When my Speak and Spell malfunctioned due to low batteries, it made a staticy noise and in a rough high pitched voice would repeat letters and make weird noises. This scared me to the point I chucked it up against the wall to make it stop.

And you started a new thread just to admit this?

What happened with the Speak and Spell and used to happen to other toys of it's era was that random bits would flip when the batteries get too low causing the strange behavior. Most computerized electronics today shut themselves down if the voltage gets below a certain point to prevent this behavior.