Two inventors, an introduction and Tiger.

Furby began as an inventors’ project rather than a company one. The US patent for the toy names David Hampton and Caleb Chung as its inventors, IEEE Spectrum reported in January 2019, and the program that gave the toy its personality was written by Hampton and Wayne Schulz in assembly language for a variant of the 6502 microprocessor, the 8-bit chip family used in the Apple II and the Commodore 64. The same article says the patent describes at length a reversible motor that drove the ears, eyes and wings, and returns again and again to the lifelike behaviour the inventors wanted children to see.

The route to the shops ran through Tiger Electronics, an electronic-toy company based near Chicago. Wired reported in September 1998 that a fellow toy inventor, Richard Levy, advised the Furby’s inventor on which companies might be receptive and introduced him to Tiger, telling him: “If they like it, they’ll be able to do it quickly.” Tiger’s Roger Shiffman then saw a version in a Los Angeles hotel room that was worked by hand with dials, like a puppet, and that made no sound at all. Shiffman, the magazine reported, took the idea to a meeting of Tiger’s product development and marketing team in October 1997 and wanted it on sale by Christmas 1998 rather than a year or two later. Not everyone in the room agreed; Wired quoted Tiger’s marketing vice-president, Jeff Jones, recalling that he had seen it as “an overpromise, underdeliver type of thing.”

Tiger had its own history in electronic toys. Wired said it was founded in 1978 by Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman and began with simple items such as Mickey Mouse phonographs before moving into handheld electronic games and learning aids, including the Talkboy recorder seen in the Home Alone sequel and the Giga Pets virtual pets; English Wikipedia names the founders as Gerald, Randy and Arnold Rissman and dates the company to June 1978.

By the time Furby reached the shops, Tiger had a new owner. Wired described Hasbro’s chairman, Alan Hassenfeld, touring Tiger’s New York showroom in the Toy Building on Fifth Avenue on 6 February 1998, shortly before Hasbro planned to announce its purchase of the company. English Wikipedia says Tiger has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1998, and Hasbro has owned Tiger, and with it Furby, since 1998.

Furbish, fur and a yellow beak.

The toy went on sale in the autumn of 1998. CNN reported on 5 October 1998 that the name was short for “fur ball,” and that Furbies spoke Furbish, a made-up language, learning more English the more their owners played with them. In January 1999 the same network described the toy as resembling an owl, with tufts of hair between its large pink ears.

The behaviour was the product. Wired reported in 1998 that the inventor promised a Furby that could play games, talk to other Furbies by infrared signal, learn English through positive reinforcement and teach a child Furbish, with no two toys reacting in quite the same way; one Furby, the magazine said, could make another sneeze or set off a fit of giggles among its friends. Shiffman called it “a living Giga Pet you can really play with,” and noted that, unlike a virtual pet, a neglected Furby would not die but simply become ornery.

That talkativeness also drew official attention. On 13 January 1999 CNN reported that the US National Security Agency had barred Furbies from its premises in Maryland, quoting an internal memo that listed toys “with built-in recorders” among prohibited items.

The original Furby has since passed into museum collections. IEEE Spectrum reported in 2019 that the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, had acquired three Furbys together with the toy’s source code, and noted that examples are also held by The Strong, the museum of play in Rochester, New York, and by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In September 2025 The Strong named Furby as one of twelve finalists for its National Toy Hall of Fame; the class announced that November did not include it, according to English Wikipedia.

The line also grew sideways. English Wikipedia records Furby Babies in 1999, smaller and higher-voiced than the original, and a clam-shaped companion called Shelby in 2001 that could talk to the original Furbies and had its own language, Shelbish.

Toys as brands.

A toy brand often reaches its buyer through the package before the toy itself is ever touched. A window box lets a child see the figure, doll or vehicle through a clear panel while the printed board around it carries the name, the artwork and the age guidance, so the logo has to read clearly across a crowded shelf and still leave room for the product to show.

Blister cards work in a similar way on a smaller scale: a printed backing card, a moulded plastic bubble and a hang hole at the top. The card is usually designed to be seen hanging on a peg, which pushes the name and character art towards the upper half and keeps the logo bold enough to survive at a distance.

Die-cast and other small vehicle lines tend to rely on compact logos that can be printed on a box end, a card or even the base of the toy. Character mascots add another layer, standing in for the brand in advertising and on packs, so that a face or figure becomes as recognisable as the lettering beside it.

A toy that keeps coming back.

Hasbro has relaunched the line several times. Wired, reviewing the Furby Connect in November 2016, wrote that Furby had returned with an upgrade in 2005 and again in 2012, with new versions each year after that. English Wikipedia dates the Emoto-Tronic Furby, larger and with voice recognition and a more expressive face, to August 2005; a 2012 Furby with monochrome LCD eyes and a companion app, announced by Hasbro in April and released that September; Furby Boom in 2013; and the Furby Connect, with colour LCD eyes and a light-up antenna on its head, in 2016.

After a pause, the BBC reported on 23 June 2023 that Hasbro had brought Furby back, describing the new toy as having “its familiar bulbous eyes, yellow beak and colourful fur,” and saying the line had been retired in 2016. Hasbro’s Kristin McKay, a vice-president and general manager, told the BBC: “Over the past few years, we’ve done a lot of research to understand what kids would want to see in a new Furby.” The BBC said the toy could react to commands, mimic sounds, dance and be “fed.” English Wikipedia adds that the 2023 model came in purple and coral, has printed rather than screen eyes and glowing ears, and does not connect to an app, and that a smaller line, Furblets, followed in December 2023.

Across those versions the name has stayed the same while the face has changed — from the infrared-linked toy of 1998 to screen eyes in the 2010s and back to printed eyes in 2023. The language has stayed too: Furbish appears in CNN’s report of 1998 and in the BBC’s “gibberish” of 2023.

For a design guide, Furby shows how a toy brand can be carried by a character’s face and voice more than by a logo. Compare Play-Doh and My Little Pony, two other Hasbro lines, and Tamagotchi, the Bandai virtual pet that Tiger’s Giga Pets competed with, Wired reported in 1998. For this guide we use a purple, a coral and a beak yellow with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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