WowWee Alive Chimpanzee Robot: Review

I never know what to get my dad for Christmas. I do know though that he likes annoying critters that sing or dance, and make a ruckus. (You know those stupid Christmas themed penguins that dance) When I came across the WowWee Alive Chimpanzee, I was enthralled.

I had seen this chimp bust before at high end electronic stores selling for nearly $200.00 just a few months earlier. Yet here he was, the very same amazing Alive Chimpanzee for only $40.00 at my local KBee Toy Store.

He was the last one, I grabbed him without so much a thought, and before I knew it I was checking out.
I had to wait nearly a month though to see him in action.

First though, the question on many mind probably is; what the hell is a WowWee Alive Chimpanzee?
The Chimpanzee is actually a robotic bust of a chimp. It's as if a chimp was cut from the shoulders up, and packaged in a box for you to bring home. (Don't worry, no real chimps were harmed making the Alive Chimp),

The chimp has real hair, and whiskers, and all of the characteristics a real chimp would have. It's pretty amazing, and very real looking.

The chimp, when turned on is supposed to display real animal behavior. It responds to stimuli, and can detect movement, and reacts to human interaction. The chimp has touch sensors on its ears, chin, and head. The chimp can also be programed to go into guard mode. In guard mode it will display a bunch of movements and sounds to alert someone that someone has entered the room.

The chimp also comes with a remote control for you to use to control his/her movements.

So What Is It?
 
Well in all reality its nothing more than a robotic monkey head. But hey, it's cool, so... pfft.
 
How Well Did It Work:
 
Okay so, obviously our chimp is slightly stupid, or it's missing some AI intelligence. We plugged our chimp in, added a 9V battery to the chimps remote controller and put it to action.

The controller can be used to move the chimps head around, or it can be used to program it's head to preform certain actions in guard mode. (Basically, you set up the actions for the chimp to preform if someone were to enter the room).

After a few minutes of dicking around with the remote controller, we got bored with it, and let the chimp sit on the table in free mode.

From here things were semi neat, but nothing to spectacular. If you moved past the chimp, his head would follow your movement, and his eyes would also move with you.

If the chimp heard a loud noise it would scream and show its teeth, which got annoying pretty quickly.
The chimp also makes a lot of noise, but not chimp noises. With each movement of the head or mouth you could hear gears grinding away. Whenever the chimp would clatter its teeth, the gears sounded like they were about to explode out of the things head.

The chimp goes into moods randomly throughout the day when you walk by. It will at times look around curiously, or display an angry face, fearful face, or happy one. Mostly though, outs was afraid of everything, and would clatter it's teeth a lot.

When we tried to see how it's interactive sensors worked we were not shocked when nothing happened. According to the manual the WowWee Alive Chimp came with, if you tapped the chimps head he would get angry. Ours; it did nothing.

It would also respond to its chin being rubbed. Our did nothing. It was also no surprise that when you touched its ears it did nothing as well.

Overall:
 
The WowWee Alive Chimpanzee is neat to look at. When left plugged in the chimp will make neat faces or bark out annoying chimp noises, but overall when you leave him alone, and walk by him occasionally, he doesn't do very much. He will maybe turn his head, maybe go into guard mode, and maybe do something. Everything with the chimp though is a maybe. Maybe he will do something, maybe he won't.

The concept of this robot is cool though, and I am sure with due time even cooler, smarter robotic toys will soon hit toy stores. Till then though, the chimp is a neat prop to have sitting on the shelf. moving its head around every now and then.

Recommended:
 
I really wouldn't buy this one for more than $40.00. The box hypes the chimp up into more than what it really is. If you can find it for low prices then yeah, it is cool to have...anything higher though, I'd pass it up.

Where To Buy:
 
Obviously they sell them at toy stores. I though would check Ebay before coughing up any cash. Odds are you will find it on this auction site for lower than what I payed for it.