Donbei Original Kakeai Manzai Family

The Donbei Original Kakeai Manzai Family (どん兵衛オリジナルかけあい漫才ファミリー) is a set of Furby knockoffs resembling foxes, that were offered in a campaign from Donbei, which is one of Nissin's brands.

Appearance

The set comes with a blue fox named Pecha Bei, a pink fox named Kucha Bei, and a smaller, yellow fox named Mini Bei. Their mouth area, paws, inner ears, and the tips of their tails are white. They have black eyes with a white circular dot, meant to be a reflection of light, in each eye, and each fox has a little black nose. Only Kucha has eyelashes.

Each fox wears a green apron with Donbei's logo and has a tail. Nissin's website mentions Mini Bei is 12 cm in height, while Pecha and Kucha are 20 cm in height.

Functions

Click on each image to view a larger version.

Pecha Bei and Kucha Bei can blink their eyes, swing their tails to the left or right, and they move their mouths. Mini Bei can close his left eye if you push his left ear down, and he can close his right eye if you push his right ear down. Mini Bei is not an animated toy, but he does have a light sensor and will react when you suddenly cover his light sensor or expose the sensor to light. He can also communicate via infrared with Pecha Bei and Kucha Bei.

The manual mentions that they can play a game of Shiritori! Pecha Bei's head can be pressed to begin the game with Kuchabei and Minibei, while pressing his right paw will cause him to start singing or talking with them. Sometimes pressing Pecha's right paw can make Kucha start a conversation or a song. Kucha Bei can start singing or talking if her left paw is pressed, and Pecha can do fortune telling if Kucha's sound sensor is activated by clapping your hands loudly.

Sweepstake

The campaign began on the first of October in 2000, and 10,000 people would be selected to win a set of the three foxes. The campaign was called "Donbei Original Kakeai Manzai Family 'Pecha Bei, Kucha Bei, and Mini Bei' Gift Campaign".

To participate, you needed to purchase Donbei cup noodles, cut two barcodes from the noodle containers you purchased, glue them to a postcard, fill in your details such as your name, address, gender, age, occupation, and phone number, and then send it. Two thousand and five hundred winners would be selected each month for four months. The campaign's first deadline was on the 31st of October, 2000, the second deadline was on the 30th of November that year, the third deadline was on the 31st of December, and the final deadline was the 31st of January, 2001.

Phone Straps

For the campaign, if you answered a questionnaire on the official website and clicked the button at the end of the form, successfully creating a postcard to apply for the campaign, you would be entered into a draw to win a strap with a charm of Mini Bei. The prize was limited to 300 people. I'm not sure which Mini Bei strap the website referred to, since all images for the archived webpage are missing, and since there are two versions of the strap. Maybe it could be the one with a hanging tail, pictured above, since it's rarer to find for sale? The deadline for applying for the Mini Bei strap was the 30th of November, 2000.

The other Mini Bei strap I'm referring to is an actual figure of him, instead of a flat pendant. There are two other keychains in the series, including one based on the Do Rei Mi Fa Donbei fox, and a bowl of Donbei noodles.

Prototypes

A photo from Nissin's website shows what appear to be prototype versions of the toys. I can't describe in words what looks different, but something here doesn't look right?? All I can say is, Mini Bei's fur looks like a different shade of yellow here (unless it's just the lighting?), and his eyes look more black. The mouth area also looks as if it has more white fur, but I'm not sure. Is it me, or do the little dots in Pecha and Kucha's eyes look smaller than usual, too?

Gallery

The first photo shows an ad for the campaign at the back of a Weekly Young Sunday magazine.