Although this sounds quite fun, I'm not too sure what it is that you are looking to make with the Arduino part.
If you want a talking tiger then the local "build-a-bear" workshop will allow you to record a message that will replay at the press-of-a-paw.
You could recreate a similar thing at around 10 times the price with an arduino and a "wave" type shield, speaker, batteries stuffed tiger etc.
In fairness, you could do much more sophisticated things with the Ardu' setup but I'm not clear on exactly what it is that you want.