Teddy bears known for being cuddly.

Famous for being fuzzy.

Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun.

Let's find out why teddy bears are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey.

Hey there folks.

Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone. I'm joined by

my co-host Katie Golden, Katie. What is your relationship to or opinion of teddy bears?

I like them. They're cuddly. They're soft, they're huggable. Yeah, my favorite stuffed toy when I was a kid was actually not a teddy bear. It was a stuffed chipmunk that I astutely called squirrely. It was not a squirrel. It was a chipmunk. That was a very loved chipmunk slash squirrel. By the time I was done with it, you really couldn't tell what species or genus it was because it was just kind of worn fabric that I cuddled, you know, to the bone.

That, I remember when we taped with our buddies Ellen and Christian from just the zoo of us,

and they said, like, all our homies hate taxonomy.

I've been really anti-taxonomy ever since.

It's whatever species you want it to be.

Forget it.

I know taxonomy and species names are different.

But, you know, animals or whatever we say is what I say.

Dramatic reveal that I will just post a picture of on Instagram later.

I had a childhood teddy bear.

Oh.

Wow.

Wow.

Cool.

Oh, he looks adorably grumpy.

...