Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas 2011 Blog: Merry Christmas from the Talking Porcupine

Merry Christmas to all!  I hope everyone is getting to spend the day with friends and family with love and peace all around.

And for a little joy--watch this Christmas message from Teddy Bear, the "talking" porcupine from Zooniversity:





Teddy is, as far as I know, the first porcupine whose videos have gone viral on the Internet.  He is most famous for his unwillingness to share his corn in a video released last month that has been viewed by over a million Internet users and aired on numerous national TV shows, such as The Today Show and Good Morning America.

The clip is popular because people watching it insist that Teddy protests the removal of his corn with such human phrases as "It's my corn," "Mine," "Stop," or "Get back."  The funny thing is that people hearing the words speak all sorts of different languages!  The majority speak English, but Zooniversity has also gotten claims of hearing such phrases in German, Dutch, and Russian.

It's a great example of how we hear what we are expecting and see what we are looking for.

Here is the original Teddy video so you can judge for yourself:





I join Teddy in wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!


PS--In the first video, what looks like a gingerbread man is actually a low-sugar dog biscuit decorated for a holiday treat.  So no animal health was endangered so that we could enjoy this cute video.  Also, Teddy apparently liked the Santa hat, because he kept it on for about an hour even after the video was shot.  Teddy has been hand raised from a baby and is one of the animal ambassadors for Zooniversity that goes to visit schools and conduct educational programs.  He seems to be one social porcupine!

No comments:

Post a Comment