It’s one thing when you are bombarded daily by news articles, it’s quite another when you want to buy a custom teddy bear and are treated to a video lecture on global warming. That’s why I’ll never buy anything from this company and advise my family and friends with children to avoid them also.
www.buildabear.com – their main page below looks just like any normal toy page with a Christmas theme, but visit the games section and you enter a whole new winter wonderland.
Apparently “build-a-bear” is quite the fad, now in 17 countries. But they had a dirty little secret, they were pushing an agenda under the guise of a cartoon designed to entertain the kids.
Maura Flynn writes at biggovernment.com
Attention Santas:
This missive is directed at the guardians of, and donors to, tiny humans. If you fall into that category you likely are already familiar with Build-A-Bear, a world-wide corporation that provides the most innocent of services. They sell customizable stuffed animals. Make your own bear, dog…penguin. Cute concept.
So cute, in fact, that the Build-A-Bear empire sweeps across nearly every state and into 17 other countries. You’ll find their outlets in shopping malls everywhere and even some ballparks. The company also has a website called Build-A-Bearville.com where children can play an interactive video game that, on it’s surface, is unlikely to raise suspicion or sound alarms.
But when your unsuspecting tot logs on and hops a virtual train to the North Pole…you should know that he or she will be informed — by Santa Claus — that Christmas may be canceled this year due to Global Warming. Below is part two of the 3-part video.
Here’s an excerpt (1:07-2:22):
Girl Elf: Santa, it’s gone!
Papa Elf: It’s gone, It’s gone!
Santa: What’s gone?
Girl Elf: Tell ‘em, Dad!
Papa Elf: The North Peak.
Santa: A mountain? A mountain’s gone? How is that possible?
Ella the polar bear: Santa, sir, that’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re here. The ice is melting!
Santa: Yes, my dear, we know, the climate is changing. There’s bound to be a little melting.
Ella: It’s worse than that, Santa, a lot worse! At the rate it’s melting, the North Pole will be gone by Christmas!”
Santa: My, my…all of this gone by next Christmas? I don’t think so.
Ella: No sir, not next Christmas, this Christmas! The day after tomorrow!
And this is merely the tip of the dialogue iceberg, if you’ll forgive me for putting it that way. You can view parts one and three here and here. Children of the world can look forward to priceless exchanges such as, “Oh my! Where will the polar bears live?” and my personal fave: “Where will the elves live?”
I suspect you’d like to think it can’t get any worse than that. Thus, it pains me to tell you that animated characters actually break into a discussion of satellite photos and that Mrs. Claus conducts a rather unscientific experiment involving ice cubes.
Needless-to-say, this constitutes brainwashing on the sleaziest and most sinister level. The good news is that this nonsense isn’t coming from our government this time and the rocky economy is our friend here. People, we have the means, if we have the will, to topple these charlatans who shamelessly prey on little children. So boycott Build-A-Bear. And, more importantly, tell the world why.
They apparently have been getting overwhelmed with letters, because today they posted this:
December 22, 2009
We have received inquiries regarding our online webisodes and would like to provide you with the following information.
Our goal is to entertain and engage the imagination of children with our stuffed animals, our store environment, and online. Our intention with the Polar Bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways. We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way. The webisodes concluded this week with Santa successfully leaving on his journey to deliver gifts around the world. The webisodes will no longer be available on the site.
I started Build-A-Bear Workshop as a place for families and children to come for a fun experience combining imagination, creativity and empowerment. I have always placed great value in the trust that our Guests have in our brand.
At Build-A-Bear Workshop we also strive to encourage kids to help others by participating in their communities. We listen to parents and kids about topics that they are interested in and care about. We especially value the input of parents. We are listening and taking all points of view into consideration for the future.
If you have questions, please contact us:
Guests with questions should contact:
Guest services
314-423-8000
866-232-7269
Media with questions should contact:
Jill Saunders
314-423-8000 ext. 5293
314-422-4523 (cell)
Investors with Questions should contact:
Investor Relations
314-423-8000 ext.5353
Sincerely,
Maxine Clark
Founder and Chief Executive Bear
Build-A-Bear Workshop
There’s an important word missing from that letter, that word is “apology”. Global Warming and Christmas have no business being together, and hopefully this will be a lesson for other companies that try to put an agenda into children’s stories. Sadly, I suspect we’ll see more of this though.
If you already bought one of these, my advice is to call their customer service and ask for a full refund.
(toll free) 1-877-789-BEAR (2327)
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Actually, Santa already moved his production to China in 1998, the warmest year ever, mail is being forwarded to Shanghai (or is it Guang Dong, I think Shanghai is his summer home. Rudolph drowned before the move, may he RIP.
The focus is on the kids now, nothing for the Alarmists to do but to wait for the older folks die off and are replaced by a generation of brainwashed Gaia worshipping replacements.
Hummm…….Let them look at this graph closely:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
I see the BBC childrens news website is still peddling the same old lies despite my one man campaign. Perhaps if a few more join in?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1570000/newsid_1575400/1575495.stm
Well Anthony, you have to understand the position Build-a-Bear put themselves in here. The science was settled, so they didn’t really think that they were going too far out of the way to give Santa a crisis to solve, which happens in almost every Santa kids movie there is. Now they were not expecting a flood of emails from parents upset about it because the science was settled, surely everyone believes in global warming (as the theory)? Well, now if they apologize, they are taking a stand and the AGW believers will excoriate them, whereas if they do not apologize, then they are taking the stand they have already unwittingly taken. The path of least resistance.
It is mildly concerning to me, but think about this for a second. If you do not home school your kids, you will have to face the fact that AGW is taught as fact in schools across the country. That is far more pressing to me than Build-a-Bear.
I think Apple and Nike should re-think their promotion of the man-made global warming hoax and pulling out of the US Chamber of Commerce for their ideology. I know I’ll be sunning those companies products.
Embargoed. This is pure hardcore propaganda in the guise of entertainment.
Part 3 gets really serious. I’ve not seen anything like this. And the “apology”
letter that isn’t, is pure hogwash.
Anthony, the google ad running now below your article is for “Build a Bear Workshop”.
Typo;
Shunning
“Global Warming and Christmas have no business being together,”
Oh i dunno….theyre both based on a story. 🙂
Shame! Political messages directed at children is uncalled for from a commercial site intended for children. Some form of warning must be placed before any video with a political message can start. If a company has a political message they have every right to display it openly and make it part of their corporate mission statement as it is their right to freedom of speech. When they hide it in programming for children they cross the line in interfering with parental rights.
It’s too bad I didn’t hear about this earlier, before a loving relative bought one for my daughter, I could have suggested a different present.
Post-Copenhagen, carbon market in ‘bit of a vacuum’
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/post-copenhagen-carbon-market-in-bit-of-a-vacuum/article1409821/
I actually like the idea of this. Then I can tell my kids it is not real just like all the other cartoons they watch.
[please don’t encourage that kind of thing. It’s a violation of terms ~ ctm]
It is quite obvious what they are doing. They are attempting to grow a generation of “believers” who have been indoctrinated with this baloney since they were children. The kids of today will accept this bull as “truth” because their teachers, the TV, even “Build-A-Bear” says it is so.
My daughter loves “Build-A-Bear” and sadly, I can’t in good conscience take her back there again.
This story was on FOX news Red Eye this morning. If someone could get a youtube clip, it’s funnny.
“Where will the elves live?”
I don’t know, I kinda like that they are merging two myths together – when we break it to kids that Santa doesn’t exist that we can tell them not to worry about global warming too.
It would be my guess that the kids take the news far better than the adults.
Isn’t this dialogue actually making fun of AGW?
Santa: My, my…all of this gone by next Christmas? I don’t think so.
Ella: No sir, not next Christmas, this Christmas! The day after tomorrow!
I think asking people to get refunds is a bit over the top.
The same green agenda has been at work down under for several years. I was conned into buying my young grand-daughter, a precocious, almost-computer-literate tot, software that advertised you could make your own cartoon of Blinky Bill, a much loved Aussie koala.
I was horrified to discover that the only script you could actually use was the usual horror story of the loggers raping the forest, wrecking the homes of Blinky and his mates and then setting fire to the forest.
As it happens logged forests are a far safer habitat for koalas than are national parks which for years have been the major hotspots in our annual wildfire scene.
Needless to say that particular DVD is now serving as a bird-scarer under my grapevine.
The same little girl asked me, just after starting school, “what’s growbuw warming?” and proceeded to lecture me on how we would all burn up because we were making the world too hot.
The AGW movement has a Joe Camel moment.
What irks me about this is that the idiots who created those videos probably weren’t doing it to nefariously sneak their inappropriate message to kids. I suspect that they are so insular that it never even occurred to them that teaching kids to fear global warming is any different than teaching kids to be nice to animals. They are probably still puzzled why anyone objected.
They definitely won’t understand why we won’t be patronizing their store with our daughter for a more fundamental philosophical reason. Build-a-Bear’s pervasive promotion of mindless altruism is also troubling, “…we also strive to encourage kids to help others…”. We’ll be teaching our daughter that there are valid reasons to share, cooperate, assist or reciprocate with others based in rational long-term self-interest. I believe the mantra about “helping others” needs to be taught with a parallel understanding that there are situations where such help should not be universally granted without reasonable limits or conditions. Teaching my daughter to blindly help others as an unquestioned moral imperative will only lead to feelings of guilt when she’s confronted with a situation where her common sense tells her that short-term “help” won’t be long-term helpful.
I’ve probably bought a dozen of these things over the last few years, along with the insanely expensive clothing for them. Kids love them.
Never, ever again. Words can’t even express how disgusted I am.
Its santa or I’m seeing IPCC chief Pacahauri and his colleges…
Here’s what I wrote to Build-a-Bear:
Dear Build-a-Bear,
I came across an interesting article in one of my favorite blogs:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/23/unbearable-global-warming-threatens-the-north-pole-christmas/#more-14441
After reading this article and the unapologetic response provided by your founder, I have decided to discontinue all shopping at your establishment.
My daughter has several build-a-bears and these will be her last. All my children are banned from any Build-a-Bear stores and website until I can be assured that your company will refrain from political oriented content directed towards children.
You have interfered with my parental rights. You have freedom of speech rights but I have freedom to purchase rights. I’m very glad that I read the article before my children had contact with your site. Santa Clause is a harmless myth that is chosen by parents to embellish the Christmas custom. Global warming is not a harmless topic that can be mixed with this myth.
I take great pride in presenting information from all sides to my children and allowing them to make their own informed decision. Your web content subverts this and I won’t stand for it! The closest thing I can imagine to demonstrate my feelings is if you were to make web content telling Muslim children that their parents are bad and that he/she should be a Christian! How far away are we from a Nazi society where children turn in their parents?
Shame on you,
Chris Burrows
Seems like a natural follow on to the Build-A-Scare shindig in Gropenhagen….
Geesus! These Super Parasites are threatening to give The Black Plague a good name by comparison.
[snip] is the North Peak? They know they are lieing, then blame it on the Children [and their Parents] who need to be “inspired” – by THEM, a teeming horde of cancerous one-cells much worse than mere Giant Mutant Ants ever were. They’re also trying to infect the Adults using the Children, and so on……flesh eating Zombies just doesn’t cover it at all. I’ll send them a personally “built” message later, maybe this one.
Amazing. Why can’t the saner members of world population see through this irrational propaganda? Even the UK “government” is at it, and any change of government next year will make no difference at all, as the opposition are “on message”, too.
It’s as if everyone has been pre-brainwashed into accepting it all without demur – it’s like an auto-response trigger to switch off common sense.
We realists appear to be in a minority – what will become of us? We don’t appear to be able to make much headway, being stalled at every turn, and with the mainstream media (especially in Europe) refusing to take any scepticism on board, however justified.
You can hardly see a television programme, or advertisement, or newspaper these days without some reference to “green”, “eco-friendly” or “carbon footprint” as if those terms are de rigueur in order to either sell a product, or comply with some pre-ordained global rule that these warnings MUST be fed to the gullible human race at every opportunity.
No wonder the kids are at best confused, and at worst mentally (and inescapably?) locked into “the message”
Frightening days – I sometimes wish that some other Armageddon (natural or otherwise) would overtake humanity, so that we either cease to exist, or the remaining few can have an opportunity to start over.