If you haven’t gotten a Furby yet then it’s only because you don’t have a 9 year old daughter. If you had a 9 year old daughter you would have a Furby or possibly two.

We got a Furby.

For those of you who live under a rock or who missed the memo – Furby has been updated and re-released. For those of you who didn’t pay attention 14 years ago Furby is a cute little thing that can’t get wet, be exposed to sunlight or be fed after midnight.

Furby starts out innocently enough. He or she is wide eyed and eager to learn English. Furby starts out speaking only Furbish but quickly learns some English words like like, OMG and blah, blah, blah. The rest of the time he/she is saying things like:

Oh kah tee, dah nu nu and da boo. Thankfully there is an app for Furby that comes with a handy translator.

Furby has several distinct personalities that develop depending on the way you treat it.

If you talk to Furby a lot she becomes this incredibly annoying Valley Girl who you want to just smack. If you smack the Furby it becomes this very angry personality with mean and creepy eyes.

The only way to change your Furby from a bad or annoying personality into a more pleasant one is to cuddle, pet and hug the damn thing until it changes into a baby Furby of sorts.

Each Furby seems to have a different personality. They may cycle through the same ones; Valley Girl, baby, Rockstar, Viking or the other secret ones so far undiscovered by my 9 year old, but they are all just a little different.

We’ve had three Furbies so far. The first one we got was slightly off.

It was the orange one you see in the picture. It was cute, actually a she, and easily changed. The black one had to be cuddled forever to get it out of the Valley Girl personality while the orange one easily slipped in and out of different personalities.

And then the orange one went all Gremlin on us. It started talking while sleeping and sleeping while talking. It talked with it’s eyes closed and slept with its eyes open. Its mouth didn’t move when it talked. It spoke a lot of English, words most 9 year olds don’t even know. It developed an ironic sense of humor.

It had to go back.

Thankfully there is an 800 number on the information that comes with the Furby. Hasbro has thoughtfully supplied a customer service number to call when something goes wrong with your Furby, 1-800-327-8264. They have also, thoughtfully, staffed their customer support with people who speak English as a first language. Sadly they don’t have much of a sense of humor (at least the one I talked to didn’t).

When Hasbro Customer Service was unable to fix the creepy Furby over the phone they emailed me a postage paid pdf so I could send the Furby back. They were happy to replace the broken Furby with hopefully one that works. Unfortunately they couldn’t promise the same color and it would take 4 to 6 weeks which kinda sucks since now the black one has no one to talk to.

Have you gotten a Furby yet?