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The Tamagotchi craze at the turn of the millennium crossed international borders and made inroads amongst many age groups. But what made Tamagotchi the incredible hit that it was?

In this episode of Throwback, Erin jumps into the history of the Tamagotchi, from initial idea to international success. Where did the idea for the Tamagotchi come from? Why was it so addictive for kids (and some adults)? And why did Bandai introduce gendered Tamagotchi that could digitally procreate?

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Think about the lifespan of toys. Your classics, your barbies, GI joes, hula hoops, and teddy ruxpins can keep kids engaged for hours at a time. But eventually the novelty wears off, and the child will go in search of new play adventures. But what if someone invented a toy that demanded the kid's attention all day everyday? What if they were so committed to this toy that they couldn't bear to be without it? That even a tiny little beep caused them to stop whatever they were doing to interact with it, like a Pavlovian pocket monster.

And what if this toy was so psychologically addictive that when it stopped working, the kid started crying? If you're a parent, you'd have one heck of a problem. But if you're a toy company, you've just bought vacation homes for your entire executive floor. It's the story of digital kid crack, tamagotchi, and it's next on this installment of throwback.

[intro]

Welcome back to this series, where we take a deep dive into some of the most fascinating pop culture stories and events you might remember from your childhood. I'm your host, Erin McCarthy, and I have a confession to make. As a kid, I accidentally forgot all about my tomogotchi and let it starve. The same thing happened with my little brother. Uh, his tomogotchi, I mean.

These tiny egg-shaped electronic devices with a screen just a little larger than a postage stamp entertained millions of kids by allowing them to control the fate of the blob like creatures living in their virtual kennel. If we fed them, played with them, and took care of their health, they'd grow into beautiful creatures. If we didn't clean up their digital poop, they'd keel over and die. Who came up with this harsh handheld lesson of mortality? Glad you asked.

-Pet Sounds-

To really understand the appeal of tomogotchi, you need to think back to 1997. The iPhone is still a decade away. Personal computers weren't everywhere. And artificial intelligence wasn't incorporated into everyday life. That's where Akihiro Yokoi and Akimaita come in. Yokoi was the president of the Whiz company in Japan, a toy design firm that created products they would then license or sell to major toy manufacturers.

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Maita was in the sales and marketing division of Bandai, a popular Japanese toy maker that had scored a hit with their mighty morphin' power rangers line. There's some conflicting accounts of who exactly had the idea for what would become Tamagotchi, Yokoi or Maita.

The most common version of the story says the idea was inspired by a television commercial featuring a boy who wanted to take his pet turtle on a trip. Now to be honest, I have no idea what this commercial was actually for. Turtles? A car? The concept of trips? Doesn't matter. It got the wheels turning, and soon Yokoi and Maita were pursuing the idea of a portable pet.

It helped that Yokoi was an animal lover. At various points he had kept dogs, cats, a parrot, beetles, a chameleon, owls, and yes a turtle. He also happened to be responsible for coming up with new handheld games. Yokoi thought a digital pet on a small screen set on a wristwatch would be perfect.

In Japan, aquarium software with people caring for digital fish was getting popular with PC users. There had also been handheld devices that allowed people to care for virtual dogs and cats. But they were mostly fun, and that's what Yokoi wanted to fix.

As a pet lover, Yokoi knew that pets are a lot of work. They need attention, food, health monitoring, and guidance. He once said he thought pets were cute just 20 to 30 percent of the time. The rest of the time, well they're kind of a pain. So that's what Yokoi focused on, the responsibility of pet ownership.

If people bought his digital companion, they were going to have to actually take care of it in real time. That meant the creature would sleep at night. During the day, it would beep when it was hungry. It needed discipline if it misbehaved and medicine if it got sick. Neglect the pet and owners would face the ultimate consequence. It would die, turning into a ghost and hovering over a tombstone.

In Yokoi's mind, and owner couldn't really feel a sense of responsibility any other way. He named the invention Tamagotchi. "Tamago"is the Japanese word for egg while "tchi" is taking from either the English word "watch" or its equivalent in Japanese "uotchi". The idea to set Tamagotchi on a wrist device was abandoned however.

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Instead, Yokoi and Maita decided to house it in an egg-shaped keychain case with just three buttons, affording it a great deal of portability. If you were going to take care of Tamagotchi after all, it would need to follow you everywhere.


 TORTOISE POWER



While Tamagotchi was the first major handheld product to feature a life-or-death pet simulation, the idea of a dependent equipped with artificial intelligence dates back to the late 1940s.

That's when a British neurophysiologist named William Grey Walter built Elmer and Elsie, two small motorized devices that he used to explore the concept of autonomous robots. Elmer and Elsie each had two sensors programmed to respond to light and touch that allowed them to navigate around spaces. They even had a kennel they went in so they could recharge. Walter affectionately referred to them as "tortoises." They're widely considered to be among the first robots built that had a real scientific application, in this case exploring how robots could mimic the nervous system of a human.

Yokoi and Maita were also following the lead set by Petz, a series of personal computer games created by a company called PF.Magic in 1995. In Petz, which you know was cool since they spelled it with a "z" at the end, players could interact with a dog or cat that would actually run and play across the person's desktop. But, unlike, Tamagotchi, Petz couldn't go on the road with their owners and they didn't have to cross the rainbow bridge.

Petz and Walter's tortoises were early examples of virtual caregiving, but Tamagotchi took it to a whole new level.


 MADE IN JAPAN



We don't know whether Yokoi and Maita knew much about William Grey Walter or Petz, but they were convinced Tamagotchi would be a huge success. Maita conducted extensive market research on their target demographic of girls in junior high school who loved the name "Tamagotchi" and the design of the creature itself, which started life as an ill-defined blob of tissue which came from the planet "Tamagotchi" and slowly grew into something prized by teenage girls in Japan, what's known as "kawaii" or cute. But it only became adorable if it was played with and tended to with care.

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