Customer Reviews

WowWee Chimpanzee Alive Animatronic Life Like Chimp Robot Monkey with Remote

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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

Looked fun to play with (for me and the kids) but it got old quicker than I thought. Oh well!

This is a great chimp! It looks so real, and really freaks out our cats! It's very durable. We've had over 4 years now...I think we just need to change the battery at this point because it's not working. But the battery lasts a long time!

it is so realistic and it is pretty good. I recommed u get a wow-wee robot though and i did review those, too.