Abstract: A walking mechanism for a toy doll or character having at least one pair of legs. Each leg has a hip end and a foot end. A pair of elliptical idler gears are mounted for rotation about a common shaft, 180 degrees out-of-phase. A second pair of elliptical gears, each in driving relationship with a respective one of the elliptical idler gears are also 180 degrees out-of-phase. The hip end of each leg is mounted for movement with a stub shaft that is in a driven relationship with a respective one of the 180 degree out-of-phase elliptical driving gears to produce a varying speed, generally elliptical orbital movement of the legs to simulate walking.