Fred's Fun Fact: Teddy Bears

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So much. Okay, we got layers of facts here. Okay,
there's a few things, and I I don't think I
knew some of this. But you may have heard that
the Teddy bear was named for Teddy Roosevelt, who is
the twenty sixth President of the US.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Do you know why I didn't know this part?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
He refused to shoot a wounded bear, so they which
I don't know if I like that or not. I'm
not sure because if it was wounded, and if it
wasn't anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know. I don't know. But that's why it's
called teddy bear.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So the invention of the teddy bear coencide it perfectly
with the rise of mass manufacturing in the toy industry,
and the bear's creators made off like bandits. When the
twenty seventh President, William Howard Taft began his term, toy
makers wanted to do the same thing and make something
they could sell and make a lot of money. So
they wanted to make a similarly popular plushy out of
a meal that he used to eat, possum and taters.

(01:00):
Possum and taters that this dude used to the President
used to eat. If so Billy possum didn't. It wasn't
as big of a hit as Teddy Bear was, But
there was gonna be a thing called a billy possum
that was a teddy Bear.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I don't hit the same. It doesn't know billy possum, right,
like billyoum away your kids.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Sorry, I'll put it away.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
More fresh show next