Abstract: A moving mouth mechanism for an animated character, the mechanism being mounted within the head of the animated character, such as a doll. A head member of the character has an electrical motor mounted in the head upper portion, and has an elongated flexible element or string attached at one end to a rotatable shaft extension of the motor. The other end of the string is attached to a pivotable lever which is spring actuated. The lever outer end is attached to a pivotable lower lip of the mouth in the head, so that whenever the motor is activated with an electrical signal such as from an audio and control system for the activated character, the pivotable lower lip is movable upward and downward so as to simulate normal realistic speech for the animated character.