US 5,700,178 A · Emotional expression character

Abstract

A child's toy is disclosed that provides for a character that is capable of both visually and audibly displaying a variety of emotional expressions and which is capable of providing these displays in combination with playing a "peek-a-boo" game with the toy character. The toy has a housing that is shaped like a teddy bear, with openings for the bear's eyes and mouth and a pair of paws that rotate to a position where both paws cover the eyes of the bear when mechanically activated by the child. The paws are mechanically interconnected to a disk mounted within the housing which contains different representations for the eyes and the mouth of the bear, each of which is configured to represent a different emotional expression, on its front surface. The representations for the eyes and the mouth of the bear appear through the eye and mouth openings in the bear's face. The face disk is rotated such that when the paws rotate to their position in front of the face of the bear, a different emotional expression representation for the eyes and the mouth is presented through the housing openings for the eyes and the mouth. When the paws move back to a position away from the face of the bear, the changed emotional expression representation for the eyes and the mouth are now visible to a child. The toy also produces an audible emotional expression representation in conjunction with the visual emotional expression. The visual and audible expression displays are coordinated such that, in combination, they provide an appropriate representation for a specific emotional state (e.g. sad, happy, sleepy, etc.).

Claims14

Dependent claims

A toy comprising:

a housing having a viewing window formed therein;
an indicia-bearing member disposed within said housing and bearing a first visual indicium expressive of a first emotional state and a second visual indicium expressive of a second emotional state, said indicia bearing member being mounted for movement between a first position in which said first visual indicium is visible from outside said housing via said viewing window and a second position in which said second visual indicium is visible from outside said housing via said viewing window;
means for generating a first audible output expressive of said first emotional state when said indicia bearing member is in said first position and a second audible output expressive of said second emotional state when said indicia bearing member is in said second position.

A toy usable by a user comprising:

a housing having a viewing window formed therein;
an indicia bearing member disposed within said housing and bearing a first visual indicium expressive of a first emotional state and a second visual indicium expressive of a second emotional state, said indicia bearing member being mounted for movement between a first position in which said first visual indicium is visible from outside said housing via said viewing window and a second position in which said second visual indicium is visible from outside said housing via said viewing window;
first and second obscuring members disposed on said housing symmetrically about said viewing window and mounted for movement between respective first positions in which said obscuring members are adjacent and overlie said viewing window to obscure said viewing window and respective second positions in which said obscuring members are spaced and do not overlie said viewing window;
an actuator mounted to said housing and actuable by a user to initiate movement of said indicia bearing member and said obscuring members;
and
means engageable with, and responsive to actuation of, said actuator for coordinating and sequencing movement of said obscuring members and said indicia bearing member so that said obscuring members move to said first positions, said indicia bearing member next moves to said second position, and said obscuring members next move to said second positions.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Emotional expression character

Life of this patent

Emotional expression character

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14