When he was a kid growing up in New York, comedian Paul Scheer remembers, he asked for a Teddy Ruxpin doll from Santa Claus.
The only problem: That was the year the talking bear was so popular it was impossible to find. So Scheer's dad told him Santa was so overwhelmed, they had permission to go to toy stores together to find the bear. They finally found one, a few months after Christmas. Scheer said he constantly played with Teddy Ruxpin.
"I realize as I've gotten older that my child life might have been a little sad that I was very excited to have a doll that would speak to me. But I really wanted this doll," Scheer said. "You put an audiocassette in his back and he would read out a book to you and he would act out the parts ... It was insane."
Now, 20-plus years later, we surprised Scheer with the latest version of Teddy Ruxpin during a visit to CNET headquarters last month. It's a Bluetooth-enabled model powered by a smartphone app, and as we discovered during Scheer's unboxing, four triple-A batteries. And that's why this unboxing plays out over two videos. One to unbox it; another to actually play it.
Unboxing Teddy Ruxpin ended up being a "Kubrickian" experience for Scheer, who wasn't quite as enamored with the 2018 version as he was with his childhood playmate. Watch and see what happened.
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Discuss: Paul Scheer finds Teddy Ruxpin isn't as kid friendly as he remembers
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