Furby

It talks, moves, learns and speaks Furbish. Furby was the strange little electronic creature everybody wanted for Christmas 1998.

Big ears. Huge eyes. Covered in fur. It talked, moved, blinked and responded when you played with it. Was it an owl? A hamster? Some kind of little electronic alien? Nobody seemed entirely sure. But in 1998, plenty of kids knew they wanted one for Christmas.

Furby came out of the box speaking Furbish, its own made-up language. Play with it and it gradually began using more English words, giving the impression that your Furby was actually learning how to talk. It could move its ears and mouth, open and close its eyes, respond to touch and even interact with other Furbies. News stories at the time reported that there was a surprisingly sophisticated electronic toy hiding underneath all that fur.

Then came Christmas 1998. Furby became one of those toys that suddenly seemed impossible to find. The normal retail price was around $30, but sold-out stores sent desperate shoppers to newspaper ads and the (new at that time) world of online auctions, where Furbies could sell for many times the regular price. Some especially hard-to-find Furbies reportedly sold online for extraordinary prices.

Part of Furby's appeal was the feeling that there was something almost intelligent going on inside its furry little head. It didn't just say the same phrase when you pushed a button. It reacted to what you did, occasionally did things you weren't expecting, and overall seemed to develop and learn over time.

Furby has disappeared and returned in several generations since then, with newer electronics and more features. But it's pretty hard to recreate the experience of Christmas 1998, when parents were searching stores - and this relatively new thing called eBay - to try and find a fuzzy electronic creature that nobody could quite explain, but everybody wanted.