The great case of the missing HE toys

I found a Putt-Putt plush at a thrift store for 50 cents the other day. Not knowing that it would send me down a rabbit hole of intrigue and long lost toys. I only bought him because I liked putt-putt when I was a kid and the plush looked cool, had no idea of its rarity.

I looked online and thought I found the one I bought on a past ebay listing. However, upon closer inspection of the dimensions I realized mine was twice as big, had a voice box and was made by a different company, Blue-Box. I searched online for hours and found nothing, until I looked at the wayback machine of the humongous online store from 2000.

I made a short youtube video of the 12" putt-putt plush, mostly so there's some kind of record online of one existing in case someone finds one in the future. My account is new so I can't post a link but if you search putt-putt interactive plush or 12" putt-putt it should come up.

If you query a blank search on the store it will list all the items you can buy online. There seems to be 2 versions of a putt-putt plush listed, one called "Putt-Putt and Pep Plush" made by toypoint and another one named "Putt-Putt Interactive Plush" made by Blue-Box. I'm certain I have the interactive plush at this point because it was made by blue-box. I seems that the interactive plush was only available online from Oct 2000-March 2001 and wasn't advertised at all on their main store pages like the other plushes. The online store seems to have closed down in March 2001.

Still by searching putt-putt interactive plush I find nothing else, people don't seem to be aware of this plush at all. There seems to be two versions of each plush, the PJ sam has a talking 12" version, spy fox has 2 known versions and Freddi fish has a treasure hunt version. The only one that didn't seem to have 2 variations was Putt-Putt, until I found it a few days ago.

I begun searching the wayback machine for other toys only sold online in 1999-2001 way before internet was common, let alone buying things online.
I've compiled a list of toys/merch that are un-accounted for:

-Various puzzle and matching games
-HE magnet set
-HE playing cards
-HE travel set with a towel, toothbrush, bag
-Putt-Putt and Pep lunchbox
-Various posters
-HE mixing bowls (lol?)
-PJ sam coloring calender
-Freddie fish lunch box
-FF CD wallet
-FF tub time bubbles kit (I assume just a bottle of bath bubbles?)
-Putt-Putt sonic control car
-Redline Rick sonic control car
-sticker sheets
-Talking mouth Putt-Putt learning center
-Most of the t-shirts/clothing


Out of these I find the talking putt-putt learning center the most interesting, I have little clue as to what it is. I was going to include more on this list but people in this forum claim to have several items that don't have pictures online or known sales. The illuminator mark 5 flashlight is MIA on the internet, though someone on this forum claims to have had one when they were a kid there's no known surviving. The smokey and putt-putt sonic cars seem to be surviving but are extremely rare, but apparently there's one of pedline rick out there somewhere. The only thing I can find about backpacks are people claiming to have one on this forum.

I sent HE a email asking if they had any sales records or knew anything about the missing toys. They got back to me and said due to multiple buyouts/bankruptcies they no longer have the sales going back to their early days. They're technically not even the same company now.

I'm pretty sure the missing toys are just failing to show up online because people don't know how extremely rare they are so when going through their childhood toys before moving out of mom's house they assume it's cheap garbage and just throw it away.

I wonder how many other toys from other companies were only sold online during the 90s and very early 00s that have only a handful of surviving toys...

Has anyone seen any of the missing toys? or had one when they were a kid?

Wow you did a ton of research into this. That's so dope!

I wish I had more information about this for you but I do not. You already know that finding concrete information about this things this company has produced is extremely difficult.

I do have one of the matching games that you describe though. It is Putt-Putt themed. It has art mostly from Putt-Putt Travels through Time.

Hey I think I have the learning center you were looking for! Came across it in an old box of toys I had when I was a kid, but couldn't find anything about it online until I found this forum post. Not sure if it still works or not but it's in pretty good condition still and I have a picture of it here.



I vaguely remember it having a few games to teach numbers the alphabet narrated by Putt Putt, along with a simon-says game in the top corner and some other buttons for SFX. It was pretty neat!

AlternativeMadison wrote:Hey I think I have the learning center you were looking for! Came across it in an old box of toys I had when I was a kid, but couldn't find anything about it online until I found this forum post. Not sure if it still works or not but it's in pretty good condition still and I have a picture of it here.



I vaguely remember it having a few games to teach numbers the alphabet narrated by Putt Putt, along with a simon-says game in the top corner and some other buttons for SFX. It was pretty neat!

This is fantastic! Such a unique toy. It seems like a super obscure item. I have never seen this before and a lot of people I know are unfamiliar with it as well. I'm glad you were able to hold on to it for all these years!

AlternativeMadison wrote:Hey I think I have the learning center you were looking for! Came across it in an old box of toys I had when I was a kid, but couldn't find anything about it online until I found this forum post. Not sure if it still works or not but it's in pretty good condition still and I have a picture of it here.



I vaguely remember it having a few games to teach numbers the alphabet narrated by Putt Putt, along with a simon-says game in the top corner and some other buttons for SFX. It was pretty neat!

That's a rather interesting find, actually. If it's still functional, it would be interesting to see some video footage of it.