Review: Tonka Chuck My Talking Truck

Written on Nov 8, 2009 by Brian and filed under Hasbro, Reviews

Any parent with a young boy invariably will end up with a collection of trucks and related vehicles, many of them with the Tonka brand. In our house, my son still plays with his first Tonka dump truck that he received as a gift nearly 5 years ago. With Chuck My Talking Truck, Tonka has fused their classic dump truck durability and design with technology, to give kids 2 and older an entirely new truck experience.

Playing and Talking With Chuck

Chuck runs on 3 C batteries, but thankfully they’re already included. Just flip Chuck’s front switch from “try me” mode to “on” and you’re rolling…literally. There’s also a second power switch on Chuck’s belly that manages the sound activation mode – more on that in a bit.

Chuck’s body features four sensors that let kids interact with him in different ways. They’re actuated by pressing on his cab, front bumper, lifting the dump bed and by rolling him back and forth. Each sensor spurs a special set of reactions, Chuck has over 40 sayings and sounds in all. A few can be seen in this video.

But Chuck isn’t just a static sound box. Along with the sounds, he’ll wiggle his front bumper and dump bad,giving him more personality than your standard dump truck. The real bonus though comes after enabling his sound activation feature. This is what the kids really love, when they call Chuck or make a noise, he’ll respond and drive forward a few feet in their direction. Chuck works equally well on hard surfaces and carpet, as this next video shows.

It’s pretty cute to see a child’s eyes light up when they make the mental connection that their actions cause the truck to drive across the floor. That’s true with the young kids of course, the older kids, 6+, played a different game with Chuck. Their goal was to whisper to him to see what the quietest possible noise would be to get him to respond. It was really funny to see how the bigger kids took to Chuck’s automated features. Even though the older guys aren’t the target for Chuck, they still had a surprising amount of fun with him.

As with any active play toy designed for the toddler set, we worry about build quality. No concerns here though, as Tonka has build what appears to be a very sturdy truck, as we’d expect. Even with the sensors and moving parts, our review unit is no worse for the wear after being stepped on, dropped and generally played with over the last several weeks.

Bottom Line

It’s fun to see a tech toy geared toward the 2 year-olds. Most of the product we review is for much older kids, hey, toddlers want fun interactive toys too! Everyone loved Chuck My Talking Truck and with a retail price of around $30, it’s difficult to complain about anything. Tonka even throws in a little book where Chuck and his friends go on an adventure. Chuck’s durable, fun and affordable – a perfect trifecta in our book.

Rating – 5 out of 5 Stars – Editor’s Choice

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