Product Description

The Alive Chimpanzee combines Hollywood special effects with advanced robotics technology in the most realistic simian this side of the jungle. He's a life size, highly detailed realistic bust. Animatronics enable him to duplicate the signature sounds and movements of a real chimp. His skin and hair, which were developed specifically for the Chimp, are amazingly life-like. His head, eyes, mouth, upper lip, eye lids and eye brows move just like his counterparts in the wild. And, his vocalizations are startlingly real. He's multi-sensory, highly communicative and interactive. An infrared vision system allows him to detect movement and track objects, and touch sensors in his chin, head and ears react to contact. Alive Chimpanzee responds to sharp sounds with his stereoscopic sound sensors. The nature of the Chimp's response to these stimuli will depend upon the mood that he's in - curious, fearful, happy or angry. Watch out if he's angry - he becomes a very frightening and very loud chimpanzee. He comes programmed with five modes: Direct control, programming, guard, demo and "Alive" mode. In the "Alive" mode, the Chimpanzee will interact autonomously with his environment, carefully watching, listening and responding to what is going on around him. The Alive Chimpanzee comes complete with an ergonomically designed controller. Requires one "9V" battery and 4 "D" batteries (not included). AC adapter not included. Measures 13" tall.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5360 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Wow Wee
• Model: 9001
• Released on: 2006-06-12
• Dimensions: 15.00" h x 14.80" w x 12.10" l, 8.82 pounds

Features

• Realistic hair, skin and sounds of the wild!
• Fully animated features, interactive and communicative! Four distinctive moods: Happy, Playful, fearful and aggressive!
• Sonic sensors, touch sensors and infra-red vision!
• Remote Control and autonomous modes. The first electronic home entertainment product based on the principles of Hollywood special effects!
• 8 and Up

Amazon.com Review
Doesn't everyone need an animatronic monkey bust? Well, okay, it's not a matter of need, but, you must admit it's cool. Even the phrase is cool. Wowwee Alive Chimpanzee is a programmable, lifelike chimpanzee head and shoulders that will bewilder your family, astound your friends and, most likely, frighten your pets.

Alive Mode allows you to interact naturally with the chimp through its six sensors

Monkey Looks Good
It's so lifelike, in fact, that recent guests to my home did a double-take when seeing it on my dining room table. It has latex rubber skin that's colored, wrinkled, and speckled in very realistic way and has big, brown, bloodshot eyes. Its head and shoulders are covered in synthetic monkey fur. Fine gray whiskers jut out from its brow and chin. The only thing detracting from this realistic chimpanzee likeness are two little sensors plugged into its nostrils. More on that later.

Under the fur on its back is a little power switch. When powered up, the Wowwee Alive Chimp looks around the room, shakes his head in a very simian way, and gives up a chimp laugh. It is reminiscent of the automatons at Disneyworld, but with more modest whirs and clacks in place of the pneumatic hiss of the Disneybots.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil
There are three basic ways to interact with the Wowwee Alive Chimpanzee: alive, direct control, and program modes.

In alive mode, the chimp reacts to stimulus received through sensors in and about the head. Infrared "vision" sensors in his nose detect movement, which make him track what's going on by moving his head and eyes. Microphone "hearing" sensors in his ears make him react similarly; a snap of your fingers on one side of his head will make him twitch in that direction. His hearing and vision is pretty limited to stimuli just inches away from his face, though, so don't expect him to greet you when you come through the door. There are also "touch" sensors under his chin and on top of his head.

These sensors turn the chimp into a virtual pet that displays different moods. His four programmed moods are curious (his default mood when he's first switched on), happy, fearful, and angry. You can elicit different moods with different actions. Petting the top of his head and/or rubbing under his chin will put him in a happy mood. Waving things in front of his face or making loud noises next to his ear will put him into a fearful or angry mood (for the record, I'm the same way). Unless your a primatologist, you'll likely find the distinction between his happy and angry moods to be subtle. He moves his eyes and face and makes chimp noises. Without arms and hands to fling, uh, food, his mood is not so immediately clear.

Direct Control Mode allows you to operate the chimp like a puppet

Remote Control Puppeteering
Direct control mode lets you operate the monkey with the included remote control. Anyone who has played a video game system in the last 10 years will be instantly familiar with the remote's thumbstick design. Toggle buttons on the shoulders of the remote simplify the many different control elements into a simple design. For example, in one toggle position, the left thumbstick moves the jaw, and in the other position, it moves the eye lids. Control mode essentially turns the chimp into a puppet. The remote also has six buttons that, when used with the toggles, can go through preprogrammed animations of his moods.

The Wowwee Chimp can make a wide variety of gestures. His head can nod up and down and turn from side to side. His eyes can move similarly, and his eyelids can close and open. His mouth can close and open, but his lips don't move, which is a little disappointing. I'd be a lot more excited about the programming feature if I could teach him to lip sync to a Britney Spears song.

Program Mode permits the user to store a routine of the chimp's movements and sounds up to 20 steps long. This is easy and fun to do, though you can only store one program at a time. Setting the monkey into Guard mode will make him respond to stimulus by executing the program steps you've put in.

One consideration for the Wowwee Alive Chimpanzee is where in your home does he belong? I suggest on top of the piano. After all, as the Three Stooges taught us, music soothes the savage beast. --Porter B. Hall

From the Manufacturer
Chimpanzee Facetronics - Life size chimpanzee head and neck!

Customer Reviews

A good deal even if it didn't do anything but sit there.
This was originally a SharperImage exclusive, but now wow wee is marketing it to other retailers. I expect Spencer Gifts to carry it soon. The Chimp is now available at SharperImage, Amazon and a few others.

The big deal here is the current price of 50 dollars shipped. Sharper Image ran a promotion at that price instead of the original price of 150 dollars and they sold out. Now, Amazon follows suit at 50 dollars and that it is a heck of a value for this particular item.

For starters, the skin and hair is of very high quality. I know this because I have visited a few special effects studios and know the difference between good and halloween mask quality. The hair is incredible. Set in movie studio style with unrecognizable pattern and great feel. The coloration on this bust is extremely life-like as well. The teeth are another story. Very nicely detailed.

This bust has electronics that enable lots of emotions that include some that appear incredibly lifelike. Yes, the motors are noisy, but this is the case with almost any animatronic device. In movie studios the motor sounds are dubbed over, but in real life, they don't exactly complete the illusion. At a distance or with background music or chatter it is not a big deal. If all this bust did were move and make noise with the remote it would be fine. However, wow wee included touch sensors, head tracking, sound sensors, and a remote. Just for comparison, Spencer Gifts sells animatronic stuff at Halloween for 50-150 that are not near this quality.

I imagine lots of people setting up hidden cameras to capture the reactions of people to this bust. You could set it on top of a big box with another smaller box over the head to appear the chimp is wrapped up for Christmas. Set it to 'guard' mode (head will scream and move at any sign of movement). Someone lifts up the top box, and gets the surprise of their life.

To me, it is simply amazing that this level of animatronic prop can be offered at the consumer level, much less at this price.

As Disappointing as Sea Monkeys
I was one of the earliest adopters of this item when Sharper Image introduced it in 2005. After seeing the web videos, and reading all the buzz this product was generating in various blogs, I decided to give it a try.

Now I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and I was therefore prepared for the product description to include a fair amount of hyperbole. But at $150, I expected at least some of the hype to come somewhat close to the truth. Sadly, the marketing claims stretch the truth until it snaps like an old rubber band.

The web pictures are worth a thousand marketing words. You wouldn't confuse the catalog picture with a picture of a real chimp, and in real life, the same holds true. The hair is probably the most convincing detail. The eyes and skin are overhyped ("uncannily lifelike" is what the ad says) -- they are as convincing as a halloween mask. On the other hand, the bad dental work is a nice detail that the marketing hype fails to highlight (and which is not very visible in the catalog picture).

The ad boasts "His soulful eyes track movements using infrared 'radar' vision." This radar vision is comprised of two infrared sensors tucked into the chimp's nostrils. Not only do these clear plastic "boogers" detract from the realism, I found that the chimp fails to track a nearby person unless you put your hand inches from his face. The "stereoscopic sound sensors" are similarly insensitive -- you have to blow or clap directly into one of his ears for him to turn towards the sound. The most heinous of the marketing lies, however, is the "his skin reacts to contact with touch sensors all around" claim. It turns out that the skin is not touch sensitive at all -- it is merely some sort of inert rubber. In reality, there are only five discrete touch-sensitive sensors that are placed strategically around the head -- one under each ear, one under the chin, one on top of the head, and one in back. I guess that if one wishes to split hairs, this constitutes "all around," but I was really expecting much more sensitivity to external stimuli. The Alive Chimpanzee was a big disappointment in terms of seeing, hearing, and feeling people around it.

The second area of disappointment was the remote control. I had hoped to use the remote to play practical jokes on unwary visitors. I thought I could set the chimp on a table or shelf, then use the remote to have the chimp surreptitiously track the visitor's movements with eye and head movements until the visitor finally took a closer look. At which point, I'd use the remote to cause the chimp to issue a blood curdling scream :-) Unfortunately, the eye and head movements make a lot of motor noise which immediately alerts the visitor that something is amiss. And even more unfortunately, the remote control response is very slow, and it is pretty much impossible to cause real-time tracking of all but the slowest moving visitors.

The animations and vocals are decent, but not entertaining enough to hold your attention for long. Like the subject says, I haven't been this disappointed in a mail order purchase since buying Sea Monkeys as a kid :-( I'd be satisfied with this level of functionality if this were priced around $75. At $150, I feel somewhat ripped off.

Remote Controlled Chimpanzee Head
Excellent adult toy. Will scare some young children and dogs. Very realistic, good sound and range of facial motion