IZ (toy)

The IZ (stylized as iZ) is an electronic musical toy released in September 2005 from Zizzle. Taking the shape of an extraterrestrial tripod creature, the iZ allows users to interactively manipulate music by twisting particular parts of the figure's body as well as add sound effects to pre-recorded sound from a connected audio device. The toy also acts as a dancing speaker.

Since the original release it has been available in five color schemes: green/orange, dark blue/light blue, red/yellow, purple/green, and chrome/orange.

iZ was developed by Roger Shiffman, who also created the Giga Pets, Furby and Poo-Chi toys. It was explicitly explained during the development phase that a "new Furby" was the aim. iZ is designed to seem like it has a life of its own and does things out of its user's control when there is interaction with it.

In 2006, McDonald's had a promotion for the toy with Happy Meal. These made music or light in various colors, such as grey, yellow, pink, red, black, purple, blue, orange, and more. These toys had many different color schemes. There were 18 toys in the U.S. Happy Meal set, 6 in the U.K. set, 4 in the Mexico set, 4 in the Brazil set, and 7 in the Australia set.

Modes of operation
Since the iZ is an abstract kind of toy, the easiest way to understand it is by learning what the user can do with it.

iZ has a few methods for input. First, as mentioned, he has an audio jack to connect other audio devices. He has trumpet-like ears that are twistable and a touch-sensitive tentacle, called a flicker, on his head. On top of this, there are also five buttons variously placed on his colorful tummy. All of the input methods except the audio jack are colored in a secondary color to raise his affordance. iZ's three legs are also adjustable, but these do not generate any input.

For output the iZ has a built-in speaker, a nose that lights up in different colors and eyes driven by small motors, making them able to move up and down.

When another audio device is connected to iZ he acts as a speaker, but also overlays some sound effects on top of the sound from the audio device. When overlaying his own sound effects, he also moves his eyes and lights up his nose. By pressing the left side of his tummy, the sound effects will be turned off and iZ will only act as a regular speaker.

When no other audio device is connected iZ has three modes of operation: Play, DJ and WZIZ FM.

In Play mode (the start-up mode), iZ lets the user compose their own music by manipulating his inputs. Each ear corresponds to one audio track, the tummy controls the drum track and tempo, and the flicker can be hit for iZ to generate sound effects. iZ randomly adds his own flavor to the track by overlaying silly comments or radio noise.

When in DJ mode, iZ evolves the track himself by changing one feature of the track at a time. If the user doesn't like the ongoing music iZ outputs, the tummy can be pressed to force iZ to instantly make a change. No interaction is allowed in this mode, so when the user tries any input which will change the track, a simple sound is played to indicate that he registered the input but will not react to it.

As stated in iZ's manual, "Although he is not a radio, he thinks he is". In WZIZ FM mode, iZ creates a fully new track every time he makes a change and inserts a noise to simulate the tuning of radio stations between the tracks. If you adjust the ears, which are supposed to be the antenna, you can make iZ create a new random track instantly.

Animated adaptation
Zizzle and DIC Entertainment (now WildBrain) created a direct-to-video series, iZ and the Zizzles in 2006. The trailer could be viewed on the Zizzle website. 2 episodes were made, being the pilot and a second episode, "Will the Zizzles Sizzle or Fizzle?".