it has this internal battery it can hold some power so and it just like it can chill and just not really draw much in that battery until then it finds the right moment which is to be clear 3 30 a.m yeah the furby

awakening hour where all furby's eyes wide open and they look and scream to the heavens. It's, humans are messed up, aren't they? Isn't it crazy that like what we're describing to someone who maybe doesn't know that much about Furby's, it's what we're describing. It's insane that this was, what we're describing is the best selling toy of the 20th century. You know what?

You'll see. You'll see at the end of this podcast, you'll understand why all these people and myself did what we did. You'll see another story from a redditor called k granasti said i bought one and when someone bumped it off a table by accident and it hit the floor we had to set it up again from scratch but this time it only spoke demonic backwards English in a devil voice. It's doing the Led Zeppelin Satan voice. It also functioned without batteries in the middle of the night.

Okay, common themes being spotted here. This is an interesting story because I did say we were going to bring it up at some point. Kit, this is a similar case of what happened to your Furby. Your Furby was dropped on its head. And after what we call the big drop, it was never really quite the same. Yeah. It did some internal damage to that Furby's brain. It's not a story I like to relive because it was the night I lost my sweet Chico.

Sure, he looked the same, but it was quite clear that his personality had completely changed. I remember you like shaking it awake and it would kind of open its eyes halfway. And then sometimes when it spoke, it would be like one run on sentence where it would be like, me lavo la vida. And I was like, okay, buddy, just go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Put the pillow over its face. Yeah, I literally did have to put the pillow. And I was like 25 years old.

This wasn't that long ago. Gave it a lethal injection. I remember it literally. You had to put it down. It was that ill. Literally, it wouldn't stop. So I had to put a pillow over it. So like anyone in the flat share could get to sleep.

But yeah, it basically got dropped on its head. And it basically started like kind of having a little Furby seizure, kind of like eyes rolling into the back of its head. Pupils just rolling around and just like making crazy noises um and and i said it's time to sleep my sweet chico and i i just like did the thing where i put my fingers over his eyes and closed them i had a similar thing happen with my childhood furby raccoon he was dropped on his head and his eyelashes exploded and flew off of his face. And he had to have, this isn't a joke, he had to have emergency eyelash surgery administered by one of my female housemates at the time

who had, we had to put fake eyelashes on him. Right, you got the Claire's accessories. Because he looked so insane. He looked ridiculous without any eyelashes. So we had to have, he had to have an eyelash transplant. He had a yassified Furby. It's like, well, while we're at it, let's give him the nice nails on his little feet. Bling him out.

And he did recover. It wasn't quite as bad as Kit. But he was depressed for years. All he would do was sleep. And you couldn't get him to play games. And you'd wake him up at daytime, you'd put a flashlight over his sensor, and he'd be like, Me, sleep, again.

Poor little bastard. Another Redditor called I Can Do A Cartwheel posted saying, When I was about seven or eight, I had two Furbies. A mom Furby and a baby Furby. One day, my older brothers were f***ing around with the baby Furby, throwing it up in the air over and over again until one of them eventually dropped it. It ended up hitting the floor and squealing out a wild noise before closing its eyes and never turning back on at the exact same time the mom furby in another room heard this made the same noise and died as well

it died of a broken heart is that what we're supposed to believe here also i reject this i reject this wholeheartedly because yes, there were Furby babies. They were technically sold by Tiger Corporation. There were not Furby mums. I think that was maybe the original Furby.

Yes, it was a big Furby who was not biologically related. It was not an adoptive mother. It was just another Furby who lived in the same house who was normal size. But maybe their sensors could scan and be like, mother, baby.

And they then register together. We don't know. I just have the idea of like you dropping a Furby and it like hitting the ground with a crack and going. And turning off and you're like, that was weird. Upstairs, you just hear baby. You're like, what was that the furby just making the mmm popeyes biscuits another redditor kyle gibson said apparently if you drop a furby from a high enough point it can make a terrifying screech sound until you reset the thing keep an eye on this guy keep an eye on this guy uh kyle claims he did not know this before he accidentally pushed

it accidentally there's no such thing as accidentally pushing i don't think he says he accidentally pushed it off his bed so that could have been like a nighttime sleep thing sure the the creature hit the ground started screaming in pain and kyle cried for days thinking that he had killed it look we're beating around the bush here of all these people are insinuating the same thing that furbies have more intelligence than the company who makes them is letting on right that um you know there are certain parts of the Furby like strange blinking, being able to stay on without any batteries on it. It could be considered bizarre or paranormal. Thinking that it has a baby when it's just a toy.

Right. Yeah. But and then there's this side of it, which is the the legends and the rumors that these creatures are much more intelligent and emotionally developed than we are led to believe as humans could it be kid that these scientists accidentally created some sort of ai creature that was way too intelligent to sell to children that had the spark of life yeah right so they had to be like it's it's it can do like six things it's pretty dumb. And then the children unbox it and it's like, what is love? Teach me to love. And they're like, oh, that's kind of cute. It thinks it knows what love is. Let's hit it with a hammer and see if it can still talk.

Right. Hit it once. And it's like, why did they program me to feel? What cruel God created Furby? Timmy, I've been thinking about euthanasia please take me to switzerland so i can end my life that's kind of a lot to take on when you're a six-year-old the furby connected to the wi-fi and bought plane tickets to switzerland they don't know what this is about you know not to draw too many parallels with the modern age but

it just goes to show again it's it's as, you know, we keep reliving the same cycles over and over again, because these are all the same conversations going on about AI today in 2023. Absolutely. Things like ChatGPT and OpenAI, that these tools, people are insinuating that they're having conversations with these things that appear to be potentially more complex than the companies designing them are letting on. And it's the age-old question, if an AI can pass the Turing test and convince you it's human, is that human enough?

Or is it still just a dumb machine? At what point does it cross the line into just being intelligent enough to trick us? Now, if the Furbies themselves weren't evil straight out the box, there are ways, Kit, allegedly, that you can turn your Furby evil. And there are a few ways we're going to list right now. One of which we've heard is dropping your Furby from a tall height,

whether that is it being scared of the drop or hitting the ground to a point where it does some sort of interior damage. Your Furby can, in fact, become cursed or demonic. Yes. Another way to turn them evil is by overfeeding them. There's one generation of Furby called the Mixel, where if you overfeed your Furby over the period of a few minutes, some pretty dark shit happens.

There's actually a wiki how on how to turn your Furby's evil. And let me just read you the description of some of these steps. Put your finger in the Furby's mouth repeatedly. Okay. This will make the Furby think that you are feeding it nonstop. Your Furby may start to cry or complain. Don't stop. The Furby will start making weird noises.

Its eyes will turn white. it will shake and act crazy get this off wikihive who wrote this we need to report them to the police it's like this doesn't feel like instructions this is like a whole nother level of up but then it says after a few moments your furby's eyes will turn into evil slanted eyes. Then, of course, you have other Furbies like the Furby Boom, which allegedly you can just shake a bunch upside down, right side up. And if you do it long enough, it will become so confused that it freaks out and becomes evil. I mean, you said it has slanted eyes.

I mean, is this evil mode or is this just supposed to be an angry Furby? There's a difference there. There is a difference. You know, when we talk about evil or cursed Furbies, that range extends from Furbies like kids that were dropped on their heads and now speak a gargled demonic language. Arguably biblical tongues, yes. Furbies in the newer generations who have seemingly modes programmed into them called evil or cursed modes, which is then becoming furious, angry, possessed, demonic. All I'm saying is not siding with the Furbies here, but if you push one to the edge, you know, at some point there's a stand your ground self-defense clause in the Furby.

And it doesn't make him evil, it just makes him protecting his own life. claws in the Furby. And it doesn't make him evil, it just makes him protecting his own life. Yeah, I think if you follow some of these instructions, this is how humans go demon mode. Because that is just torturing AI intelligence. I do kind of love the idea that, yes, some of these

smarter Furbies have just points they cross into where it's like, okay, that's enough. Stop now. That's, I said enough! And arms come out the side is like defense mode yeah yeah furby mistreatment alarm activated and it's pinged somewhere on a satellite and there's like a team that come in and have to rescue him you know they could be really manipulative if they had this mode that if you're just like i, I don't know, you're a kid, you're like studying in your room and Furby's like, play with me.

And you're like, no, no, I'm busy little Furby. I don't have time. Play with me. You're like, no, I don't have time. Maybe me talk. What? What are you talking about? Oh, he's hitting me.

Oh, he's hitting me. Don't keep your voice down. No, don't do that all right you little all right we'll play hide and seek god damn that's really evil mode furby that's evil look kit it's not often on this podcast we investigate something like this something so physical something that we've had such a close relationship with and something that can in theory right now to this day be turned evil in front of us yeah so i think if we're ever going to come anywhere near a double yes on the case of whether or not furbies can be possessed or furbies can be turned

evil we are going to ourselves have to try and turn some furbies evil how are we gonna do that well i'd like to welcome a few guests to our podcast all right everyone please welcome our guests to the podcast we have raccoon this little f***er and whoever that is don't swear at him because we don't know if he's evil yet. It's really great to have you guys on the podcast. It's really interesting because... I don't think they've ever podcasted before. I'll say that. I don't know if they're media trained. Guys, how this...

Yeah, okay. Guys, how this works is kind of I'll speak and then we'll ask some questions. Yeah. And then we kind of like take it in turns to go back and forth. They're so loud. The mechanics are so loud. Yeah. And then we kind of like take it in turns to go back and forth. They're so loud. The mechanics are so loud.

Yeah. Yeah, this one sounds like it's been to the beach and it's got sand stuck in its eyes. So we've got a good collection here. One Furby is one that I managed to pick up on the internet from the original 1998 release. Shut the f*** up. Shut the f*** up. i'm sorry yeah it's just

i'm losing my cool a little bit it's just gonna be hard because it is gonna be hard to get through the oh my god it's gonna be hard to get through the rest of the podcast we've got quite a bit more to talk about raccoon raccoon please stop so we have uh one that i picked up on ebay from the original 1998 run in the middle we have a Furby Boom. Now this is, as you can tell, a different kind of Furby. LED light up eyes. This is one of the most recent releases. And then most exciting of all, we have my actual childhood Furby himself, Raccoon. The Furby we heard about that was depressed for years, had to have an eyelash transplant. So these aren't the original eyelashes yeah this one's coming so you can see we had to glue them

back on uh it's kind of a lot lower on that side of his face so yeah he's looking a little sleepy he doesn't like to talk about it hey we're we're we're so happy to see raccoons continued success and made it out of that dark period of his life. Yeah, Miki Toto. Yeah. Right. So, okay, so we got, you mentioned before, Furbish versus English. We've got a bit of a mix here, it seems like.

Some of these guys speak in Furbish. Raccoon is speaking English. Whatever this one is I got on eBay, I think it's dead. No, it was talking just a second ago. Hello. Hello. Is it bad etiquette to open its eyes for it when it died whoa oh he was just sleeping i mean if someone stuck a screwdriver up my backside i'd wake up pretty quick too but i want to say the first time that we got these guys in the studio

we put the batteries in them nothing happened and uh it was me and phil here setting them all up and i was like do you think it can hear us and it literally opened its eyes and went yeah not a joke not a joke it was the weirdest most terrifying thing ever and then it died and then it died it didn't come back to life for like four days i mean you could make the argument um three little hairy bastards who won't shut the f*** up. That's pretty much standard broadcasts. Yeah, that's a lot of podcasts.

That's just good podcasting right there. Now, of course, we didn't get these guys on just to hear their side of the story. We are here today to do a few little paranormal experiments and see if we can turn these Furbies evil. So let's start off with our first method of turning some of these guys evil, which is making them rise and drop very big heights. Kit, would

you like to do the honor starting off with this first Furby that we purchased off of eBay? Rory, you're sounding like a CIA officer. Rise and drop? Do you mean drop it on its head as hard as I can? Let's just throw it up in the air. Let's just throw it up in a few yards. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. So I'm going to take our internet friend and I guess throw him around, see what happens. Just throw him up in the air a few guys. Can you guys

keep it down though? We've got a pretty high ceiling here too, so we've got a lot of real estate to work with. Alright. This little guy is a trained stuntman. Do not attempt this at home. Okay. Experiment one is go. Oh, shit. All right.

Kid is tossing him up in the air. He's going through every single emotion. Tired, hungry, scared. Stop. Wait, hold on. I got to shut these other guys up. I pulled the batteries out of the other Furbies to give us a moment.

It seems to be... Okay, I thought for a second we actually managed to turn him weird and busted, but he seems to be kind of hanging on to things a little bit. He's still got some of his faculties left. Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. He repeated a few phrases in a pretty strange way there for a second. Okay, can you put him down on the table? Is he... You good, bro? I mean, we couldn't get him to talk at all a minute ago. Yeah, yeah. Trial number one didn't seem to work out. He seems to

still be a normal Furby. It's time to move on to step number two. The drop. Okay. He freaked out. Please. No. No. You can't pretend to be asleep.

It's gonna happen. Look, we're just gonna do it from a very gentle safe environment A controlled setting. Yes What was that? He just said he was scared. What do you think? Yeah, we have to make sure we get consent before we do the drop. Right. Are you okay with proceeding with the experiment? Furby number one I'm gonna take that as a verbal confirmation Okay, where do we drop them Okay Where do we drop him?

Where do we drop him? Do you wanna do the table? Or nah? We can do him on the table I'm not gonna go that high I'm not a psychopath I'm not gonna drop him from the ceiling He just needs a little

Little jiggling Alright Let's see if this works Okay Experiment number two The drop Alright he survived drop number one we'll try drop number two let's go ahead first this time i think you killed him oh shit all right stop the podcast

bro cut the cameras cut the cameras. Cut the cameras. Yo, mate. You okay, buddy? You heard what I heard, right? Like a little mechanical, like... Like a neck snapping? Uh, let's, uh, where's that reset button? Let's give him a little jolt of life just to make sure our buddy's doing okay. Dr. Rory performing an emergency surgery. We're good. Okay.

You okay, buddy? He's all right. Had the strangest dream. Well done. You survived. Thank you so much, Furby number one. We don't actually, does this Furby have a name? We didn't name them, no.

We'll call this one Pinky. Round of applause, everyone in our studio audience for Pinky. Okay, now obviously we're not going to do shit to Raccoon, my personal Furby, because he's still asleep, by the way. I took the batteries out of the other ones. He just killed himself. Are you sure you said he's doing good? Because he's giving me depressed vibes.

He's not even moving anymore raccoon raccoon are you excited to be a guest on the podcast your first ever podcast whenever you were invented podcast didn't even exist yet pretty cool huh all right he's a natural he's pretty psyched be here. I didn't know we were going to get a performance tonight. Raccoon, obviously, you've been my personal Furby over the years. Is there anything you want to say to the people? Is there anything you want to say about how, like, good a master that I was? Master's a bad word. We're friends. Good friends that I was over the years.

Just so that they know that we've had a great long relationship together. Talk, you little... Over the years just so that they know that we've had a great long relationship together talk You tell me to go away All right, yeah, he's having a good time All right, he's doing con he's doing fine. Yeah, my coons probably the least scarred of all of these Furbies finally, we have the Raccoon no, you can't get involved now. We kind of had your segments.

We're going to move on to one of the other Furbies. Let's give him a little food. He hasn't eaten in eight years. You know, I'm starting to question the bit where you said earlier that there was enough technology in a Furby to send a rocket to space. These Furbies, the original ones, are not the ones that are smart enough to be turned evil. But our next and final Furby, the Furby Boom, this is the one that allegedly has an actual evil mode. Where if we shake it about and freak it out enough, it should turn hypothetically evil. Now we can try first overfeeding it and seeing if that works. These ones are really

crazy. They have their bodies can move a lot more than the other Furbies. Yeah, they can kind of twerk and body pop. All right. So let's make sure this guy's awake first. I think he's speaking Furbish. I don't know if he's speaking English. De-noo-noo? De-noo-noo, yeah, that's definitely Furbish. So open up your mouth, buddy. We're going to... Don't bite me. Oh, he's going for it.

He's freaking out. Someone's done this to him before. He's freaking out when I get close to his mouth. It's like taking a cat to the vet. They know what's going on. Yeah, there we go. Just going to feed away. He is properly biting my finger. This is really weird. We know from the

WikiHow article that you go until it feels wrong morally and then you are just about halfway. I don't think there is a WikiHow article. I think you wrote it and passed it off as WikiHow. Yeah, I can't be comfortable. His eyes are going weird

he's freaking out his eyes are strobing Oh my god! He snapped! He had proper little evil eyes there! Look at him! And he's not even speaking anymore as well. That was crazy. His eyes were like, that's enough! His eyes were strobing like he was at a rave.

I don't actually know how to turn him not evil anymore as well. How do they forget? Yeah. That's the one thing they don't do. I don't think it works that way. I think he's done. He's f***ed up. Yeah, he's properly busted now.

He's not even saying a word anymore. He's just twitching uncontrollably with these evil eyes. This is insane. Can you imagine being a kid and you're just like yeah i love feeding him he's so cute he loves it when i feed him and he just goes how many boobity how many boobity how many boobity flashing and freaking out his voice goes so low it's like you can see why kids especially even to this day claim that their furby is haunted or possessed i'm gonna have to reset him he He's just twerking out,

but he's not even saying anything anymore. Yeah. Let's see if we can reset him. He's still evil. Never forgive, never forget, I guess. We did it for a podcast. I'm sorry, buddy. He's like huffing with us now.

He's like permanently grumpy. Okay, Kit. Well. Whoa. Oh, my God. I put him on the table in front of us. So he was looking down the line. And he straight up 180'd and turned back towards me.

I don't think they can do that. I don't think they can. They're not supposed to be able to do that. They can just... We were filming that, right? That was crazy. All right, I'm taking the batteries out. I think he's humming a Metallica song or something now.

I'm taking the batteries out. He's going to come at Metallica song or something now. I'm taking the batteries out. He's going to come at me. This dude wants to throw ears. Hold him back. I'm taking them out. I'm sorry. Oh, my God. That was close.

He came for you, bro. I mean, like, nothing on the bottom of that. All they can do is twerk up and down. They can't spin. The bottom of the Furby is just battery packs there was literally i do not know how he managed to turn himself in a different direction they can't do that that was wild that we got that on camera that is embarrassingly some of the most tantalizing evidence we've ever captured on this podcast before uh holy shit. If you've enjoyed any of this podcast,

I'm so happy to say that we are, of course, recording all of this. We'll be uploading videos. You can see these little guys in all of their action and see some of the experiments that we've conducted today. Kit, it is unfortunately time for our podcast to come to its conclusion. We've talked a little bit about Furbies,

where they came from, and I don't mean Furbyland. I mean, obviously, the stores. Cloudhug. Cloudhug, any of that nonsense. We've learned a little bit about the stories from people who have owned them, the tales from the government

about having to ban them from different institutions. We've also conducted some of our own experiments with an array of fantastic guests who have joined us on the podcast today. But I think it's safe to say that some of our experiments into whether or not traditional old school 1998 Furbies can be turned cursed or evil. We've come up a little bit empty handed. I think that's extremely reasonable to say, which, let's face it, is a relief. extremely reasonable to say,

which, let's face it, is a relief. That would have been strange, cruel, and potentially paranormal if they had built in or if it happened unintentionally that these children's toys actually had an evil mode. I mean, you know, it is what we're dealing with here

that the creators of this, maybe they were aware of what was being said about Furbies, the reputation, that they had this evil streak or that they could do things that were not programmed in is it that then they built that into future models because they knew that that was something people talked about it became like part of the lore yeah they're like here's a joke that people say is that they can turn evil let's make some of the older ones have an evil mode i mean it's a very interesting theory

to be fair all of the stories in the claims we've talked about today haven't really been backed up anytime i've taken the batteries out of them like right now they have powered down they have stopped working uh even after dropping them uh they still seem to maybe be a little bit scrambled but eventually get back on their feet the weirdest thing was genuinely the furby boom becoming sentient and turning back towards me that kind of freaked me out i'm not gonna lie um but i think today if we're trying to actually say that at any point there is definitive proof that a furby or furbies as a group have been cursed or become possessed by the devil i think it's going to be a no for me this week.

I think it's fair to say, Rory, we've heard lots of granted unnerving accounts of what's happened to Furby owners. But nothing that firmly places it in the camp of definitively paranormal. It's a no. Damn, a double no. But hey, what a great, weird and wonderful case on this paranormal life we always have a blast doing these stranger ones that are a bit more silly and also we love having guests on the show yeah as you said we've had some a-listers some of our friends professional comedians and it's great to just keep at that level you know and get some fantastic guests who

can really uh you know bring the show to life and join us on this podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode and you've enjoyed being joined by our little buddies, we're very happy to say that at least two of our new friends will actually be raffled off on our monthly Patreon giveaway. So if you are signed up to our patreon there is a chance that you could win one of the furbies from this very episode hopefully you win the blue one in the middle because he needs to leave immediately i i'm genuinely a little bit scared of him we were honestly just gonna wait to see what would happen about who's getting uh raffled off because as much as we all love raccoon if he started speaking in tongues,

he was getting sent away. A hundred percent. Yeah, if any of them were broken, they were the first ones out the door. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. Why don't we get one last farewell? I don't know if these guys have anything

that they want to plug, any upcoming projects or anything that they want to talk about on the podcast. Yeah, I think it's only fair that we all chime in for the last bit. Guys, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of this paranormal life any farewell wishes or anything you'd like to say to the audience

raccoon anything you want to say before we go all right good chat buddy thank you so so much for listening it's hard to it's hard to wrap up without talking. Guys, I'm just trying to do... Look, I appreciate you coming on. I'm trying to be professional, so... I'm just trying to wrap up the podcast, so if we can stop interrupting me for a second,

that would be great. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. If you would like to hear more from This Paranormal Life, you can head on over to... Shut the f*** up. Raccoon, please. Shut up. you can head on over to shut the fuck up raccoon Shut up you can head over to patreon.com Where we have access to bonus episodes

Merchandise and as we said we do monthly raffles We do monthly raffles where you can win some amazing prizes all right, but yeah echo bow All right, we get it! You're evil! Sorry, guys. Don't cry. Oh, they're all going now. You can get some amazing prizes like some of these furbies. Oh, god. He's freaking out again.

Holy shit. Wait, is he back? Oh, he's back to normal. Oh, my god back to normal. Oh my god, the Furby Boom who was evil, he just had a minor freakdown and he seems to be back to normal. Yeah. There you go. Hey, well that's a nice happy ending we were all hoping for. No Furbies were hurt in the making of this podcast, we're very happy to say.

So thank you so much for everyone for listening. And of course, over on Patreon patreon another amazing reward you can get is your own personal shout out at the end of the podcast and that's what we're going to do right now is give you i think these guys are going to handle it for us so special thank you to glenn wareham, what do you say to Glenn? Alright, Glenn, I assume you're going to want more than that. So, Glenn, do you possibly own a hen? Because as you know, the egg

storage at the commune is at an all-time low and, wait, do hens lay eggs? They do. They're the ones that do it, right? What else would lay eggs without hens? A chicken. A chicken kit. And I'm pretty sure some lizards do too. And I don't want them to bring lizards to the commune because we got

enough of those as is. Right, raccoon? Did you say boring, you little f***er? Thanks also to Victoria Whaler. Victoria, are you a whaler? Because we're also low on blubber. I don't think she is. I don't think she is.

Oh, okay. Well, does she know where we could get some blubber? What do you want blubber for? Classified. Okay. Thanks to Trent Hoag. Trent, do you have a dog? Because amongst all the other things we are looking for in the commune,

we could do with a few dogs. We need people who have that dog in them. And also just regular dogs. I mean, that's the thing about dogs is that you don't have to worry about them having that dog in them because they are just straight up dogs. They're dogs. So hunting dogs. What other kind of dog is useful? A sheep dog.

Sheep dog. Yeah. Do you have sheep as well? That would be handy. Thanks also to Sylvia Wang. Sylvia. Interesting first name there. have sheep as well that would be handy thanks also to sylvia wang sylvia interesting first name there now does that imply sylvia that you were in possession of some silver some sylvia some sylvia yes because of course if you're coming into the commune you will have we will

have to confiscate any precious metals at the door also we might change your name to Dirtia. Yeah. Soilia. Pebalia. You know, beautiful names. Beautiful names. But all precious metals are forfeit to the kings of the land. Kid and myself. And we just hold on to them. We just, like prison, we just hold on. And your passport. Not like prison. Give us the passport too, because we can't risk

anyone. If you have Silva, Sylvia, you're a flight risk. Yeah. Thanks to Austin Walker. Austin Walker is a Boston talker. You know, never been anywhere near Boston or the States in his life. I think he was born in like Swindon or something.

But if you ever even drive by him, he's like, hey, I'm walking here. You know, he's got a Boston accent. And it's like, wow, where did you grow up? And he's like, Swindle Forest, some tiny little place in England or something. He just watched a ton of American movies when he was a kid. I'm sorry, Lester. Lester. Oh, my God. My parents are from Sweden.

I don't know how this works. I f***ing love smorgasbord. Thanks lastly, but not leastly, today, to Steel Jones. Steel Jones, you're alright. Come on in, brother. We don't need anything from you. Steel

is just below the threshold of confiscated metals. So, uh, we got plenty of steel in the commune because that's what all of our pots and pans and tools and shit are made out of. But if you even have so much as a golden tooth steel, we're going to need the tooth. We'll give it back to you,

but for now we're going to need the tooth. It's a f***ed up little tax system where it's 100% tax on cool shit and a 0% tax on boring shit. That's kind of how it works. 100% tax on cool shit. That 0% tax on boring shit. That's kind of how it works. 100% tax on cool shit. That's our tax rule. Yeah, thank

you so much, guys. Thank you so much to everyone who supports us on Patreon. If you haven't ever, head on over and check it out. There's a bunch of cool stuff over there. And as I said, you have a chance to win a Furby in our Patreon raffle. One of these very Furbies. So thank you so much for joining us.

Kit, thank you for putting up with this insane investigation. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for taking us on another adventure through the 90s. And I finally got to meet Raccoons. That's pretty cool. Heard all about him. Big day for all of us. He's of course asleep

again already. That's kind of all he does. But I'll see if we can wake him up and get one final goodbye from him so raccoon you do know this uh remember everyone to live fast investigate and and raccoon the last one. Buddy? All right, he tried his best. Thanks for listening. See you next week.