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[piano playing]

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[Happy music playing]

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[whimsical orchestral
music playing]

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[♪]

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[Peter Holmes] Hello.

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[shimmering musical flourish]

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That was weird.

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Happens more than you think.

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So, am I early or what?

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No, Peter. You're right on time.

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Yeah.

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You know...

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I haven't seen you around
since you were about... that
tall.

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And you were always bringing
that teddy bear around with you.

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What was his name?

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Yeah, Marty. God, I-- I haven't
thought about him in years.

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I-- I loved that bear.

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You know,
you two were quite the pair.

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Yeah. Thanks.

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Enjoy the show!

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Wow.

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Got the whole theater to myself.
This is great.

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[male voice]
What am I, chopped liver?

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Great, now I'm hearing voices.

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-[male voice] No, you're not.
-Whoa!

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A talking teddy bear?

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In a powder blue tuxedo?

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[narrating bear]
Well, of course.
I have to dress nice.

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This is my big break, you know.

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-I'm in this picture.
-No way.

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Oh, congratulations,
talking teddy bear.

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-I really can't wait to see you.
-Shh! It's starting.

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Sorry.

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[film rolling]

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[narrating bear] It was
a dark and stormy night.

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-[thunder booming]
-Wait, that's not it. Oh!

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A long time ago,
in a galaxy far, far away--

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Oh, no, then, now,
that's not right, either.

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Once upon a time-- No?
That's not right either?

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Okay, here it is.
[clears throat]

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Teddy bears!
Everyone loves them.

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They bring comfort and joy
to millions of people
all over the world.

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There is a place
where you can go

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and you can make
your own teddy bear.

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And it's not so much
that you make it.

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You build it.

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That's right. Build-A-Bear.

50
00:03:02,051 --> 00:03:05,359
So, where did
Build-A-Bear come from?

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00:03:05,446 --> 00:03:08,884
And how has Build-A-Bear
managed to stay relevant

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when so many toy stores
have fallen by the wayside?

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Get ready to find out,

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because this is the story
of Build-A-Bear Workshop.

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Growing up,
it was always a big treat for me
to go to Build-A-Bear.

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As a kid walking into there,
you think it's, like,
the coolest place on Earth.

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Then still, as an adult,
I still think it's one of
the coolest places on Earth.

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Kinda like
stuffed animal Disneyland.
[chuckles] It's so fun!

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Well, they didn't have
Build-A-Bear
when I was a kid,

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but the fact
that you can create your own
bears is next level.

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There were a lot of decisions
to be made.

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It wasn't just, like,
"I like that,"

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it was this really cool thing
for the kids that they had never
had before.

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None of us had ever
seen this before.

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So here is my first impression
of Build-A-Bear.

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I'm sorry,
you might not love this,
but I'm telling you anyway.

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"Wow! This is genius.
They have taken the labor out of

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putting the animal together,
and we're doing it for you."

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I mean, your profit margin
just went... [whooshes]

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-Brilliant!
-[Jeff Timmons] I mean,
you've seen different concepts

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for kids that are
created for kids.

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Experiences for kids
come and go,

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but Build-A-Bear's
a way of life for a lot of us.

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[Dubrow] For a parent,
I mean, amazing,

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because it wasn't just
walking into a store

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and buying something. You got,
like, an experience with it.

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[Timmons]
I think there's something
very special and unique

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about the process
of creating their own bear.

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They have a hand in it,
they can customize it with the--

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with the-- with the shoes,
to the hats, to the clothes.

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Just the hearts!
Having a little heart

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on the inside of the bears
is so cute.

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It's your creation,
because you're building it
and not somebody else.

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Watching your child be creative,
and the thought process,

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and, you know,
all the neurons firing

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and everything,
is really incredible.

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But to watch them create
something with love is...
it's heartwarming.

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[Shipman] You can do
whatever your imagination
wants.

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You can choose a crazy bear,
or keep it simple.

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Also, the environment
in Build-A-Bear is
always just so happy.

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Everyone seems to be
having an awesome time.

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As a kid, you're constantly
told, "Oh, behave,"

93
00:05:05,479 --> 00:05:08,438
like, "Calm down."
Like, mute yourself.

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But in a Build-A-Bear shop,
you're able to do whatever
your heart wants to do.

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[narrating bear]
So, what is Build-A-Bear?

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Everyone knows
what a Build-A-Bear is.

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I mean, growing up,
everyone's passed by it
in the mall, or seen it.

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There's not one person
who hasn't at least
heard of Build-A-Bear.

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I had never heard of
Build-A-Bear, to be honest.

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And then my son's wife said,

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"Yes, I've known about
Build-A-Bear all my life."

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I'm like, "How could she
know about Build-A-Bears
and I don't know about it?"

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But I do now.

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Better late than never.

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Do you wanna hold my bear?

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Would you like one? [laughing]

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-Do you know
about Build-A-Bears?
-[crew member] Oh, yeah.

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Huh. Well.

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So, the whole world knows
about Build-A-Bear but me?

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[♪]

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[narrating bear] Now,
if you're watching this movie,

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it is safe to assume you've
heard of Build-A-Bear before.

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Or at least you have now.

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But not so long ago,

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there was no such thing
as Build-A-Bear Workshop.

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It all came from this
teddy bear-sized woman,
Maxine Clark.

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[♪]

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Hi, I'm Maxine Clark.

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I'm Maxine Clark,
and I am best known

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as the founder
of Build-A-Bear Workshop.

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My title, though,
when I was at Build-A-Bear,

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was Chief Executive Bear,
but sometimes it was Momma Bear.

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Sometimes Chief Executive Bear,
sometimes CEB.

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Maxine, she is a force.

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I don't even know
the words to describe Maxine,

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because she, I think,
defies definition.

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Uh, Maxine is a dynamo.

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Back in that day, you know,
there wasn't the Internet,

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and so I had to go to
the library to look her up

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to see who she really was,
and I'm thinking,

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"Oh, my. She's the President
of Payless ShoeSource."

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-♪ Another openin' ♪
-♪ Another store ♪

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♪ At Payless ShoeSource
We're building more ♪

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Well, I had a great career
with the May Department Stores.
Over 20 years.

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00:07:12,127 --> 00:07:15,652
They asked me to be the
president of Payless ShoeSource,

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00:07:15,739 --> 00:07:18,176
which was kind of the dream
job.
I love the shoe business

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00:07:18,263 --> 00:07:21,049
because shoes are something
that I could always buy
and not have to alter.

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00:07:21,136 --> 00:07:25,923
So, I met her, and, of course,
I-- In my mind,
I had made her six feet tall.

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She came around the corner, and,
of course, she's four foot ten,
and I'm looking down at her.

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[Krueger]
I think she was really set on
accomplishing things in life.

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00:07:35,803 --> 00:07:39,502
To be able to start Build-A-Bear
and make it into the, you know,

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00:07:39,589 --> 00:07:41,548
iconic brand that it is today

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00:07:41,635 --> 00:07:44,551
just kinda speaks to
how she just goes after things.

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She is a trailblazer,
she is a glass ceiling-breaker.

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As a woman, I admire her
and look up to her so much

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00:07:52,036 --> 00:07:54,169
because I know
how much she's accomplished,

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00:07:54,256 --> 00:07:56,258
and I think that
she's just so inspiring.

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00:07:56,345 --> 00:07:58,260
And her footprints
are all over St. Louis,

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and, really,
they're all over the world

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00:08:00,392 --> 00:08:02,873
because there are millions
upon millions of teddy bears

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00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,528
out in this world that
wouldn't be there without her.

152
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I love documentaries,

153
00:08:07,661 --> 00:08:11,273
so I'm always sort of fascinated
to see how things came about.

154
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Me too, AC Slater. Me too.

155
00:08:15,190 --> 00:08:17,888
[Lopez] And I know Build-A-Bear
was, like, a phenomenon,

156
00:08:17,975 --> 00:08:20,674
so I'm-- I'm curious
to hear the backstory.

157
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[narrating bear]
The year was 1997.

158
00:08:25,461 --> 00:08:27,071
[tape crackling]

159
00:08:27,158 --> 00:08:30,161
So during the height
of the Beanie Baby craze,

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Maxine had picked my brother
and me up from school,

161
00:08:32,773 --> 00:08:34,470
and we went to
the toy store after school.

162
00:08:34,557 --> 00:08:36,167
We went looking
for Beanie Babies,

163
00:08:36,254 --> 00:08:38,126
if you remember,
when those were very popular.

164
00:08:38,213 --> 00:08:41,129
-Yeah, I remember.
-It's estimated that

165
00:08:41,216 --> 00:08:43,871
close to ten million people
collect Beanie Babies.

166
00:08:43,958 --> 00:08:47,657
For many of us Beanie Kids,
we just love them 'cause
they're so cute and cuddly.

167
00:08:47,744 --> 00:08:49,964
I wasn't really
into Beanie Babies.

168
00:08:50,051 --> 00:08:53,184
Maybe I had ten, and I think
other kids had a thousand.

169
00:08:53,271 --> 00:08:56,884
For others, collecting
Beanies is an obsession.

170
00:08:56,971 --> 00:08:59,016
Ha!
Like you Beanie Moms out there.

171
00:08:59,103 --> 00:09:01,453
We walked in the store, and
they had a big sign that said,

172
00:09:01,541 --> 00:09:03,760
"We have Beanie Babies,"
but they didn't.

173
00:09:03,847 --> 00:09:06,110
I was looking for
Rover the Red Dog,

174
00:09:06,197 --> 00:09:10,027
and the toy store didn't have
that Beanie Baby in stock.

175
00:09:10,114 --> 00:09:12,552
Because during the day,
parents trolled the stores

176
00:09:12,639 --> 00:09:15,598
and they took
all the fun out of it, the fun
of discovery.

177
00:09:15,685 --> 00:09:19,515
And so we walked into the store,
and they didn't have
what they said on the sign,

178
00:09:19,602 --> 00:09:23,214
and Katie just looked at
one of 'em that was on display
that was kind of ragged,

179
00:09:23,301 --> 00:09:27,262
-and she said, "You know..."
-"Maxine, these are so easy,
we could make them."

180
00:09:27,349 --> 00:09:31,440
Well, she meant go home and
make a bear in our craft room.

181
00:09:31,527 --> 00:09:34,399
But Maxine said
that light bulb moment of,

182
00:09:34,486 --> 00:09:37,011
"You know, we can make these,"
was actually...

183
00:09:37,098 --> 00:09:39,448
-[ding]
-...that was the moment
of inspiration

184
00:09:39,535 --> 00:09:41,537
for Build-A-Bear Workshop.

185
00:09:42,146 --> 00:09:44,235
We went back to the house.
She and Jack, her brother,

186
00:09:44,322 --> 00:09:46,194
went downstairs,
get out all the stuff.

187
00:09:46,281 --> 00:09:49,763
And she came up, and I was
on the computer, Netscaping.

188
00:09:49,850 --> 00:09:51,852
It was quite slow,
as you recall.

189
00:09:51,939 --> 00:09:53,680
Could I find a business
that I could buy

190
00:09:53,767 --> 00:09:55,377
that I could turn
into this idea?

191
00:09:55,464 --> 00:09:58,032
That when she said,
"We could make these,"

192
00:09:58,119 --> 00:10:00,425
I thought of a store
where we could make these.

193
00:10:00,512 --> 00:10:02,776
When she came upstairs,
she said, "What are you doing?"

194
00:10:02,863 --> 00:10:04,299
And I said,
"I'm looking to see if I--"

195
00:10:04,386 --> 00:10:06,214
She went, "Well,
that's not what I meant."

196
00:10:06,301 --> 00:10:08,433
I said, "I know that's not
what you meant, but I think

197
00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:10,740
it's a really good idea.
I'm gonna start looking at it."

198
00:10:10,827 --> 00:10:13,874
And I did do some research, and
I did find a couple of factories

199
00:10:13,961 --> 00:10:16,224
that were available for sale,
or I thought they would be.

200
00:10:16,311 --> 00:10:17,965
But they thought I was crazy.

201
00:10:18,052 --> 00:10:20,402
They had a price on it
that was way too high.

202
00:10:20,489 --> 00:10:22,796
I told Katie,
and I wasn't able to buy the one

203
00:10:22,883 --> 00:10:24,711
that I thought we could
really make into this,

204
00:10:24,798 --> 00:10:27,104
and she said,
"Well, why don't we do it?"

205
00:10:27,191 --> 00:10:30,151
Now, I'm not sure she
remembers it exactly that way,
but that's what I heard.

206
00:10:30,238 --> 00:10:32,893
[chuckles] Okay.

207
00:10:32,980 --> 00:10:35,547
What I saw is
Maxine had an idea,

208
00:10:35,635 --> 00:10:38,986
and then found the right people
and brought it to life.

209
00:10:39,073 --> 00:10:40,857
It just seemed
almost seamless to me.

210
00:10:40,944 --> 00:10:42,467
I went right to work
on that project.

211
00:10:42,554 --> 00:10:45,340
That was probably
February of 1997,

212
00:10:45,427 --> 00:10:47,908
and by October of 1997,

213
00:10:47,995 --> 00:10:50,432
we had opened up our first store
at the St. Louis Galleria.

214
00:10:50,519 --> 00:10:54,131
♪ Build a bear
At the Build-A-Bear Workshop ♪

215
00:10:54,218 --> 00:10:57,482
♪ Where there's a bear
For everyone ♪

216
00:10:57,569 --> 00:10:59,920
Welcome to the
Build-A-Bear Workshop!

217
00:11:00,007 --> 00:11:03,097
-Have you ever been into a store
where you can make best friends?
-[child] Uh huh.

218
00:11:03,184 --> 00:11:06,448
♪ We're gonna have some fun ♪

219
00:11:06,535 --> 00:11:08,972
No matter what,
at any cost, we--

220
00:11:09,059 --> 00:11:11,192
You know, we were gonna
succeed in, you know,

221
00:11:11,279 --> 00:11:14,195
convincing people this was
the concept to believe in.

222
00:11:14,891 --> 00:11:16,806
Have you met Maxine?

223
00:11:17,938 --> 00:11:20,244
She's very convincing,
and, you know,

224
00:11:20,331 --> 00:11:23,508
once you meet her
and you fall in love with her,

225
00:11:23,595 --> 00:11:25,946
you're not gonna-- you're not
gonna let anything fail.

226
00:11:26,033 --> 00:11:28,949
[♪]

227
00:11:29,036 --> 00:11:31,212
Welcome to Build-A-Bear!

228
00:11:31,299 --> 00:11:35,085
It-- it's unbelievable feeling
to be standing here with you

229
00:11:35,172 --> 00:11:37,827
and talking to you about-- about
the story of Build-A-Bear,

230
00:11:37,914 --> 00:11:41,744
because when we started,
there were lots of people that
didn't think it would make it.

231
00:11:41,831 --> 00:11:43,964
But not children. [chuckles]

232
00:11:44,051 --> 00:11:46,923
All the kids that I asked knew
that it was gonna be successful.

233
00:11:47,010 --> 00:11:49,709
[narrating bear]
Kids aren't the only ones
who love teddy bears.

234
00:11:49,796 --> 00:11:51,493
Some grown-ups do too.

235
00:11:51,580 --> 00:11:54,191
Meet the McCarthy twins!

236
00:11:54,278 --> 00:11:56,019
I am Maribeth McCarthy.

237
00:11:56,106 --> 00:11:57,673
Hi, I'm Ellen McCarthy.

238
00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:00,850
[both]
And we're identical twins!

239
00:12:00,937 --> 00:12:03,984
And this is Colby.

240
00:12:04,071 --> 00:12:05,681
[both chuckle]

241
00:12:05,768 --> 00:12:07,901
-Colby is...
-Our life companion.

242
00:12:07,988 --> 00:12:09,903
-Basically.
-Life companion, yes.

243
00:12:09,990 --> 00:12:12,253
He has been with us
for so many years.

244
00:12:12,340 --> 00:12:14,646
He's essentially
an extension of us, really.

245
00:12:14,734 --> 00:12:16,736
Especially of our
personality, yeah.

246
00:12:16,823 --> 00:12:21,175
Because I voice Colby, which
I think freaks some people out.

247
00:12:21,262 --> 00:12:23,046
People are like,
"Oh, are you hungry?"

248
00:12:23,133 --> 00:12:25,440
"No!" "Why not?"
"'Cause I'm stuffed!"

249
00:12:25,527 --> 00:12:28,051
-[chuckles] So...
-Somehow it never gets old.

250
00:12:28,138 --> 00:12:30,967
And he was talking from
the second he was in that
nice little cardboard box

251
00:12:31,054 --> 00:12:32,926
-that they give you to take--
-I love that box.

252
00:12:33,013 --> 00:12:35,406
It's like a little house!
I'm like, "Yeah, let's go home."

253
00:12:35,493 --> 00:12:38,496
And it was just--
You know that scene in
Willy Wonkathat I can't sing

254
00:12:38,583 --> 00:12:41,238
because of copyright?
But you walk in and it's just--

255
00:12:41,325 --> 00:12:44,154
-[beep]
-[electronic voice] I'm sorry,
the song "Pure Imagination"

256
00:12:44,241 --> 00:12:47,941
fromWilly Wonka and
the Chocolate Factory is
not currently available.

257
00:12:48,028 --> 00:12:51,031
You look at everything, and
it's literally pure imagination.

258
00:12:51,118 --> 00:12:52,946
That was like us
during Minnesota.

259
00:12:53,033 --> 00:12:55,035
We went to the Minnesota one
in the Mall of America.

260
00:12:55,122 --> 00:12:57,602
-Oh, my goodness.
-And we were just like...

261
00:12:57,689 --> 00:13:00,344
-"Oh, my God."
-"This is magical.
What is this?"

262
00:13:00,431 --> 00:13:02,912
-Once you know us, you're--
-[Ellen] Once you know us,
you're...

263
00:13:02,999 --> 00:13:05,219
-[both] Very used to it.
-Yeah.

264
00:13:05,306 --> 00:13:08,613
But if you're just meeting us,
you're like,
"Oh! There's a bear!"

265
00:13:08,700 --> 00:13:11,138
Mm-hmm. And it's, "Hogs!
What time's your bus comin'?"

266
00:13:11,225 --> 00:13:13,227
And he travels on planes
with me a lot.

267
00:13:13,314 --> 00:13:15,664
I always have that brief, like,
12 seconds of panic attack

268
00:13:15,751 --> 00:13:18,623
when you have to put him
through the belt in the airport.

269
00:13:18,710 --> 00:13:20,451
-I hate that part.
-And I'm there just like,

270
00:13:20,538 --> 00:13:22,323
"Do the wand, do the wand!
Get me through!"

271
00:13:22,410 --> 00:13:24,325
[laughs] But you can't yell,
"My kid's in there,"

272
00:13:24,412 --> 00:13:27,807
because they'll be like,
"What?" So... [laughs]

273
00:13:27,894 --> 00:13:30,984
[both] How many times
have we been to Build-A-Bear?

274
00:13:31,071 --> 00:13:34,596
-We have lost count.
-Yes. We've gone enough
that they know us by name.

275
00:13:34,683 --> 00:13:37,642
Whenever we're dressed in
our princess outfits,
we go and we take pictures

276
00:13:37,729 --> 00:13:40,558
-for them and everything, and--
-The conventions
are a lot of fun

277
00:13:40,645 --> 00:13:43,083
because we get to dress in kind
of, like, how we're dressed.

278
00:13:43,170 --> 00:13:46,086
[♪]

279
00:13:46,173 --> 00:13:49,219
The joy of him is that
he finds joy in everything.

280
00:13:49,306 --> 00:13:51,831
-Mm-hmm.
-And so I wrote this first one,

281
00:13:51,918 --> 00:13:54,529
which is
Colby and the First Day Ever.

282
00:13:54,616 --> 00:13:56,748
And it's about how he and I meet
and become a family.

283
00:13:56,836 --> 00:13:59,577
[in Colby's voice]
"Some people ask about
where you come from.

284
00:13:59,664 --> 00:14:02,537
Like, are you from a big place,
or a small place?

285
00:14:02,624 --> 00:14:04,844
I do not know where I came from.

286
00:14:04,931 --> 00:14:08,586
All I remember is being asleep,
and then I woke up."

287
00:14:08,673 --> 00:14:11,589
And then it's just about
how we met and became a family,

288
00:14:11,676 --> 00:14:14,027
and he just opened his eyes
and there I was.

289
00:14:14,114 --> 00:14:16,638
My hair is amazing in this book.

290
00:14:16,725 --> 00:14:19,032
Went through 17 colored pencils.
It was great.

291
00:14:19,119 --> 00:14:21,599
[narrating bear] It's so weird.
Before they started
this company,

292
00:14:21,686 --> 00:14:25,168
I have no memory of anything.
I can't figure it out.

293
00:14:25,777 --> 00:14:28,868
You tell me if I'm, you know,
fidgeting or whatever.

294
00:14:28,955 --> 00:14:31,566
You have just-- You'll... look.

295
00:14:31,653 --> 00:14:33,481
[crew member]

296
00:14:33,568 --> 00:14:35,831
[Krueger] Well,
Build-A-Bear had a reputation

297
00:14:35,918 --> 00:14:38,616
in St. Louis of being,
you know, the hot company.

298
00:14:38,703 --> 00:14:44,666
And so I was actually diagnosed
with cancer, and, um, was--

299
00:14:44,753 --> 00:14:47,451
Got through all the treatments
and everything,
and needed to find a job.

300
00:14:47,538 --> 00:14:50,933
So, I had a friend that was
working with Build-A-Bear,

301
00:14:51,020 --> 00:14:53,066
and she took my résumé
to Maxine.

302
00:14:53,153 --> 00:14:55,546
Maxine said, "I think you
might be a good fit here."

303
00:14:55,633 --> 00:14:58,201
I said, "Okay, I just
have to be honest with you.

304
00:14:58,288 --> 00:15:02,945
I just finished cancer
treatment, like, a year ago,
and odds are that,

305
00:15:03,032 --> 00:15:05,687
you know, I'll be able to
give you at least
a couple of good years."

306
00:15:05,774 --> 00:15:09,256
And she's like, "Okay, um,
thanks for telling me that.

307
00:15:09,343 --> 00:15:12,650
Um, I think you'd be good
for the role. If you want
the job, it's yours."

308
00:15:12,737 --> 00:15:15,479
No tests, no assessments,
and I got the offer,
like, the next day.

309
00:15:15,566 --> 00:15:18,004
[Klocke] It was-- it was
difficult in the very
beginning,

310
00:15:18,091 --> 00:15:22,269
because a lot of people, um,
no, you know, disrespect.

311
00:15:22,356 --> 00:15:24,445
A lot of men didn't believe
we could do it,

312
00:15:24,532 --> 00:15:27,274
and so, you know,
they didn't understand

313
00:15:27,361 --> 00:15:30,451
how you could have
an interactive retail concept.
What was that?

314
00:15:30,538 --> 00:15:33,106
In fact, we couldn't even
lease our own space.

315
00:15:33,193 --> 00:15:35,935
We subleased
from Maxine's husband

316
00:15:36,022 --> 00:15:38,024
because the landlord
wouldn't rent to us.

317
00:15:38,111 --> 00:15:40,330
I mean,
banks wouldn't lend to us

318
00:15:40,417 --> 00:15:43,681
because we were female-led
and weren't proven yet,

319
00:15:43,768 --> 00:15:49,122
even though Maxine had
a great repertoire of business
knowledge, you know?

320
00:15:49,209 --> 00:15:51,820
Maybe you could call us
trailblazers. I don't know.

321
00:15:51,907 --> 00:15:54,736
I mean, we just did
what we needed to do.

322
00:15:54,823 --> 00:15:59,132
We-- we basically were
on path to reinvent retail.

323
00:15:59,219 --> 00:16:01,525
If you think about
what Build-A-Bear is,

324
00:16:01,612 --> 00:16:03,397
it's a very specific product.

325
00:16:03,484 --> 00:16:06,182
You know, how many bears
do you need a year, right?

326
00:16:06,269 --> 00:16:08,141
So, in a very real sense,

327
00:16:08,228 --> 00:16:11,405
they need a place where
there's lots of traffic.

328
00:16:11,492 --> 00:16:15,017
It's not like the supermarket,
where you go every single week
to restock the fridge.

329
00:16:15,104 --> 00:16:18,020
This is something you do
on special occasions, right?

330
00:16:18,107 --> 00:16:20,675
And you need a place
where a lot of people go

331
00:16:20,762 --> 00:16:24,287
a lot of the time to have
the kind of exposure to make
that business model work.

332
00:16:24,374 --> 00:16:29,292
[narrating bear] In the mid
'90s, that place was the mall!

333
00:16:29,379 --> 00:16:32,774
The mall was
the center of commerce.
It was the center of retail.

334
00:16:32,861 --> 00:16:34,906
That's where you went.

335
00:16:34,994 --> 00:16:39,128
I love the smell of commerce
in the morning!

336
00:16:39,215 --> 00:16:41,652
You know,
you couldn't buy stuff offline

337
00:16:41,739 --> 00:16:43,654
and have it hand-delivered
to your house.

338
00:16:43,741 --> 00:16:45,961
You know, you literally had
to go and drive to the mall

339
00:16:46,048 --> 00:16:48,790
and pick up, you know,
whatever item you want.

340
00:16:48,877 --> 00:16:52,924
Shopping malls were
the hub for young kids.

341
00:16:53,012 --> 00:16:55,927
-We're going shopping.
-I'd like to welcome you
to our mall.

342
00:16:56,015 --> 00:16:58,017
All the action's on
the other side of the mall.

343
00:16:58,104 --> 00:17:00,280
[grand orchestral music playing]

344
00:17:00,367 --> 00:17:02,586
♪ At the mall, havin' fun ♪

345
00:17:02,673 --> 00:17:05,720
[announcer] It's Mall Madness!
It's the mall with it all!

346
00:17:05,807 --> 00:17:08,984
Yeah, you know, shopping malls
have changed so much,

347
00:17:09,071 --> 00:17:11,726
but I remember when
my kids were little, and...

348
00:17:11,813 --> 00:17:14,424
you needed things to do, right?

349
00:17:14,511 --> 00:17:16,992
Or-- You went to the mall.

350
00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:20,387
In my small town, we really
didn't have much to do
other than go to the mall,

351
00:17:20,474 --> 00:17:23,868
so the mall was, like,
a big treat and a big outing.

352
00:17:23,955 --> 00:17:25,783
And in our mall,

353
00:17:25,870 --> 00:17:28,264
the only "fun store" that
they had was a Build-A-Bear.

354
00:17:28,351 --> 00:17:30,962
Auntie Anne's was here.
There was a fountain over here.

355
00:17:31,050 --> 00:17:33,748
We brought a lot of pennies with
us, we made a lot of wishes,

356
00:17:33,835 --> 00:17:36,751
we got pretzels,
and we went to Build-A-Bear.

357
00:17:37,665 --> 00:17:40,059
[Clark] Here we are
at the St. Louis Galleria,

358
00:17:40,146 --> 00:17:43,932
the home of the first
Build-A-Bear Workshop store
back in 1997.

359
00:17:44,019 --> 00:17:47,327
It's a great mall, and we picked
it because it was a great mall.

360
00:17:47,414 --> 00:17:49,720
But also because this location,

361
00:17:49,807 --> 00:17:51,809
right here in the center court
of St. Louis,

362
00:17:51,896 --> 00:17:53,942
is really hard to come by
at any good mall,

363
00:17:54,029 --> 00:17:56,031
but let alone the best one
in St. Louis.

364
00:17:56,118 --> 00:17:59,295
And the other great thing
about this particular space

365
00:17:59,382 --> 00:18:01,167
is that this is
where Santa Claus comes,

366
00:18:01,254 --> 00:18:04,170
the Easter Bunny,
all kinds of Girl Scout events,

367
00:18:04,257 --> 00:18:06,911
so everybody gathers
at this central location

368
00:18:06,998 --> 00:18:09,000
right in front of
the Build-A-Bear store.

369
00:18:09,088 --> 00:18:10,915
You can't ask for
anything better than that.

370
00:18:11,002 --> 00:18:13,875
[upbeat pop music playing]

371
00:18:16,660 --> 00:18:21,317
[♪]

372
00:18:21,404 --> 00:18:23,841
[narrating bear] Wait, I think
I skipped ahead. Can we--

373
00:18:23,928 --> 00:18:26,583
-Let's go back to the part
about teddy bears.
-[rewinding]

374
00:18:26,670 --> 00:18:30,021
[announcer] Teddy bears have
a unique and special place
in our lives.

375
00:18:30,109 --> 00:18:32,546
They're warm,
friendly, and caring,

376
00:18:32,633 --> 00:18:35,201
and they're there for you,
always.

377
00:18:35,288 --> 00:18:37,638
Hi, my name is Lucy Minassian.

378
00:18:37,725 --> 00:18:39,466
I am a licensed
clinical social worker

379
00:18:39,553 --> 00:18:41,250
with over 20 years
of experience,

380
00:18:41,337 --> 00:18:44,035
uh, working
with children and families.

381
00:18:44,645 --> 00:18:47,561
Teddy bears come up in
my line of work all the time.

382
00:18:47,648 --> 00:18:49,693
Teddy bears help kids feel safe

383
00:18:49,780 --> 00:18:52,305
because it's a sense of security
and a grounding force for them.

384
00:18:52,392 --> 00:18:55,873
If they're angry or upset,
they grab the fuzzy animal
and they hold it.

385
00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:59,094
It reminds them of
safety and security.

386
00:18:59,181 --> 00:19:02,053
Children use stuffed animals
as a form of expression.

387
00:19:02,141 --> 00:19:04,360
They talk to it,
they-- they care for it.

388
00:19:04,447 --> 00:19:07,233
It becomes like
an extension of the child.

389
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:10,105
And what children often
tell me is if they're
going through a tough time,

390
00:19:10,192 --> 00:19:14,022
they grab that one teddy bear,
that one thing that they have
a connection with.

391
00:19:14,109 --> 00:19:17,982
Especially-- And, you know,
families that are
maybe not functioning as well,

392
00:19:18,069 --> 00:19:20,637
the bear becomes
a secret keeper.

393
00:19:20,724 --> 00:19:25,599
It becomes the one thing
that's stable and safe,

394
00:19:25,686 --> 00:19:28,689
despite whatever's happening
in their life.

395
00:19:28,776 --> 00:19:31,648
And that teddy bear
is never gonna disappoint them.

396
00:19:31,735 --> 00:19:37,045
Because how can it?
It's an extension of their
imagination and their love.

397
00:19:37,132 --> 00:19:40,222
I think kids love teddy bears
so much because our imagination

398
00:19:40,309 --> 00:19:42,268
when we're younger
is just so much more vivid.

399
00:19:42,355 --> 00:19:44,792
When you're a kid, you're like,
"Oh, this is like a real bear."

400
00:19:44,879 --> 00:19:48,970
I wonder why the stuffed animal,
the bear...

401
00:19:49,057 --> 00:19:50,711
-[bear growls]
-...why it became a bear.

402
00:19:50,798 --> 00:19:52,147
Why not a puppy?

403
00:19:52,234 --> 00:19:54,236
A bear's, like,
a big, scary thing.

404
00:19:54,323 --> 00:19:56,586
[narrating bear] Bears
can be pretty intimidating.

405
00:19:56,673 --> 00:19:58,632
If I saw a real bear
in the woods, I would run.

406
00:19:58,719 --> 00:20:00,634
[laughs] I would run
as fast as I can.

407
00:20:00,721 --> 00:20:03,593
[narrating bear]
So how did we get from this...

408
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,422
[bear snarling]

409
00:20:06,509 --> 00:20:10,774
-[woman screaming]
-...to this? Aww!

410
00:20:10,861 --> 00:20:13,560
We invited some friends to tell
us the story of the teddy bear.

411
00:20:13,647 --> 00:20:15,562
But they wanted
to build a bear first.

412
00:20:15,649 --> 00:20:17,738
[employee]
What brings us in today, guys?

413
00:20:17,825 --> 00:20:19,435
[Maron Roosevelt]
To build a bear, I guess!

414
00:20:19,522 --> 00:20:21,742
[employee] Well,
you've come to the right place!

415
00:20:21,829 --> 00:20:23,787
[Kermit Roosevelt III]
All right, we can make it here?

416
00:20:23,874 --> 00:20:25,398
-Of course.
-What do we do?

417
00:20:25,485 --> 00:20:27,008
-Is that one we decided on?
-[Maron] Yes.

418
00:20:27,095 --> 00:20:28,575
-[Kermit] I think so.
-[employee] Awesome.

419
00:20:28,662 --> 00:20:32,405
Honestly, I don't know what
I was expecting,

420
00:20:32,492 --> 00:20:38,237
but it was definitely not
how, like-- like,
took a tube and fuzz.

421
00:20:38,324 --> 00:20:42,806
High-power, pressurized fuzz
into the hole in the bear.

422
00:20:42,893 --> 00:20:44,547
[employee] Go for it, my friend.

423
00:20:44,634 --> 00:20:46,680
-[machine whirring]
-Whee! Oh, that is...

424
00:20:46,767 --> 00:20:50,118
[whirring continues]

425
00:20:50,205 --> 00:20:52,294
[employee] Pretty cool, huh?

426
00:20:52,381 --> 00:20:53,730
-Yeah.
-Did not expect that.

427
00:20:53,817 --> 00:20:55,863
Do a ritual?

428
00:20:55,950 --> 00:20:58,126
[employee]
Rub it in your hands,
make it nice and warm.

429
00:20:58,213 --> 00:20:59,780
You're gonna shake
that heart up high

430
00:20:59,867 --> 00:21:01,912
-and say, "Wake up, heart!"
-Wake up, heart!

431
00:21:01,999 --> 00:21:04,088
I did not expect that!

432
00:21:04,175 --> 00:21:07,004
[employee] Yeah, go ahead
and put that right inside.

433
00:21:07,483 --> 00:21:09,093
Wow! [laughs]

434
00:21:09,180 --> 00:21:10,791
[Kermit]

435
00:21:10,878 --> 00:21:14,969
[Maron] Ah! So,
maybe we could call him...

436
00:21:15,056 --> 00:21:17,624
[drumroll]

437
00:21:17,711 --> 00:21:20,453
...I mean,
this is the classic teddy bear,

438
00:21:20,540 --> 00:21:24,674
so maybe kind of, like,
a classic name, like...

439
00:21:24,761 --> 00:21:28,330
[drumroll continues]

440
00:21:28,417 --> 00:21:30,027
-Teddy. [laughs]
-[trumpet solo playing]

441
00:21:30,114 --> 00:21:33,248
That's not very creative,
but whatever.

442
00:21:33,335 --> 00:21:35,119
[narrating bear] Oh,
I think this is the part

443
00:21:35,206 --> 00:21:36,991
where they tell us
the history of teddy bears.

444
00:21:37,078 --> 00:21:39,167
Can't you just
go on Ancestry.com?

445
00:21:39,254 --> 00:21:41,648
-Ha-ha, very funny.
-[Peter chuckles]

446
00:21:41,735 --> 00:21:45,695
Don't you mean "bear-y" funny?
I'll show myself out.

447
00:21:45,782 --> 00:21:47,915
Shh!

448
00:21:48,002 --> 00:21:50,526
Sorry. [scoffs]

449
00:21:50,613 --> 00:21:53,442
Everyone's a critic, right?
[chuckles]

450
00:21:53,529 --> 00:21:54,835
[narrating bear] It stinks!

451
00:21:54,922 --> 00:21:57,490
[militaristic music playing]

452
00:21:57,577 --> 00:22:00,275
[narrating bear]
Who is this guy? I thought
I was telling the story.

453
00:22:00,362 --> 00:22:02,364
-Hi. I'm Kermit Roosevelt III.
-[narrating bear] Who?

454
00:22:02,451 --> 00:22:05,236
And I'm the great-great-grandson
of Teddy Roosevelt.

455
00:22:05,324 --> 00:22:06,977
[narrating bear] Oh. Okay.

456
00:22:07,064 --> 00:22:08,979
So, it's 1902,

457
00:22:09,066 --> 00:22:11,939
and Theodore Roosevelt
is in Mississippi,

458
00:22:12,026 --> 00:22:14,333
and
he's hunting black bear.

459
00:22:14,420 --> 00:22:17,901
So, obviously when the
President of the United States
comes to your state,

460
00:22:17,988 --> 00:22:20,382
you want to
show him a good time.

461
00:22:20,469 --> 00:22:22,428
So they've set up
a hunting party for him.

462
00:22:22,515 --> 00:22:25,866
They've got a guide for him
who's a very famous hunter,

463
00:22:25,953 --> 00:22:28,999
a formerly enslaved person
named Holt Collier,

464
00:22:29,086 --> 00:22:31,350
who's killed
over 1,000 bears, apparently.

465
00:22:31,437 --> 00:22:35,441
And they send this party out
into the swamps of Mississippi.

466
00:22:35,528 --> 00:22:37,443
Holt Collier's there
to make sure that

467
00:22:37,530 --> 00:22:40,489
Theodore Roosevelt gets a bear,
and also to keep him safe,

468
00:22:40,576 --> 00:22:43,666
because you don't want the
President of the United States
to be killed by a bear.

469
00:22:43,753 --> 00:22:45,929
So, there they are.

470
00:22:46,016 --> 00:22:48,018
They're traipsing through
the woods and the swamps,

471
00:22:48,105 --> 00:22:50,020
and it's just not
going very well,

472
00:22:50,107 --> 00:22:52,196
particularly for
Theodore Roosevelt.

473
00:22:52,283 --> 00:22:54,373
TR is just having no luck.

474
00:22:54,460 --> 00:22:57,463
Holt Collier was tracking
a bear with his dogs,

475
00:22:57,550 --> 00:23:02,555
and followed it into this
very dense stand of swamp trees,

476
00:23:02,642 --> 00:23:05,035
and realized this would be
too dangerous for the President.

477
00:23:05,122 --> 00:23:07,124
So he says,
"Mr. President, you wait.

478
00:23:07,211 --> 00:23:09,997
I'm gonna go in with the dogs,
I'm gonna flush the bear out."

479
00:23:10,084 --> 00:23:12,739
So Holt Collier
and the dogs go in.

480
00:23:12,826 --> 00:23:14,305
He finds the bear.

481
00:23:14,393 --> 00:23:16,220
It attacks his dogs.
There's a fight.

482
00:23:16,307 --> 00:23:20,399
He ends up clubbing it
unconscious with his rifle.

483
00:23:20,486 --> 00:23:23,837
And then he basically
drags the bear out
and ties it to a tree,

484
00:23:23,924 --> 00:23:26,622
so he blows the bugle to
summon Theodore Roosevelt,

485
00:23:26,709 --> 00:23:31,061
and the hunting party gathers
around, and everyone is saying,
"Shoot the bear."

486
00:23:31,148 --> 00:23:34,282
And Theodore Roosevelt
had nothing against
shooting animals,

487
00:23:34,369 --> 00:23:38,852
but he did have a sense
of fair play and sportsmanship,

488
00:23:38,939 --> 00:23:43,639
and he wasn't about to shoot
a bear that someone else had
tied to a tree for him.

489
00:23:43,726 --> 00:23:47,251
So, he said,
"No, I'm not gonna do it."

490
00:23:47,338 --> 00:23:50,080
And there were, of course,
reporters on this hunting trip,

491
00:23:50,167 --> 00:23:52,518
and this really captivated them.

492
00:23:52,605 --> 00:23:54,868
So there's
a political cartoonist
named Clifford Berryman

493
00:23:54,955 --> 00:23:57,479
who, in 1902, draws a cartoon.

494
00:23:57,566 --> 00:24:00,134
He titles it "Drawing The Line
In Mississippi."

495
00:24:00,221 --> 00:24:04,399
It's got Theodore Roosevelt
standing there with the bear
in the background

496
00:24:04,486 --> 00:24:08,272
being held by a guide,
and Theodore Roosevelt
is refusing to shoot it.

497
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:12,102
Word gets around, and there's
a convenience store owner in
Brooklyn,

498
00:24:12,189 --> 00:24:14,540
a guy named Morris,

499
00:24:14,627 --> 00:24:17,281
who sells candy
and novelty and toys,

500
00:24:17,368 --> 00:24:20,110
but his wife has also been
making some stuffed bears,

501
00:24:20,197 --> 00:24:22,069
and he's got a couple
lying around the store,

502
00:24:22,156 --> 00:24:24,201
and he thinks "Hey,
I'll put these in my window,

503
00:24:24,288 --> 00:24:27,901
take advantage of the news. I'm
gonna call them Teddy's bears."

504
00:24:27,988 --> 00:24:31,252
And he thought he should
actually get approval from
the President to do this

505
00:24:31,339 --> 00:24:33,123
since he was using TR's name,

506
00:24:33,210 --> 00:24:36,126
although TR, interestingly,
hated being called Teddy.

507
00:24:36,213 --> 00:24:38,999
Morris writes him a letter,
sends him one of the bears,

508
00:24:39,086 --> 00:24:40,696
which TR gives to his son,
Kermit--

509
00:24:40,783 --> 00:24:42,524
that's my
great-great-grandfather--

510
00:24:42,611 --> 00:24:44,395
and says, "Would it be okay

511
00:24:44,483 --> 00:24:46,789
if I marketed these
as Teddy's bears?"

512
00:24:46,876 --> 00:24:50,140
Theodore Roosevelt writes back
and says, "Sure, you can do it.

513
00:24:50,227 --> 00:24:51,794
I don't think
it's gonna go anywhere."

514
00:24:51,881 --> 00:24:53,492
You know, "Good luck with that."

515
00:24:53,579 --> 00:24:56,146
And of course, it takes off.

516
00:24:56,233 --> 00:24:58,540
You know, the rest is history.

517
00:24:58,627 --> 00:25:00,977
There had been
stuffed bears before,

518
00:25:01,064 --> 00:25:04,633
and children would play
with the stuffed bears,
but they were fearsome.

519
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,767
And the teddy bear is
the first sort of childlike,

520
00:25:07,854 --> 00:25:10,334
almost baby-like representation
of a bear.

521
00:25:10,421 --> 00:25:12,511
This is where
Winnie the Pooh comes from.

522
00:25:12,598 --> 00:25:14,817
This is where
Paddington Bear comes from.

523
00:25:14,904 --> 00:25:18,038
There's sort of a bear mania
that sweeps the nation.

524
00:25:18,125 --> 00:25:21,345
And then... you have your bear.

525
00:25:21,432 --> 00:25:22,956
[employee] Enjoy yourselves!

526
00:25:23,043 --> 00:25:24,697
-Thank you.
-[employee] Have some fun!

527
00:25:24,784 --> 00:25:27,177
-[Maron] We will!
-All right, clothing.

528
00:25:27,264 --> 00:25:33,183
I'm named after Teddy Roosevelt?
Oh, please! He's named after me.

529
00:25:33,270 --> 00:25:35,490
-Uh, we have always
loved teddy bears.
-Yeah.

530
00:25:35,577 --> 00:25:38,232
And so they've just always
been a part of our lives.

531
00:25:38,319 --> 00:25:41,191
-I think with you, it was Hook.
-When Hookcame out

532
00:25:41,278 --> 00:25:43,672
and I was ten and I fell
absolutely in love with it,

533
00:25:43,759 --> 00:25:45,282
and he had a teddy bear.

534
00:25:45,369 --> 00:25:48,634
A happy thought...

535
00:25:48,721 --> 00:25:51,811
I got it. I got it! I found it!

536
00:25:51,898 --> 00:25:56,163
And it was Taddy, and I've
looked for that bear so much.

537
00:25:56,250 --> 00:25:57,643
Teddy bears just
have this thing--

538
00:25:57,730 --> 00:25:59,253
Like, Taddy and Hook,

539
00:25:59,340 --> 00:26:00,863
that connected Peter
to his childhood.

540
00:26:00,950 --> 00:26:03,344
That teddy bear reminded him
of who he was,

541
00:26:03,431 --> 00:26:05,651
and it brought him back
to be Peter Pan. It's--

542
00:26:05,738 --> 00:26:08,479
Teddy bears bring you
back to your childhood.

543
00:26:08,567 --> 00:26:12,005
-Yeah.
-And they bring you back to when
you could believe in anything,

544
00:26:12,092 --> 00:26:15,835
-and you could be anything.
-It's like, "Hey, you know,
these are all the good things,"

545
00:26:15,922 --> 00:26:17,880
and this is kind of
symbolic of that.

546
00:26:17,967 --> 00:26:20,753
-Yeah.
-This-- this is the love.
It's wrapped up in a bear.

547
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,320
My philosophy is
that Elvis Presley

548
00:26:23,407 --> 00:26:26,715
actually made the teddy bear
into a love object

549
00:26:26,802 --> 00:26:28,761
when he sang
"I Wanna Be Your Teddy Bear."

550
00:26:28,848 --> 00:26:31,502
So I think that
in all this time,

551
00:26:31,590 --> 00:26:35,376
at least since the '50s when
he sang that wonderful song,

552
00:26:35,463 --> 00:26:38,553
the teddy bear's become
a sign of love and compassion.

553
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:40,468
And I don't think
that's ever gonna go away.

554
00:26:40,555 --> 00:26:42,949
[crowd cheering]

555
00:26:43,036 --> 00:26:46,169
[Elvis bear] Thank you.
Thank you "bear-y" much.

556
00:26:46,256 --> 00:26:51,653
[♪]

557
00:26:51,740 --> 00:26:56,223
Who labels a box "Very Important
Historical Documents"?

558
00:26:56,310 --> 00:26:58,791
I one time went to Disneyland
and I saw how Walt Disney

559
00:26:58,878 --> 00:27:00,836
saved everything,
so I did the same.

560
00:27:00,923 --> 00:27:03,186
Touché, madam.

561
00:27:03,273 --> 00:27:05,188
Oh, this box
has so many memories.

562
00:27:05,275 --> 00:27:08,061
Oh, wow,
here's our Racecar Bear.

563
00:27:08,148 --> 00:27:11,107
This was our Ski Bear,
which was really, really cute.

564
00:27:11,194 --> 00:27:14,154
Here was a fairy princess dress,
of course.

565
00:27:14,241 --> 00:27:15,938
You have to have
a fairy princess dress.

566
00:27:16,025 --> 00:27:18,767
This is one of our first dresses
that we had.

567
00:27:18,854 --> 00:27:23,380
We had a tennis outfit,
which is really cute.
This didn't sell so well.

568
00:27:23,467 --> 00:27:26,253
Most little kids that
made a bear didn't play tennis.

569
00:27:26,340 --> 00:27:29,299
That was not one of
our better sellers-- Wow.

570
00:27:29,865 --> 00:27:33,564
This is a precious picture.

571
00:27:33,652 --> 00:27:35,741
Maybe we should
do something with this.

572
00:27:35,828 --> 00:27:38,961
Like, there's the original
drawing of Build-A-Bear,

573
00:27:39,048 --> 00:27:42,051
and then here is the photograph
of the store after it opened

574
00:27:42,138 --> 00:27:45,141
and how exact the design was,

575
00:27:45,228 --> 00:27:47,361
and how we were able
to really bring it to life.

576
00:27:47,448 --> 00:27:49,929
This is a bunch of
really good stuff in here!

577
00:27:50,016 --> 00:27:51,670
The Bear Promise.

578
00:27:51,757 --> 00:27:53,715
"My bear is special.
I brought it to life.

579
00:27:53,802 --> 00:27:55,978
I chose it, I named it,
now I'm taking it home.

580
00:27:56,065 --> 00:27:58,459
Best friends are forever,
and I promise right now

581
00:27:58,546 --> 00:28:00,896
to make my bear
my number one pal."

582
00:28:00,983 --> 00:28:02,942
We had every child
say that to us,

583
00:28:03,029 --> 00:28:05,031
that they were gonna
take care of their bear.

584
00:28:05,118 --> 00:28:08,208
The people that helped us
with this were
amazingly talented.

585
00:28:08,295 --> 00:28:10,689
They did all kinds of displays
for all kinds of theme parks.

586
00:28:10,776 --> 00:28:14,127
The stuffing machine that
we used, well, they wanted
to invent a new one,

587
00:28:14,214 --> 00:28:16,129
but it was really hard
to do that in nine months.

588
00:28:16,216 --> 00:28:18,435
This is a much more modified
stuffing station.

589
00:28:18,522 --> 00:28:23,484
The original one
that we bought was a machine
that stuffed upholstery.

590
00:28:23,571 --> 00:28:25,704
That's what was available.

591
00:28:25,791 --> 00:28:28,445
So this is a very important part
of the process here,

592
00:28:28,532 --> 00:28:33,233
because this is where you can
stuff it as much as you want,
and the pedal is there for that.

593
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:35,148
The wishes that you
put in your bear,

594
00:28:35,235 --> 00:28:37,628
the engagement
with our store associates.

595
00:28:37,716 --> 00:28:40,849
This is a really personal,
one-on-one experience.

596
00:28:40,936 --> 00:28:42,764
The heart's the most important.

597
00:28:42,851 --> 00:28:44,331
Yeah, the heart!

598
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,944
My very close friend
Sarah Russell was an artist,

599
00:28:49,031 --> 00:28:51,251
and I brought over
my tote of bears.

600
00:28:51,338 --> 00:28:53,340
And she was taking 'em out
and she was hugging them,

601
00:28:53,427 --> 00:28:56,256
and she said, "Maxine,
these bears need a heart."

602
00:28:56,343 --> 00:28:58,562
And I said, "What do you mean?"
And she took out a pencil

603
00:28:58,649 --> 00:29:00,347
and she sketched
this little heart.

604
00:29:00,434 --> 00:29:02,653
And I said,
"That is a fantastic idea,"

605
00:29:02,741 --> 00:29:04,612
and I sent it over
to our factory.

606
00:29:04,699 --> 00:29:07,136
They made thousands of hearts
and shipped them to us,

607
00:29:07,223 --> 00:29:09,225
and by the time we opened
our store, we had the hearts,

608
00:29:09,312 --> 00:29:11,532
and we had them
in a heart-shaped box.

609
00:29:11,619 --> 00:29:14,230
But it was one of
our associates, Jeff Marx,

610
00:29:14,317 --> 00:29:16,624
who was a teacher and worked
part-time for Build-A-Bear,

611
00:29:16,711 --> 00:29:19,409
that really put the heart
in Build-A-Bear Workshop.

612
00:29:19,496 --> 00:29:21,847
My name's Jeff Marx.

613
00:29:21,934 --> 00:29:25,851
Um, I started with
Build-A-Bear in 1997.

614
00:29:25,938 --> 00:29:28,331
Guests would go over
to the heart bucket,

615
00:29:28,418 --> 00:29:30,420
pull a heart
out of the heart bin,

616
00:29:30,507 --> 00:29:32,640
and then they would
put it inside the bear.

617
00:29:32,727 --> 00:29:36,165
And I was on
the stuffing machine one day,
and I remember thinking,

618
00:29:36,252 --> 00:29:38,733
"This seems to be
such a critical moment."

619
00:29:38,820 --> 00:29:42,084
I remember thinking, "There's
more we could do with this."

620
00:29:42,171 --> 00:29:44,086
A couple of days later,

621
00:29:44,173 --> 00:29:46,523
a little bitty boy
came in the workshop.

622
00:29:46,610 --> 00:29:48,699
And he was about four years old,
I would guess.

623
00:29:48,787 --> 00:29:52,529
And he was a little bit
intimidated by
this flat teddy bear.

624
00:29:52,616 --> 00:29:56,229
He wouldn't touch the bear.
He didn't wanna hand it to me.
Mom held it.

625
00:29:56,316 --> 00:29:59,841
And I thought,
"What can I do to get him
to connect with this bear more?"

626
00:29:59,928 --> 00:30:03,018
And that's when
the idea came in my mind of,

627
00:30:03,105 --> 00:30:07,806
"Maybe if I have him
warm up the heart that's gonna
go in there, and kiss it,

628
00:30:07,893 --> 00:30:09,503
maybe he'll be comfortable
with that,

629
00:30:09,590 --> 00:30:11,810
and then that'll connect him
to the teddy bear."

630
00:30:11,897 --> 00:30:14,638
And then I said, "Let's put your
hands together around the heart

631
00:30:14,725 --> 00:30:17,903
and make a wish
for your teddy bear,"
and he made a wish on the heart.

632
00:30:17,990 --> 00:30:21,297
And then as soon as I asked him
to put it inside the teddy bear,

633
00:30:21,384 --> 00:30:24,648
I could see that his face lit up
and he connected with this bear.

634
00:30:24,735 --> 00:30:28,435
And that's when I knew this is
something I needed to do again.

635
00:30:28,522 --> 00:30:30,698
So I started doing it
with the very next customer,

636
00:30:30,785 --> 00:30:33,266
and that just became something
I did with every customer.

637
00:30:33,353 --> 00:30:37,009
He just went with it.
To kiss the heart,
to put it on your elbow,

638
00:30:37,096 --> 00:30:39,707
to put it on your knee,
to put it on your brain
for extra smarts.

639
00:30:39,794 --> 00:30:43,363
Take your heart
and rub it on your head so
your bear is smart like you!

640
00:30:43,450 --> 00:30:46,932
Or on your muscles,
so your bear is strong like
you.

641
00:30:47,019 --> 00:30:50,892
To me, the Heart Ceremony
is just something that is

642
00:30:50,979 --> 00:30:54,765
a piece of the puzzle of how
we connect with each other,

643
00:30:54,853 --> 00:30:57,551
how we connect
with the stuffed animals
and our own creativity.

644
00:30:57,638 --> 00:31:02,034
So for me,
it isn't the heart ceremony
that makes me think "Wow."

645
00:31:02,121 --> 00:31:05,341
It's what Build-A-Bear Workshop
represents,

646
00:31:05,428 --> 00:31:08,431
and the creativity
that happens at that moment

647
00:31:08,518 --> 00:31:10,520
when a guest
is stuffing their bear.

648
00:31:10,607 --> 00:31:14,568
That piece of creativity is what
excites me still to this day

649
00:31:14,655 --> 00:31:16,918
about what
Build-A-Bear Workshop does.

650
00:31:17,005 --> 00:31:20,313
Most people don't realize
that you don't have to
have every idea.

651
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,793
You know, if you create
a canvas on a business

652
00:31:22,881 --> 00:31:24,447
that people want to
participate in,

653
00:31:24,534 --> 00:31:26,841
they'll give you it back
100 times over.

654
00:31:26,928 --> 00:31:29,713
And you let them share their
experiences and their ideas

655
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,064
and be on committees to help you
make the business better,

656
00:31:32,151 --> 00:31:34,196
you're gonna find that
that works,

657
00:31:34,283 --> 00:31:36,546
and I can't think of a business
that that wouldn't work in.

658
00:31:36,633 --> 00:31:38,897
You don't wanna
overwhelm the guest,

659
00:31:38,984 --> 00:31:40,899
and you don't want them
to feel super awkward.

660
00:31:40,986 --> 00:31:42,509
You want them to remember it,

661
00:31:42,596 --> 00:31:44,685
but, um, keep it simple

662
00:31:44,772 --> 00:31:46,861
and just right for them.

663
00:31:46,948 --> 00:31:50,038
There's so many different ways
to complete a heart ceremony.

664
00:31:50,125 --> 00:31:52,171
When you're stuffing
your next furry friend,

665
00:31:52,258 --> 00:31:54,129
spend an extra second or two
thinking about how

666
00:31:54,216 --> 00:31:56,349
this one will be
just a bit more special,

667
00:31:56,436 --> 00:31:58,699
and you'll be "paw-fect"
every time.

668
00:31:58,786 --> 00:32:02,268
There's a place
called Build-A-Bear.

669
00:32:02,790 --> 00:32:04,531
Time out. What's it called?

670
00:32:04,618 --> 00:32:05,575
[crew member]

671
00:32:05,662 --> 00:32:07,186
Ah, Build-A-Bear.

672
00:32:07,273 --> 00:32:13,540
Um, I went to learn about bears
at Build-A-Bear.

673
00:32:13,627 --> 00:32:15,020
It was amazing.

674
00:32:15,107 --> 00:32:18,588
[sighs contently] Have you been?

675
00:32:18,675 --> 00:32:22,984
I asked if I could
buy... this machine

676
00:32:23,071 --> 00:32:27,597
so I can make bears...
from my house.

677
00:32:27,684 --> 00:32:29,425
She said no.

678
00:32:30,165 --> 00:32:32,385
You know,
one thing that we did, um...

679
00:32:32,472 --> 00:32:34,648
Uh, this might have been crazy.

680
00:32:34,735 --> 00:32:36,432
We had our own music.

681
00:32:36,519 --> 00:32:39,827
And I had a friend
who was a music writer,

682
00:32:39,914 --> 00:32:41,524
and he wrote songs.

683
00:32:41,611 --> 00:32:45,528
["Build-A-Bear Theme" playing]

684
00:32:47,095 --> 00:32:49,097
♪ Build-A-Bear... ♪

685
00:32:49,184 --> 00:32:51,360
You know, we could order music
and have music play--

686
00:32:51,447 --> 00:32:53,841
Muzak played in our store, but
it wouldn't have been kid music.

687
00:32:53,928 --> 00:32:55,886
There wasn't anything
that was really good.

688
00:32:55,974 --> 00:32:58,846
So he wrote teddy bear songs
for us, and they were adorable.

689
00:32:58,933 --> 00:33:00,761
["Teddy Bear Heart" playing]

690
00:33:00,848 --> 00:33:03,894
♪ He's got a teddy bear ♪

691
00:33:03,982 --> 00:33:09,552
♪ He's got a teddy bear heart ♪

692
00:33:09,639 --> 00:33:11,337
["Cheerleader Bear" playing]

693
00:33:11,424 --> 00:33:14,209
♪ She's a cheerleader bear
Yeah ♪

694
00:33:14,296 --> 00:33:17,691
♪ She's a cheerleader bear ♪

695
00:33:17,778 --> 00:33:19,127
["Teddy Bear Parade" playing]

696
00:33:19,214 --> 00:33:20,868
♪ What a wonderful day ♪

697
00:33:20,955 --> 00:33:23,871
♪ For the teddy bear parade
Oh ♪

698
00:33:23,958 --> 00:33:26,874
[♪]

699
00:33:26,961 --> 00:33:30,008
So, how many stores open up
and have their own album?

700
00:33:30,095 --> 00:33:32,749
And we sold the albums as well.
It's really, really cute.

701
00:33:32,836 --> 00:33:35,535
But it gave it
that special flair that people
weren't someplace else.

702
00:33:35,622 --> 00:33:38,277
They were immersed in
the Build-A-Bear experience.

703
00:33:38,364 --> 00:33:41,845
[narrating bear] Music has
always been a big part
of the Build-A-Bear story.

704
00:33:41,932 --> 00:33:45,414
Artists like the Jonas
Brothers,
Miley Cyrus,

705
00:33:45,501 --> 00:33:47,112
and even Justin Bieber

706
00:33:47,199 --> 00:33:49,940
all had strong connections
to Build-A-Bear

707
00:33:50,028 --> 00:33:52,465
during their
illustrious careers.

708
00:33:52,552 --> 00:33:54,554
Legally, we aren't allowed
to say that Build-A-Bear

709
00:33:54,641 --> 00:33:56,599
is the reason they all
became huge pop stars.

710
00:33:56,686 --> 00:34:01,039
So we won't say that!

711
00:34:01,126 --> 00:34:02,953
Now, early in my days
at the May Company,

712
00:34:03,041 --> 00:34:05,304
Stanley Goodman, who was
the chairman here in St. Louis,

713
00:34:05,391 --> 00:34:07,871
came for a visit, and we were
all sitting there with--

714
00:34:07,958 --> 00:34:11,179
You know, just bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed, waiting to
hear his words of wisdom,

715
00:34:11,266 --> 00:34:13,355
and I always sat in the
front row because I was small.

716
00:34:13,442 --> 00:34:15,923
It was like he was looking at me
when he said this.

717
00:34:16,010 --> 00:34:19,709
He said,
"Retailing is entertainment,
and the store's a stage.

718
00:34:19,796 --> 00:34:23,539
And when the customer has fun,
they spend more money."

719
00:34:23,626 --> 00:34:26,151
Our first guest conspired
with a ten-year-old

720
00:34:26,238 --> 00:34:29,850
to come up with
an "un-bear-ably" cute idea!

721
00:34:29,937 --> 00:34:33,245
That's a story of no,
not necessarily a story of yes.

722
00:34:33,332 --> 00:34:35,334
-[phone ringing]
-I got a call, and it said,

723
00:34:35,421 --> 00:34:37,727
"Oprah Winfrey wants you
to be on the show on Monday,"

724
00:34:37,814 --> 00:34:41,470
and I said, "Well,
I'm sorry, I can't be there
because I'm in Japan."

725
00:34:41,557 --> 00:34:43,951
And she said, "Are you sure?"
I said, "Yes, I'm sure,

726
00:34:44,038 --> 00:34:45,909
I couldn't get back
if I wanted to."

727
00:34:45,996 --> 00:34:47,998
And then the next call
was from the producer...

728
00:34:48,086 --> 00:34:51,219
-[phone ringing]
-...who said we could
do it on Tuesday.

729
00:34:51,306 --> 00:34:53,482
And I said, "I'm sorry,
I can't be there on Tuesday."

730
00:34:53,569 --> 00:34:56,485
The next call, about an hour
later, was from Oprah Winfrey.

731
00:34:56,572 --> 00:34:58,748
Pick up the phone, she says,
"This is Oprah Winfrey."

732
00:34:58,835 --> 00:35:00,837
Of course, she didn't have to
give me her last name,

733
00:35:00,924 --> 00:35:03,449
but she said, "I understand that
you're traveling on business,"

734
00:35:03,536 --> 00:35:06,016
and that, "we would really
like to have you on our show,"

735
00:35:06,104 --> 00:35:08,149
and, "When could you be here?"

736
00:35:08,236 --> 00:35:10,369
And I said,
"I could be there Friday."

737
00:35:10,456 --> 00:35:12,588
And in that time period,
because
I didn't say yes right away,

738
00:35:12,675 --> 00:35:14,242
they had the time to set up

739
00:35:14,329 --> 00:35:17,593
an entire Build-A-Bear store
inside the studio.

740
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:19,682
Oprah wanted to make
her own bear on the show.

741
00:35:19,769 --> 00:35:21,467
We have a couple of choices
here for you today.

742
00:35:21,554 --> 00:35:23,338
-[Oprah] Do I get to stuff?
-Yes, you do.

743
00:35:23,425 --> 00:35:25,297
-It's totally up to you.
-[applause]

744
00:35:25,384 --> 00:35:27,255
Okay, so I can have as much
or as little, right?

745
00:35:27,342 --> 00:35:28,430
-Yeah.
-Okay.

746
00:35:28,517 --> 00:35:30,258
And it was like this, you know,

747
00:35:30,345 --> 00:35:31,520
magic that happened.

748
00:35:31,607 --> 00:35:37,091
[audience cheering]

749
00:35:37,570 --> 00:35:40,442
Oh, this is too cute. Too cute.

750
00:35:40,529 --> 00:35:44,185
After the show, she let me use
her office 'cause I had to do
a conference call afterwards.

751
00:35:44,272 --> 00:35:46,622
And I'm sitting there in her
office, and I'm looking around,

752
00:35:46,709 --> 00:35:49,234
and I wanted to
touch everything,
just to say I touched it.

753
00:35:49,321 --> 00:35:51,192
[Oprah] We're all adults
in this audience,

754
00:35:51,279 --> 00:35:53,325
and we had so much fun
when the bears came out.

755
00:35:53,412 --> 00:35:55,370
Everybody,
wave your bears in the air!

756
00:35:55,457 --> 00:35:59,200
[cheering]

757
00:35:59,287 --> 00:36:01,507
The effect of Oprah
was immediate.

758
00:36:01,594 --> 00:36:05,293
Like, almost as the show aired,
we saw our sales going up.

759
00:36:05,380 --> 00:36:07,339
It was off to the races.

760
00:36:07,426 --> 00:36:10,211
And we also, uh,
were launching, uh,

761
00:36:10,298 --> 00:36:12,866
national TV
advertising campaigns.

762
00:36:12,953 --> 00:36:16,086
[announcer]
What does your Build-A-Bear
Workshop bear say about you?

763
00:36:16,174 --> 00:36:18,872
Put that together,
and you have the perfect storm

764
00:36:18,959 --> 00:36:21,657
that really just
was a force that,

765
00:36:21,744 --> 00:36:25,226
you know, turned us on to--
In a whole new way,

766
00:36:25,313 --> 00:36:27,620
and we actually went public
as a company.

767
00:36:27,707 --> 00:36:29,883
Um, had our IPO that year.

768
00:36:29,970 --> 00:36:36,281
And so it was a pretty,
um, momentous,
uh, activity-driven era.

769
00:36:36,368 --> 00:36:38,544
[whispering]
Hey, I'm out of popcorn.
You want anything?

770
00:36:38,631 --> 00:36:40,459
No, thanks, I'm stuffed.

771
00:36:40,546 --> 00:36:44,419
[chuckles]
I liked it both times.

772
00:36:44,506 --> 00:36:48,249
Hello, my good man.
Running low on pops.

773
00:36:48,336 --> 00:36:49,511
Got it.

774
00:36:49,598 --> 00:36:51,296
[Muzak playing faintly]

775
00:36:51,383 --> 00:36:53,907
-Anything else?
-[Holmes] Oh, yeah, I--

776
00:36:53,994 --> 00:36:55,735
-Soda?
-No. No, thanks.

777
00:36:55,822 --> 00:36:57,737
-Sandwich?
-You make sandwiches?

778
00:36:57,824 --> 00:36:59,434
-No.
-[beep]

779
00:36:59,521 --> 00:37:03,960
Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

780
00:37:04,047 --> 00:37:07,007
-[beep]
-Have you noticed
anything weird around here?

781
00:37:08,748 --> 00:37:10,358
What do you mean by weird?

782
00:37:11,011 --> 00:37:12,708
Well, there's that.

783
00:37:12,795 --> 00:37:14,449
-[beep]
-But I was thinking of,

784
00:37:14,536 --> 00:37:16,234
like, talking teddy bears?

785
00:37:16,321 --> 00:37:18,410
-Talking teddy bears?
-Yeah.

786
00:37:18,497 --> 00:37:19,759
-Well--
-[beep]

787
00:37:19,846 --> 00:37:21,587
You're putting me on, right?

788
00:37:21,674 --> 00:37:23,632
No, I-- I'm not saying
I saw a talking teddy bear.

789
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,547
I'm watching a movie
about teddy bears.

790
00:37:25,634 --> 00:37:28,028
I probably just saw one
reflected in the eyeglasses--

791
00:37:28,115 --> 00:37:30,248
A movie about talking
teddy bears? That's a good one.

792
00:37:30,335 --> 00:37:32,250
Was that-- This was...

793
00:37:32,337 --> 00:37:34,991
-[beep]
-[chuckles] Well,
I regret every moment of this.

794
00:37:35,078 --> 00:37:36,689
-Um, thank you.
-Would you--

795
00:37:36,776 --> 00:37:38,473
Good God!

796
00:37:39,561 --> 00:37:42,869
[chuckles nervously]

797
00:37:42,956 --> 00:37:48,178
[♪]

798
00:37:49,005 --> 00:37:50,355
What'd I miss?

799
00:37:50,442 --> 00:37:52,487
-A lot.
-Like what?

800
00:37:52,574 --> 00:37:54,794
Mostly bear stuff.

801
00:37:54,881 --> 00:37:59,494
Did you say "bear stuff,"
or "bears stuffed"?

802
00:37:59,581 --> 00:38:01,583
Yeah, I'll just watch.

803
00:38:02,105 --> 00:38:05,065
I'm Heather Dubrow.
I'm a mom of four kids,

804
00:38:05,152 --> 00:38:09,025
and we have been
Build-A-Bear fans forever.

805
00:38:09,112 --> 00:38:10,940
They added things
as the years went on.

806
00:38:11,027 --> 00:38:13,116
Build-A-Bear always, of course,
has the little heart,

807
00:38:13,203 --> 00:38:14,944
but then they added the voice.

808
00:38:15,031 --> 00:38:17,991
And that just took it
to another level.

809
00:38:18,078 --> 00:38:22,300
'Cause now, you know,
you have a baby or a young child
that's not sleeping well,

810
00:38:22,387 --> 00:38:24,998
and all the moms got together,
like, "What are we gonna do?"

811
00:38:25,085 --> 00:38:27,087
"Go to Build-A-Bear.
Make a bear.

812
00:38:27,174 --> 00:38:29,307
Put your voice in there,
and the middle of the night,

813
00:38:29,394 --> 00:38:31,744
then they can hug it
and hear your voice."

814
00:38:31,831 --> 00:38:34,224
I recorded my voice
in the very first bear

815
00:38:34,312 --> 00:38:36,096
that my daughter had
because I was on the road.

816
00:38:36,183 --> 00:38:37,750
98 Degrees was
on the road a lot,

817
00:38:37,837 --> 00:38:39,882
and so I got
an opportunity to say

818
00:38:39,969 --> 00:38:41,971
"Hey, you know, Alyssa,
I love you very much,"

819
00:38:42,058 --> 00:38:44,713
and at any time, she could hear
my voice when I was on the road.

820
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:47,237
What I wanted my voice
to say in the animal is,

821
00:38:47,325 --> 00:38:50,197
[shouting]
"Go to bed! Mom is tired!"

822
00:38:50,284 --> 00:38:52,242
[lullaby playing]

823
00:38:52,330 --> 00:38:53,809
But probably,
it was something like,

824
00:38:53,896 --> 00:38:57,073
[softly] "I love you.
Go to sleep.

825
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:01,730
I'll see you in the morning.
You're safe. Everything's okay."

826
00:39:01,817 --> 00:39:03,689
There's all kinds of stories.

827
00:39:03,776 --> 00:39:06,387
Guys would use it to propose.

828
00:39:06,474 --> 00:39:09,390
Um, my son used it to ask
his girlfriend to the prom.

829
00:39:09,477 --> 00:39:11,653
People recorded their voices
for it to say "I love you.

830
00:39:11,740 --> 00:39:14,177
Will you go to the prom with me?
Will you marry me?"

831
00:39:14,264 --> 00:39:18,834
But also, Build-A-Bear has been
used for commemorating
sad things as well.

832
00:39:18,921 --> 00:39:22,272
Um, we all live in a world
of unfortunate circumstances,

833
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,667
and if you've had a death
in the family

834
00:39:25,754 --> 00:39:28,540
but were fortunate enough
to have a voice recording

835
00:39:28,627 --> 00:39:31,630
and have that voice
in the bear...

836
00:39:31,717 --> 00:39:34,720
[woman's voice 1] Wanted to call
and wish you a happy birthday,

837
00:39:34,807 --> 00:39:37,766
my beautiful
little five-pounder...

838
00:39:37,853 --> 00:39:43,293
-Seriously, Jillian?
-...love you very much.

839
00:39:43,381 --> 00:39:45,774
[woman filming]
So Mom didn't have a voicemail.

840
00:39:45,861 --> 00:39:48,255
Like, it said her number.
It didn't have her voice.

841
00:39:48,342 --> 00:39:51,780
-Thought it did.
-[woman] No. So I went
through my voicemails

842
00:39:51,867 --> 00:39:56,350
and I found a couple voicemails,
and I just put it together.

843
00:39:56,437 --> 00:39:59,614
And that's the dress
she wore for Dave's wedding.

844
00:39:59,701 --> 00:40:01,442
And push its hand.

845
00:40:02,095 --> 00:40:04,837
[woman's voice 2]
Hey, baby. Love you.

846
00:40:04,924 --> 00:40:08,841
[weeping]

847
00:40:13,715 --> 00:40:15,674
[man] Thank you.

848
00:40:16,631 --> 00:40:18,981
[narrating bear] Long before
there were sounds in bears,

849
00:40:19,068 --> 00:40:22,594
even before there was
a single store
in a single mall,

850
00:40:22,681 --> 00:40:26,119
Maxine had a plan
for Build-A-Bear.

851
00:40:26,206 --> 00:40:28,251
[Krueger] She always saw it
as something bigger than,

852
00:40:28,338 --> 00:40:29,775
you know, just the single store.

853
00:40:29,862 --> 00:40:32,647
So in 1998,
they had four stores.

854
00:40:32,734 --> 00:40:35,824
1999,
finished the year with about
15,

855
00:40:35,911 --> 00:40:40,960
and by 2001,
we surpassed 50 stores,

856
00:40:41,047 --> 00:40:43,832
and then just
a couple of years later,

857
00:40:43,919 --> 00:40:46,574
our 100th store actually opened
in Roosevelt Field

858
00:40:46,661 --> 00:40:49,838
on the 100th anniversary
of the teddy bear.

859
00:40:49,925 --> 00:40:52,450
And we had kinda
internally set our eye

860
00:40:52,537 --> 00:40:55,278
to eventually being in New York,
and had our float

861
00:40:55,365 --> 00:40:57,542
in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade that year.

862
00:40:57,629 --> 00:41:01,371
[announcer] 76th annual
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

863
00:41:01,459 --> 00:41:04,157
[host] Can you bear it?
The Teddy Bear Centennial

864
00:41:04,244 --> 00:41:07,377
is celebrated with the 100th
"anni-bear-sary" party.

865
00:41:07,465 --> 00:41:09,423
To be a part of that
was a big deal.

866
00:41:09,510 --> 00:41:12,774
We were the first retailer that
was ever invited to participate.

867
00:41:12,861 --> 00:41:15,385
And so it actually
was important,

868
00:41:15,473 --> 00:41:17,736
because it brought it
to life, right?

869
00:41:17,823 --> 00:41:19,999
It gave it a personality.

870
00:41:20,086 --> 00:41:24,830
At the time, our brand awareness
was still... growing.

871
00:41:24,917 --> 00:41:28,181
And so I think a lot of people
at that time were like,
"Go to what?"

872
00:41:28,268 --> 00:41:30,923
A couple of years later,
we opened our store

873
00:41:31,010 --> 00:41:34,753
in Fifth Avenue,
in New York City,
and we went over 200 stores.

874
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,320
Our 200th store
was at the Mall of America.

875
00:41:37,407 --> 00:41:39,061
-[Holmes laughs]
-So.

876
00:41:39,148 --> 00:41:41,150
Kept expanding probably until

877
00:41:41,237 --> 00:41:42,587
about the time that
the recession hit.

878
00:41:42,674 --> 00:41:44,850
[thud]

879
00:41:44,937 --> 00:41:47,766
The signs were everywhere,
but now it's official.

880
00:41:47,853 --> 00:41:50,029
We are in a recession.

881
00:41:50,116 --> 00:41:52,814
But when the subprime
bubble popped and
the stock market collapsed

882
00:41:52,901 --> 00:41:55,338
and home prices collapsed, well,
in that kind of world,

883
00:41:55,425 --> 00:41:57,819
you're not spending a lot of
money on Build-A-Bear.

884
00:41:57,906 --> 00:42:01,083
In fact, discretionary retail
in general got hammered.

885
00:42:01,170 --> 00:42:05,218
[narrating bear]
And that was the end
of the Build-A-Bear story.

886
00:42:05,305 --> 00:42:07,873
That can't be true.
I was just at one last week.

887
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,049
Okay, you got me.

888
00:42:10,136 --> 00:42:14,096
Let's see, where was I?
The-- Oh, yes.

889
00:42:14,183 --> 00:42:17,535
Things were not looking good
for
the once-booming toy company.

890
00:42:17,622 --> 00:42:22,322
After years of growth,
they were facing the first
big decline in revenue.

891
00:42:22,409 --> 00:42:24,803
And then, in 2013,

892
00:42:24,890 --> 00:42:28,284
Maxine stepped down
as Chief Executive Bear,

893
00:42:28,371 --> 00:42:30,591
and someone new took over.

894
00:42:30,678 --> 00:42:32,027
Hey.

895
00:42:33,115 --> 00:42:37,163
This little fella
is called a Delivery Bear,

896
00:42:37,250 --> 00:42:39,121
and at Build-A-Bear,

897
00:42:39,208 --> 00:42:41,863
um, when you get a job offer,

898
00:42:41,950 --> 00:42:44,953
a lot of times,
you receive the job offer

899
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,216
through this little guy.

900
00:42:47,303 --> 00:42:50,959
And it says,
"A 'beary' special delivery."

901
00:42:51,046 --> 00:42:55,442
Um, and I did receive
this delivery bear

902
00:42:55,529 --> 00:42:59,446
when I got my offer to be
the Chief Executive Officer at
Build-A-Bear,

903
00:42:59,533 --> 00:43:02,362
and of course I had to keep it.

904
00:43:03,363 --> 00:43:05,757
One of the things
I love about Build-A-Bear

905
00:43:05,844 --> 00:43:09,674
is that my kids had
already fallen in love
with Build-A-Bear.

906
00:43:09,761 --> 00:43:13,460
This is my son's doggie

907
00:43:13,547 --> 00:43:15,636
that he loved so, so, so, much,

908
00:43:15,723 --> 00:43:17,856
and now he's 20 years old, so.

909
00:43:17,943 --> 00:43:22,295
I'm pretty sure his original
name was Excited Ears,

910
00:43:22,382 --> 00:43:25,037
for obvious reasons,

911
00:43:25,124 --> 00:43:27,256
but he became Ruffy over time.

912
00:43:27,343 --> 00:43:30,477
And then this is Pink Stars,

913
00:43:30,564 --> 00:43:32,697
and Pink Stars is super special.

914
00:43:32,784 --> 00:43:37,745
This is my little girl,
who's now 17,
this was her unicorn.

915
00:43:37,832 --> 00:43:41,619
She used to fall asleep
chewing on this unicorn horn.

916
00:43:41,706 --> 00:43:44,360
And that would just
comfort her right to sleep,

917
00:43:44,447 --> 00:43:47,189
and... I think they all
sort of tell a story

918
00:43:47,276 --> 00:43:51,803
about how special these stuffed
animals are for little kids.

919
00:43:51,890 --> 00:43:54,022
Obviously my kids
were pretty excited

920
00:43:54,109 --> 00:43:55,937
when I started
working at Build-A-Bear,

921
00:43:56,024 --> 00:43:58,200
but you also
have to understand that

922
00:43:58,287 --> 00:44:00,855
I'd been working
in the toy industry
for a long time,

923
00:44:00,942 --> 00:44:03,336
so they're pretty
used to this stuff.

924
00:44:05,207 --> 00:44:06,731
[chuckles]

925
00:44:08,646 --> 00:44:11,170
[laughing]

926
00:44:14,869 --> 00:44:16,915
[laughs]

927
00:44:17,002 --> 00:44:18,873
[narrating bear]
Ha! That's so cute.

928
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,267
So, Sharon came in,
and, you know,

929
00:44:21,354 --> 00:44:26,664
um, energetic, and she was very
kind of business-oriented.

930
00:44:26,751 --> 00:44:28,491
A lot of when
Build-A-Bear started,

931
00:44:28,578 --> 00:44:31,843
it was a lot of fun stuff.
The titles were, like, you know,

932
00:44:31,930 --> 00:44:33,932
all had "bear" in it
and things like that.

933
00:44:34,019 --> 00:44:36,412
Yep, did you know that I almost

934
00:44:36,499 --> 00:44:39,154
did not get the offer,
the final offer,

935
00:44:39,241 --> 00:44:41,766
because I didn't wanna be
"Chief Executive Bear"?

936
00:44:41,853 --> 00:44:44,290
-I did know that.
-[laughing]

937
00:44:44,377 --> 00:44:47,119
-I did know that.
-And then I'm like,

938
00:44:47,206 --> 00:44:51,514
"Why shouldn't Maxine always
be the Chief Executive Bear?

939
00:44:51,601 --> 00:44:55,344
I think we should
retire the title."

940
00:44:55,431 --> 00:44:58,043
And that's why I'm here.

941
00:44:58,130 --> 00:45:01,133
-[laughs]
-I appreciate that. I get it.

942
00:45:01,220 --> 00:45:03,962
I got it from then--
that moment on here. Yeah.

943
00:45:04,049 --> 00:45:05,659
[narrating bear] Aww.

944
00:45:05,746 --> 00:45:07,748
Some of the things
I've made for Cole Bear--

945
00:45:07,835 --> 00:45:11,273
Again, I am not good at
sweaters, so please forgive me.

946
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,624
But he is--
We have decided Cole Bear
is a Hufflepuff, like us.

947
00:45:14,712 --> 00:45:16,714
-[Maribeth] Obviously.
-Yes. So he's a Hufflepuff.

948
00:45:16,801 --> 00:45:18,846
So I had to make him
a Hufflepuff sweater.

949
00:45:18,933 --> 00:45:21,501
This is before Build-A-Bear came
out with anything Harry Potter.

950
00:45:21,588 --> 00:45:24,025
-We were waiting for years.
-We were waiting
so long for that.

951
00:45:24,112 --> 00:45:28,160
Uh, one of the hats I made,
it has not--

952
00:45:28,247 --> 00:45:31,206
-That's-- that's
seen some better--
-Not stood the test of time.

953
00:45:31,293 --> 00:45:32,642
Some Minion hats.

954
00:45:32,730 --> 00:45:34,862
Because I made him
and Maribeth--

955
00:45:34,949 --> 00:45:37,430
-Oh, yeah,
we were matching Minions.
-Matching Minions.

956
00:45:37,517 --> 00:45:40,259
-[Minion voice] Banana.
-And if you're a big nerd,
also, Doctor Who.

957
00:45:40,346 --> 00:45:42,174
Yep. So there's the TARDIS.

958
00:45:42,261 --> 00:45:44,089
-This is what Beth's--
-Yeah, this is what I do.

959
00:45:44,176 --> 00:45:45,830
-This is what we do!
-Mm-hmm.

960
00:45:45,917 --> 00:45:48,006
[♪]

961
00:45:48,093 --> 00:45:50,008
Did you see that guy?

962
00:45:50,095 --> 00:45:52,750
"Did you see
the magic teddy bears?"

963
00:45:53,272 --> 00:45:57,363
I mean, that guy is weird.
You want some?

964
00:45:58,494 --> 00:46:03,325
Okay, in my opinion, I think
a tablet or an iPad, it's--

965
00:46:03,412 --> 00:46:05,763
you have no connection to it,
other than addiction.

966
00:46:05,850 --> 00:46:08,026
That's the only thing.

967
00:46:08,113 --> 00:46:09,375
What?

968
00:46:09,462 --> 00:46:11,116
Whereas with a teddy bear,

969
00:46:11,203 --> 00:46:14,206
you're able to create
a relationship with it.

970
00:46:14,293 --> 00:46:17,252
It's-- it's
a different connection.

971
00:46:17,339 --> 00:46:19,864
When you think
about what a teddy bear
means to a child,

972
00:46:19,951 --> 00:46:22,997
I think what's so beautiful
is that it means something
different to every child.

973
00:46:23,084 --> 00:46:26,261
Teddy bears, when you're
a little kid, are just, like,
your little comfort blanket.

974
00:46:26,348 --> 00:46:28,698
You sleep with them,
you hang out.

975
00:46:28,786 --> 00:46:30,396
I used to have, like, a bunch

976
00:46:30,483 --> 00:46:32,572
on this side,
and a bunch on that side.

977
00:46:32,659 --> 00:46:35,183
I mean, teddy bears,
they make everyone happy.

978
00:46:35,270 --> 00:46:37,403
This should be,
like, a mandatory thing.

979
00:46:37,490 --> 00:46:40,058
Everybody's just
keep one in your car.

980
00:46:40,145 --> 00:46:43,801
When you get stressed out,
hold the bear.

981
00:46:43,888 --> 00:46:47,543
But you can take them anywhere.
Like, you can stuff it in your
bag while you're going shopping.

982
00:46:47,630 --> 00:46:49,502
And just, like, take 'em out.

983
00:46:49,589 --> 00:46:52,374
And, like,
"Hey. I have a bear, you don't."

984
00:46:52,461 --> 00:46:53,985
[both grunting]

985
00:46:54,072 --> 00:46:56,422
-Oh!
-[both chuckle]

986
00:46:56,509 --> 00:46:58,076
I like teddy bears

987
00:46:58,163 --> 00:47:01,906
because they keep me company
when I'm in bed.

988
00:47:01,993 --> 00:47:04,952
I mean, I'm kinda scared

989
00:47:05,039 --> 00:47:07,302
to-- when, sometimes when I--
when I'm in bed,

990
00:47:07,389 --> 00:47:10,349
and, um-- and if I have, like,

991
00:47:10,436 --> 00:47:13,352
the teddy bear beside me,
I just feel like, safer.

992
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:15,876
There.

993
00:47:15,963 --> 00:47:18,313
-I saw that.
-[Lopez laughs]

994
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,360
Yes, so, sometimes it's weird
'cause, when I have, like,

995
00:47:21,447 --> 00:47:23,928
these toys beside me, um,

996
00:47:24,015 --> 00:47:27,018
I make them sing me
a lullaby to sleep.

997
00:47:27,105 --> 00:47:30,543
You make them sing to you?
Like, what does it sound like?

998
00:47:30,630 --> 00:47:31,936
You don't wanna sing it,
it's a secret?

999
00:47:32,023 --> 00:47:33,459
Okay, just
tell 'em it's a secret.

1000
00:47:33,546 --> 00:47:35,374
It's a secret.

1001
00:47:35,461 --> 00:47:37,071
[narrating bear] I like him.

1002
00:47:37,158 --> 00:47:39,857
Did you know
some of the very first employees

1003
00:47:39,944 --> 00:47:42,207
of Build-A-Bear Workshop
were small children?

1004
00:47:42,294 --> 00:47:44,818
-That can't be right.
-[buzzer]

1005
00:47:44,905 --> 00:47:46,733
Oh. Hmm.

1006
00:47:46,820 --> 00:47:49,431
Our Cub Advisors were
our first board of directors.

1007
00:47:49,518 --> 00:47:53,914
I obviously
was not a small child
when I started Build-A-Bear,

1008
00:47:54,001 --> 00:47:56,264
and I knew that
I did not know everything,

1009
00:47:56,351 --> 00:47:59,485
so I went to my friends' kids
and brought them all together

1010
00:47:59,572 --> 00:48:01,791
to ask them questions
about what they thought
we should have,

1011
00:48:01,879 --> 00:48:03,402
and what
we could name them, and--

1012
00:48:03,489 --> 00:48:06,144
It just seemed like
all the kids got together

1013
00:48:06,231 --> 00:48:08,363
and voted on their favorite,
whatever it was.

1014
00:48:08,450 --> 00:48:12,411
They were very wise,
and they had no holdbacks.

1015
00:48:12,498 --> 00:48:14,543
Like, if they didn't
like something, they told you.

1016
00:48:14,630 --> 00:48:17,024
And we would meet at our offices
or we would meet in the store

1017
00:48:17,111 --> 00:48:19,244
on a Saturday morning
before it opened.

1018
00:48:19,331 --> 00:48:21,768
Probably anybody came by,
they would sort of wonder,

1019
00:48:21,855 --> 00:48:24,162
"What are all those kids
doing in there working?"

1020
00:48:24,249 --> 00:48:27,252
But they loved it, and
I thought it was a great
experience for them to have,

1021
00:48:27,339 --> 00:48:29,167
to be part of something
that was starting up,

1022
00:48:29,254 --> 00:48:32,257
but also to see what it's like
to work in a store.

1023
00:48:32,344 --> 00:48:35,086
So, who wants to work
at Build-A-Bear?

1024
00:48:35,173 --> 00:48:37,218
Just think about
the psyche of somebody

1025
00:48:37,305 --> 00:48:39,481
that was like,
"I think that would be fun."

1026
00:48:39,568 --> 00:48:42,702
They're probably
the right kind of person
to work at Build-A-Bear.

1027
00:48:42,789 --> 00:48:44,530
[Stephen Yeun]
My parents were like,

1028
00:48:44,617 --> 00:48:46,445
"You need to go get a job.
Please go get a job."

1029
00:48:46,532 --> 00:48:48,708
And I was definitely
not cool enough to work

1030
00:48:48,795 --> 00:48:50,449
at any of the cool spots,

1031
00:48:50,536 --> 00:48:52,799
so I worked at Build-A-Bear.

1032
00:48:52,886 --> 00:48:56,716
We love to hire people
who like people.

1033
00:48:56,803 --> 00:48:59,806
Many of our associates
are in their drama club,

1034
00:48:59,893 --> 00:49:01,808
or they're aspiring performers,

1035
00:49:01,895 --> 00:49:04,028
or they're cheerleaders.

1036
00:49:04,115 --> 00:49:07,031
It's a different personality,
and I think they select us

1037
00:49:07,118 --> 00:49:09,120
because you don't come
into Build-A-Bear,

1038
00:49:09,207 --> 00:49:11,774
you don't join the Build-A-Bear
team to just fold clothes.

1039
00:49:11,861 --> 00:49:13,907
-They're so nice.
-I've never gone in
and been like,

1040
00:49:13,994 --> 00:49:16,301
"What's your bear's name?
Rub the heart, here you g--"

1041
00:49:16,388 --> 00:49:18,607
No, they have always been like,
"Now, what's their name?"

1042
00:49:18,694 --> 00:49:20,914
-No matter how old
or young you are--
-It does not matter.

1043
00:49:21,001 --> 00:49:22,611
They treat you the same way.
At that moment,

1044
00:49:22,698 --> 00:49:24,700
you are the most
important person in the room.

1045
00:49:24,787 --> 00:49:26,920
-[audience applauding]
-I suck at Build-A-Bear.

1046
00:49:27,007 --> 00:49:28,574
I used to go in there
for my kids, and--

1047
00:49:28,661 --> 00:49:30,402
-It's a weird place.
-It is a weird place.

1048
00:49:30,489 --> 00:49:33,927
[♪]

1049
00:49:34,014 --> 00:49:37,626
A bear-ism is a language that
we invented for Build-A-Bear.

1050
00:49:37,713 --> 00:49:40,499
We thought about this
as a childlike experience.

1051
00:49:40,586 --> 00:49:43,415
And so the bear-isms,
the language here that we spoke,

1052
00:49:43,502 --> 00:49:46,157
was a little corny,
but everybody got into it.

1053
00:49:46,244 --> 00:49:49,551
So this is a collection of those
original bear-isms that we used.

1054
00:49:49,638 --> 00:49:50,988
Here's some of the cute ones.

1055
00:49:51,075 --> 00:49:52,859
"One small step for bears,

1056
00:49:52,946 --> 00:49:54,904
one giant leap for bearkind."

1057
00:49:54,992 --> 00:49:57,298
"Think like a bear of action,
act like a bear of thought."

1058
00:49:57,385 --> 00:50:00,171
And most of all, "It's never too
late to have a happy childhood."

1059
00:50:00,258 --> 00:50:03,478
Build-A-Bear has
its own culture.

1060
00:50:04,175 --> 00:50:06,568
I-- Well, it's really fun
culture, you might imagine.

1061
00:50:06,655 --> 00:50:09,528
You know, it's-- Everything
you probably think it is,
is what it is.

1062
00:50:09,615 --> 00:50:13,184
Along with that culture
comes a language.

1063
00:50:13,271 --> 00:50:19,842
And that language is
really all about bear puns.

1064
00:50:19,929 --> 00:50:22,367
-Hi, I'm Dani.
-Hi, I'm Dannah.

1065
00:50:22,454 --> 00:50:24,369
And before we start,
can I just say

1066
00:50:24,456 --> 00:50:26,545
how "paw-esome" it is
to be here?

1067
00:50:26,632 --> 00:50:29,069
And it's truly an honor,
but I mean,

1068
00:50:29,156 --> 00:50:30,940
this was the "bear" minimum.

1069
00:50:31,028 --> 00:50:34,335
Oh, my God. You didn't
have to start it like this.

1070
00:50:34,422 --> 00:50:35,902
What can I say? I'm a genius.

1071
00:50:35,989 --> 00:50:40,298
Okay.
My jokes are "un-bear-able."

1072
00:50:40,776 --> 00:50:42,474
[Dannah laughs]

1073
00:50:42,561 --> 00:50:44,693
You know, things,
like, instead of "very,"

1074
00:50:44,780 --> 00:50:46,217
something's "beary."

1075
00:50:46,304 --> 00:50:48,741
Now, this is typical vernacular.

1076
00:50:48,828 --> 00:50:51,570
I'm not kidd-- Like,
you write this in your emails.

1077
00:50:51,657 --> 00:50:52,919
"That's 'paw-esome.'"

1078
00:50:53,006 --> 00:50:54,964
And, you know,

1079
00:50:55,052 --> 00:50:57,967
we have a whole lot of, like,
"consider the 'paw-sibility.'"

1080
00:50:58,055 --> 00:51:00,448
"That's 'un-bear-lievable,'"
or--

1081
00:51:00,535 --> 00:51:02,450
and "paw-tay."

1082
00:51:04,061 --> 00:51:06,933
-[chuckles]
-[director]

1083
00:51:07,020 --> 00:51:10,458
But we do a lot of
"cele-bear-ation,"
that is true.

1084
00:51:10,545 --> 00:51:12,112
[Dannah chuckles]

1085
00:51:12,199 --> 00:51:14,723
What button does
a bear use to pause the TV?

1086
00:51:14,810 --> 00:51:16,682
Wait. I just said it.

1087
00:51:16,769 --> 00:51:20,251
The p-- Hey.
Can we, like, cut that?

1088
00:51:20,338 --> 00:51:24,168
I can "bear-ly" stand
another one of these jokes.

1089
00:51:25,082 --> 00:51:26,735
You just get used to it, okay.

1090
00:51:26,822 --> 00:51:28,824
So here's the truth.

1091
00:51:28,911 --> 00:51:31,262
Not only do you get used to it,

1092
00:51:31,349 --> 00:51:33,568
sometimes you're out
in the world,

1093
00:51:33,655 --> 00:51:37,006
and you still use the language.

1094
00:51:37,094 --> 00:51:38,965
Which is embarrassing.

1095
00:51:42,186 --> 00:51:45,798
[♪]

1096
00:51:45,885 --> 00:51:51,804
Um, when Sharon came in, one of
the things was to sort of
modernize Build-A-Bear.

1097
00:51:51,891 --> 00:51:54,198
Everybody might remember
the Funhouse font

1098
00:51:54,285 --> 00:51:56,635
that's on the front
of our stores,

1099
00:51:56,722 --> 00:51:58,593
and we use that everywhere,

1100
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:00,334
and, uh, real hard to read,

1101
00:52:00,421 --> 00:52:02,554
especially if you do
a whole poster with it.

1102
00:52:02,641 --> 00:52:04,469
I am a total font nerd.

1103
00:52:04,556 --> 00:52:06,340
So-- Yeah, so, for a company,

1104
00:52:06,427 --> 00:52:09,735
you want the logo
to sort of age well.

1105
00:52:09,822 --> 00:52:13,695
And our logo was startin'
to look a little dated.

1106
00:52:13,782 --> 00:52:16,176
[♪]

1107
00:52:16,263 --> 00:52:19,136
It is very iconic,
but what I wanted to do

1108
00:52:19,223 --> 00:52:21,312
is make sure when we rebranded,

1109
00:52:21,399 --> 00:52:24,097
we kept everything that made
Build-A-Bear, Build-A-Bear.

1110
00:52:24,184 --> 00:52:26,839
Just making it
a little bit more modernized.

1111
00:52:26,926 --> 00:52:29,581
And one of the great things
that Sharon decided to do

1112
00:52:29,668 --> 00:52:32,149
was separate the brand
from the workshop,

1113
00:52:32,236 --> 00:52:35,108
where we took the head--
we call him Bernard, by the way.

1114
00:52:35,195 --> 00:52:36,849
He's Bernard,
if you can see him back there.

1115
00:52:36,936 --> 00:52:39,547
We took his head,
he goes into the workshop logo,

1116
00:52:39,634 --> 00:52:42,376
and then the word
"workshop" is like,
this real fun kind of a font.

1117
00:52:42,463 --> 00:52:44,813
I loved Funhouse.
I love the typeface.

1118
00:52:44,900 --> 00:52:47,381
But I got, you know,
to make it cleaner and neater,

1119
00:52:47,468 --> 00:52:50,906
and looking at something not
like it looked like the past,
but create a new future.

1120
00:52:50,993 --> 00:52:53,082
So this is Happy Hugs.

1121
00:52:53,170 --> 00:52:56,173
He's one of our best-selling
teddy bears, and--

1122
00:52:56,260 --> 00:52:58,523
we generally
don't like to show bare bears.

1123
00:52:58,610 --> 00:52:59,959
You know what I mean?

1124
00:53:00,046 --> 00:53:01,700
Bear, he's bare,
he's a bare bear.

1125
00:53:01,787 --> 00:53:03,615
Anyway, Happy?

1126
00:53:03,702 --> 00:53:06,444
Um, want to tell
a little story about Happy Hugs,

1127
00:53:06,531 --> 00:53:09,186
and this,
what we call a Paw Pad.

1128
00:53:09,273 --> 00:53:11,666
One of the things that I did
when I got to Build-A-Bear,

1129
00:53:11,753 --> 00:53:15,148
was make sure that kids would
know that it's a Build-A-Bear.

1130
00:53:15,235 --> 00:53:17,498
Now, we've always
had the little tags on them,

1131
00:53:17,585 --> 00:53:20,893
but having been on Barbie
and all these other brands,

1132
00:53:20,980 --> 00:53:24,853
it felt like the Build-A-Bear
should have a brand mark.

1133
00:53:26,464 --> 00:53:29,118
We created this really--
like, I would say,

1134
00:53:29,206 --> 00:53:32,774
natural kind of mark
for his paw pad.

1135
00:53:32,861 --> 00:53:39,041
It's a heart in a pawprint
with the "B.A.B" in it,
so makes sense why it's there.

1136
00:53:39,128 --> 00:53:42,654
We just wanted people
to be really proud when
they got a Build-A-Bear,

1137
00:53:42,741 --> 00:53:46,266
and know that it was
a Build-A-Bear, particularly
when we're gifting bears.

1138
00:53:46,353 --> 00:53:48,921
"Hey, I've got a paw pad.

1139
00:53:49,008 --> 00:53:51,228
So cool."

1140
00:53:54,405 --> 00:53:56,972
[narrating bear]
Has that always been there?

1141
00:54:02,935 --> 00:54:04,589
I'm Damon Elliot.

1142
00:54:04,676 --> 00:54:06,504
Music producer, and, um,

1143
00:54:06,591 --> 00:54:09,637
I like to think
I'm a pretty handsome guy.

1144
00:54:09,724 --> 00:54:12,379
[director]

1145
00:54:12,466 --> 00:54:15,774
I've known Mike
since I was 14 years old.

1146
00:54:15,861 --> 00:54:18,559
I mean, he was heavyweight
champion of the world,

1147
00:54:18,646 --> 00:54:20,909
and we hit it off right away.

1148
00:54:20,996 --> 00:54:23,477
When we do
these celebrity bears,

1149
00:54:23,564 --> 00:54:25,349
we often auction them off,

1150
00:54:25,436 --> 00:54:28,177
or they're at different events,
and for silent auctions.

1151
00:54:28,265 --> 00:54:31,093
And we had created
a Mike Tyson bear.

1152
00:54:31,180 --> 00:54:33,400
Our designers
are truly fabulous,

1153
00:54:33,487 --> 00:54:36,577
and they had gone to all lengths

1154
00:54:36,664 --> 00:54:38,579
to make sure they had gotten

1155
00:54:38,666 --> 00:54:41,365
Mike's tattoo
just perfectly stitched,
hand-stitched,

1156
00:54:41,452 --> 00:54:43,454
onto the teddy bear's face.

1157
00:54:43,541 --> 00:54:45,194
But we were going
to get these signed,

1158
00:54:45,282 --> 00:54:47,066
so we could put them
at the silent auction.

1159
00:54:47,153 --> 00:54:49,547
Do you really want to know
about Mike and his teddy bear?

1160
00:54:49,634 --> 00:54:52,550
Well, the time I gave
Mike Tyson the teddy bear,

1161
00:54:52,637 --> 00:54:54,900
I went to his house and, uh,

1162
00:54:54,987 --> 00:54:56,771
handed him this bear,

1163
00:54:56,858 --> 00:54:59,121
and his eyes lit up,
and he got very excited,

1164
00:54:59,208 --> 00:55:01,341
and it seems like
he got really attached.

1165
00:55:01,428 --> 00:55:04,039
The bear was supposed
to be handed right back to me,

1166
00:55:04,126 --> 00:55:05,867
after he signed it,
'cause it was a--

1167
00:55:05,954 --> 00:55:08,392
it was done for him--
for my mom,

1168
00:55:08,479 --> 00:55:10,655
who's Dionne Warwick,
for her charity,

1169
00:55:10,742 --> 00:55:13,048
and all that went out the window

1170
00:55:13,135 --> 00:55:16,095
because Mike seemed to become
very attached to the bear.

1171
00:55:16,182 --> 00:55:19,011
And he's like,
"And it's mine now! I'm keepin'
the--"

1172
00:55:19,098 --> 00:55:23,407
Mike Tyson refused to return his
teddy bear, he loved it so much.

1173
00:55:23,494 --> 00:55:25,931
And then afterwards,
we're on a conference call,
and I'm like,

1174
00:55:26,018 --> 00:55:28,194
"So, we've gotten this bear,
check, this bear, check,

1175
00:55:28,281 --> 00:55:30,936
and who else are we gonna-- And
where's the Mike Tyson bear?"

1176
00:55:31,023 --> 00:55:34,635
"Oh, no, he's keeping it."
Well, "What do you mean, he's
keeping it? He can't keep it."

1177
00:55:34,722 --> 00:55:37,334
He's like, "You wanna get
the Mike Tyson bear back?"

1178
00:55:37,421 --> 00:55:39,161
The last time I saw this bear,

1179
00:55:39,248 --> 00:55:41,947
we were on a private jet
going somewhere near Miami,

1180
00:55:42,034 --> 00:55:44,515
and he had the bear, I saw
the bear for about two seconds.

1181
00:55:44,602 --> 00:55:47,082
It seems like he takes
this bear everywhere with him.

1182
00:55:47,169 --> 00:55:51,217
[♪]

1183
00:55:51,304 --> 00:55:53,741
[crew member]
Mike interview, take one.

1184
00:55:55,526 --> 00:55:57,528
Oh, God--

1185
00:55:59,181 --> 00:56:02,620
[director]

1186
00:56:02,707 --> 00:56:05,536
What bear?
What are you talkin' about?

1187
00:56:06,928 --> 00:56:11,063
[director]

1188
00:56:11,150 --> 00:56:12,804
Oh, you mean that bear.

1189
00:56:12,891 --> 00:56:17,765
[director]

1190
00:56:18,679 --> 00:56:20,420
I don't think so.

1191
00:56:20,507 --> 00:56:22,857
[dramatic music playing]

1192
00:56:27,079 --> 00:56:30,474
♪ Oh, my teddy bear
My teddy bear ♪

1193
00:56:30,561 --> 00:56:33,781
And then Mike would go...
[imitating] "He's the best,
the best bear in the world."

1194
00:56:33,868 --> 00:56:36,218
You can use that, 'cause
he doesn't mind that I do that.

1195
00:56:36,305 --> 00:56:40,222
So, um, I've asked for it back,
and he-- he wouldn't
give it back.

1196
00:56:40,309 --> 00:56:43,182
[director]

1197
00:56:44,444 --> 00:56:46,490
Uh, how 'bout this, man?

1198
00:56:46,577 --> 00:56:49,318
I'd like to see you try
to take the bear from him.

1199
00:56:53,584 --> 00:56:55,890
[yawning]

1200
00:56:55,977 --> 00:56:59,546
[narrating bear] For the record,
I think this is a bad idea.

1201
00:56:59,633 --> 00:57:02,419
I know, right?
You don't poke the bear!

1202
00:57:06,510 --> 00:57:08,076
[text send tone whooshes]

1203
00:57:08,163 --> 00:57:10,862
[spy music playing]

1204
00:57:15,562 --> 00:57:17,434
Hey, [bleep],
what do you think you're doin'?

1205
00:57:17,521 --> 00:57:18,826
[bleep].

1206
00:57:18,913 --> 00:57:21,220
[sounds of struggle]

1207
00:57:21,307 --> 00:57:24,179
[tiger roaring]

1208
00:57:24,745 --> 00:57:28,662
When Mike Tyson wants to
keep his teddy bear,
he keeps his teddy bear!

1209
00:57:28,749 --> 00:57:31,883
-That's all there is to it.
-[chuckles]

1210
00:57:31,970 --> 00:57:38,367
And then what was so funny
about it is, of course, we could
just make another one.

1211
00:57:38,455 --> 00:57:41,806
[bear] I'm Mike Tyson.
Been the wildest,
I've been the craziest,

1212
00:57:41,893 --> 00:57:44,722
I've been the outrageous,
the vicious, the most
destructive fighter.

1213
00:57:44,809 --> 00:57:47,246
-I'm Mike Tyson.
-I'm Mike Tyson, yeah.

1214
00:57:47,333 --> 00:57:49,944
[bear] An international star,
a warlord just
rip your heart out.

1215
00:57:50,031 --> 00:57:52,773
And guess what? I'm Mike Tyson.

1216
00:57:52,860 --> 00:57:55,863
[club music plays, stops]

1217
00:57:55,950 --> 00:57:57,996
[narrating bear]
And so, the teddy bear

1218
00:57:58,083 --> 00:58:01,521
has once again tamed
the mighty heavyweight champion.

1219
00:58:01,608 --> 00:58:03,915
I'm Trinity, I'm 12 years old,

1220
00:58:04,002 --> 00:58:06,395
and, um, I like Build-A-Bear.
[chuckles]

1221
00:58:06,483 --> 00:58:07,962
[director]

1222
00:58:08,049 --> 00:58:11,488
This is Irwin.
He's my froggy prince.

1223
00:58:11,575 --> 00:58:14,012
As soon as I laid
my eyes on Irwin,

1224
00:58:14,099 --> 00:58:15,927
I really wanted
to bring him to life.

1225
00:58:16,014 --> 00:58:18,538
They told me
he's very famous on TikTok.

1226
00:58:18,625 --> 00:58:20,235
[kid] It came!

1227
00:58:20,322 --> 00:58:22,063
It finally came!

1228
00:58:22,150 --> 00:58:24,762
[woman] Build-A-Bear frog,
Build-A-Bear frog.

1229
00:58:24,849 --> 00:58:26,894
-Build-A-Bear frog!
-[computerized voice]
You did it!

1230
00:58:26,981 --> 00:58:29,114
[man]
Aw, look at the little baby!

1231
00:58:29,201 --> 00:58:31,595
So, I've seen
the Build-A-Bear frog,

1232
00:58:31,682 --> 00:58:33,466
which is actually really funny.

1233
00:58:33,553 --> 00:58:36,295
My roommate is really afraid
of frogs, so I have, like,

1234
00:58:36,382 --> 00:58:39,124
a frog costume,
and, like, I dressed up
and scared her in it,

1235
00:58:39,211 --> 00:58:41,692
and so now I just make TikToks
in this frog suit a lot.

1236
00:58:41,779 --> 00:58:44,259
[computerized voice]
Clothing I like--

1237
00:58:44,346 --> 00:58:46,653
-[woman] I'll call you back.
-[Tessa] All right.

1238
00:58:46,740 --> 00:58:49,134
-Bye.
-Go, Build-A-Bear frogs!

1239
00:58:49,221 --> 00:58:51,963
We, um-- And we have
encountered this before,

1240
00:58:52,050 --> 00:58:54,182
people like,
"Aren't you too old for that?"

1241
00:58:54,269 --> 00:58:56,576
And here's the thing. When
you're growing up, you're told,

1242
00:58:56,663 --> 00:58:58,535
"Dream and use your imagination

1243
00:58:58,622 --> 00:59:00,711
and make everything around you
a part of your life."

1244
00:59:00,798 --> 00:59:02,843
And when you get older,
the world's like, "Stop that!

1245
00:59:02,930 --> 00:59:05,367
No! Stop!"
It's like, "Excuse me, sir. No."

1246
00:59:05,454 --> 00:59:07,544
If my friend was a teddy bear
when I was a child,

1247
00:59:07,631 --> 00:59:10,111
my friend should be allowed
to be a teddy bear now.

1248
00:59:10,198 --> 00:59:12,636
It's like,
just for this tiny bit of time,

1249
00:59:12,723 --> 00:59:15,943
Build-A-Bear,
it gives you almost permission

1250
00:59:16,030 --> 00:59:19,773
in a way,
to embrace who you used to be.

1251
00:59:19,860 --> 00:59:23,255
-Like, when you were little,
when you were happy.
-[both] With no judgment.

1252
00:59:23,342 --> 00:59:26,954
And you get to pick out the
clothes, which, growing up,
you don't always get to do that.

1253
00:59:27,041 --> 00:59:28,695
But yeah, it's-- it's just that.

1254
00:59:28,782 --> 00:59:34,135
[♪]

1255
00:59:36,921 --> 00:59:38,357
Because you are never too old...

1256
00:59:38,444 --> 00:59:40,098
[both]
To have a happy childhood.

1257
00:59:40,185 --> 00:59:41,926
[both laugh]

1258
00:59:42,013 --> 00:59:44,537
-It's so true.
-It is so true.

1259
00:59:44,624 --> 00:59:47,018
You need to tell us to stop,
because we're just--

1260
00:59:47,105 --> 00:59:48,759
Yeah, we're not gonna
stop on our own.

1261
00:59:48,846 --> 00:59:51,065
[director]

1262
00:59:51,152 --> 00:59:53,633
[narrating bear] Over the years,
Build-A-Bear has branched out

1263
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:57,506
into many media formats
outside of stuffed animals,

1264
00:59:57,594 --> 01:00:00,379
with an online community,
cartoons--

1265
01:00:00,466 --> 01:00:02,599
No moose has ever flown.
It's a fact.

1266
01:00:02,686 --> 01:00:04,252
[narrating bear]
...video games...

1267
01:00:04,339 --> 01:00:06,515
[bunny] It's always better
to party with friends!

1268
01:00:06,603 --> 01:00:08,474
[narrating bear]
...their own radio station,

1269
01:00:08,561 --> 01:00:10,824
and they even make movies now!

1270
01:00:10,911 --> 01:00:14,306
Hi, I'm Frankie McNellis,
and I'm 16,

1271
01:00:14,393 --> 01:00:17,048
and I play Alex in the
Build-A-Bear film Honey Girls.

1272
01:00:17,135 --> 01:00:20,529
["What We're Looking For"
by Aliyah Mastin, Ava Grace,
and Frankie McNellis playing]

1273
01:00:20,617 --> 01:00:23,620
♪ This is where
We're meant to be ♪

1274
01:00:24,490 --> 01:00:27,058
Well, the first time
I ever went to Build-A-Bear,

1275
01:00:27,145 --> 01:00:29,103
I don't remember that,
I was a baby.

1276
01:00:29,190 --> 01:00:32,237
Okay, at first when
I first got the audition,

1277
01:00:32,324 --> 01:00:33,891
I'm like, "Is it an animation?

1278
01:00:33,978 --> 01:00:36,328
Am I gonna be
dressed up as a bear?"

1279
01:00:36,415 --> 01:00:38,722
But then, once I, like,
read through it, I was like,

1280
01:00:38,809 --> 01:00:40,941
"This is
the coolest thing ever."

1281
01:00:41,028 --> 01:00:46,033
The Honey Girls are a band
of three very talented artists.

1282
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:50,385
The original names
of the Honey Girls were
Teegan, Risa, and Viv.

1283
01:00:50,472 --> 01:00:51,996
Mine's the tiger.

1284
01:00:52,083 --> 01:00:54,302
Purple tiger.
I roar in the movie.

1285
01:00:54,389 --> 01:00:55,913
-Easy, tiger.
-Rawr!

1286
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:59,177
-[both chuckle]
-[giggles]

1287
01:00:59,264 --> 01:01:01,832
I was really cool, 'cause when
we were filming the Honey Girls,

1288
01:01:01,919 --> 01:01:05,009
we each got, like,
our own little,
like, Build-A-Bear

1289
01:01:05,096 --> 01:01:08,490
that looked exactly like us,
and, like, was really cute.

1290
01:01:09,013 --> 01:01:10,797
What's going on?

1291
01:01:10,884 --> 01:01:14,366
Hi. Hi, thank you.

1292
01:01:14,453 --> 01:01:16,411
Can you do
a little dance for me?

1293
01:01:16,498 --> 01:01:18,718
-[disco music playing]
-Here we go.

1294
01:01:18,805 --> 01:01:20,851
[Brooks laughing]

1295
01:01:23,331 --> 01:01:25,029
He's in his own world.

1296
01:01:27,074 --> 01:01:29,729
Boom, Build-A-Bear.

1297
01:01:29,816 --> 01:01:32,601
The moonwalk.

1298
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:35,735
That was actually a pretty
good moonwalk, I'm not gonna--

1299
01:01:35,822 --> 01:01:38,782
-[record scratches]
-Oh, whoa, there he goes.
[chuckles]

1300
01:01:38,869 --> 01:01:40,522
Did he do that to everybody,
or just me?

1301
01:01:40,609 --> 01:01:42,046
[director]

1302
01:01:42,133 --> 01:01:44,048
Okay, cool.
Thanks, guys, for the interview.

1303
01:01:44,135 --> 01:01:46,964
I'll see you guys later.
[chuckles]

1304
01:01:50,010 --> 01:01:53,057
[crew member]
After dark, take one.

1305
01:01:53,535 --> 01:01:55,015
This old thing?

1306
01:01:55,102 --> 01:01:57,583
Kids' stuff.

1307
01:01:57,670 --> 01:01:59,498
[cartoon voice]
Hi, there!

1308
01:01:59,585 --> 01:02:01,543
What's the opposite
of kids' stuff?

1309
01:02:01,630 --> 01:02:03,328
Grown-up stuff.

1310
01:02:03,415 --> 01:02:05,504
[actor purring]

1311
01:02:05,591 --> 01:02:07,549
-Cut!
-[crew laughing]

1312
01:02:07,636 --> 01:02:09,900
Here's a story
that has you clicking tonight.

1313
01:02:09,987 --> 01:02:12,424
Who says stuffed animals
are just for kids?

1314
01:02:12,511 --> 01:02:15,732
We had a marketing campaign
called Build-A-Bear After Dark,

1315
01:02:15,819 --> 01:02:17,734
and it was,
you know, like, a little,

1316
01:02:17,821 --> 01:02:20,040
kind of, you know, edgier.

1317
01:02:20,127 --> 01:02:23,391
Um, romantic, kind of, you know.

1318
01:02:23,478 --> 01:02:26,307
And we had that campaign for,
like, three or four years.

1319
01:02:26,394 --> 01:02:29,746
This year, someone picked it up,
and it went crazy.

1320
01:02:29,833 --> 01:02:32,705
Build-A-Bear just launched
an After Dark series

1321
01:02:32,792 --> 01:02:34,359
of stuffed bears for adults.

1322
01:02:34,446 --> 01:02:36,665
These are real.

1323
01:02:38,624 --> 01:02:40,669
Real seductive, bam!

1324
01:02:40,757 --> 01:02:43,498
Bam! You like it.
Go ahead and...

1325
01:02:43,585 --> 01:02:46,023
Hey, do you know
a bear named Marty?

1326
01:02:46,110 --> 01:02:49,548
He's about this tall, brown.
I haven't seen him
since I was a kid.

1327
01:02:49,635 --> 01:02:52,029
[narrating bear] Yeah, I'll keep
an eye out for him, but, uh...

1328
01:02:52,116 --> 01:02:55,902
do you think you could
possibly be more vague?

1329
01:02:55,989 --> 01:02:57,817
Oh, he's a bear and he's brown.

1330
01:02:57,904 --> 01:03:00,515
Gee, I haven't seen
one of those before.

1331
01:03:02,517 --> 01:03:04,737
[newscaster]
Have you seen this teddy bear?

1332
01:03:04,824 --> 01:03:07,000
The whole nation
is looking for it.

1333
01:03:07,087 --> 01:03:11,091
If you have that teddy bear,
please return it.
That is precious.

1334
01:03:11,178 --> 01:03:13,572
[newscaster] This isn't just
your average teddy bear.

1335
01:03:13,659 --> 01:03:17,706
Not to its owner,
28-year-old Mara Soriano.

1336
01:03:17,794 --> 01:03:19,404
[laughing]

1337
01:03:19,491 --> 01:03:21,536
[blowing raspberry]

1338
01:03:21,623 --> 01:03:23,234
My name is Mara Soriano,

1339
01:03:23,321 --> 01:03:25,192
and I'm a storyboard artist
from Canada.

1340
01:03:25,279 --> 01:03:26,890
Is that-- is that good?

1341
01:03:26,977 --> 01:03:27,716
[director]

1342
01:03:27,804 --> 01:03:29,240
Okay.

1343
01:03:29,327 --> 01:03:30,850
What can I say about my mom?

1344
01:03:30,937 --> 01:03:32,852
Like, she was
the most amazing person

1345
01:03:32,939 --> 01:03:34,680
I have ever
had the privilege to know.

1346
01:03:34,767 --> 01:03:38,379
She was kind, she was generous.

1347
01:03:38,466 --> 01:03:42,427
My mom was diagnosed
with cancer in 2010,

1348
01:03:42,514 --> 01:03:45,778
and for ten years,
she was in remission,
it was really great.

1349
01:03:45,865 --> 01:03:48,346
One Christmas,
she gave me this Build-A-Bear,

1350
01:03:48,433 --> 01:03:50,348
but I've made
Build-A-Bears before,

1351
01:03:50,435 --> 01:03:53,394
so the thought of her, like,

1352
01:03:53,481 --> 01:03:56,571
picking out all of the things
that made Mama Bear, Mama Bear,

1353
01:03:56,658 --> 01:04:00,010
and recording this voice message
for me at the store,

1354
01:04:00,097 --> 01:04:03,840
it just makes me
feel like there really
is a part of her in that bear,

1355
01:04:03,927 --> 01:04:05,972
and that's why
it's so important to me,

1356
01:04:06,059 --> 01:04:10,020
and it's such-- it's probably
my most prized possession.

1357
01:04:10,107 --> 01:04:14,198
She passed away in June 2019.

1358
01:04:14,285 --> 01:04:17,070
Um, which was really tough.

1359
01:04:18,289 --> 01:04:20,073
[voice cracking] Sorry.

1360
01:04:22,075 --> 01:04:24,338
[sobs] I'm sorry.

1361
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,474
Like, that bear is so her,

1362
01:04:29,561 --> 01:04:32,259
and like, I know that
she put a lot of love in that,

1363
01:04:32,346 --> 01:04:34,871
and I--
I just know it, you know?

1364
01:04:36,785 --> 01:04:40,572
My husband and I were
moving apartments one day,

1365
01:04:40,659 --> 01:04:44,228
and while we were moving,
we had put all
of our stuff on a truck,

1366
01:04:44,315 --> 01:04:46,143
and I put
Mama Bear in this backpack.

1367
01:04:46,230 --> 01:04:47,796
With all of my important things.

1368
01:04:47,884 --> 01:04:51,148
I remember even
going up to my friends,

1369
01:04:51,235 --> 01:04:53,454
with her little head
poking out of the backpack,

1370
01:04:53,541 --> 01:04:55,543
and saying "Look,
she's got her own special spot!

1371
01:04:55,630 --> 01:04:57,328
Like, she's in
the special backpack."

1372
01:04:57,415 --> 01:04:59,852
On our way to the new apartment,
we got this phone call

1373
01:04:59,939 --> 01:05:02,463
from one of our friends
who was helping us move.

1374
01:05:02,550 --> 01:05:05,336
He was biking over,
and he got hit by a truck,

1375
01:05:05,423 --> 01:05:07,773
-[tires screeching] [crash]
-so I immediately dropped
everything,

1376
01:05:07,860 --> 01:05:11,211
I told my fiancé to take care
of everything while
I go pick up our friend,

1377
01:05:11,298 --> 01:05:13,083
and take him to the hospital.

1378
01:05:13,170 --> 01:05:16,042
And it was my fault,
because I just put the bear down

1379
01:05:16,129 --> 01:05:18,175
next to the U-Haul,
because I was in such a rush

1380
01:05:18,262 --> 01:05:20,960
trying to get to my friend,
who was hit by a truck,

1381
01:05:21,047 --> 01:05:24,050
and he was okay,
it was all good.

1382
01:05:24,137 --> 01:05:25,747
Just a couple bruises.

1383
01:05:25,834 --> 01:05:28,228
But it wasn't until,
like, a few hours later,

1384
01:05:28,315 --> 01:05:30,491
when we were unpacking,
that I realized

1385
01:05:30,578 --> 01:05:32,624
that the backpack
was never brought home,

1386
01:05:32,711 --> 01:05:34,669
so I-- I started freakin' out,

1387
01:05:34,756 --> 01:05:36,367
I went downstairs
to the security

1388
01:05:36,454 --> 01:05:38,151
and asked
to go through the tapes,

1389
01:05:38,238 --> 01:05:41,285
and lo and behold,
somebody had swiped the bear,

1390
01:05:41,372 --> 01:05:44,766
and I lost it, I was devastated.

1391
01:05:44,853 --> 01:05:46,812
I immediately,
like, stopped unpacking

1392
01:05:46,899 --> 01:05:49,293
and just started running up
and down the streets,

1393
01:05:49,380 --> 01:05:52,122
like, asking people if they had
seen someone with the backpack.

1394
01:05:52,209 --> 01:05:54,776
I immediately started
going through dumpsters,

1395
01:05:54,863 --> 01:05:56,561
'cause I was told that,
you know, it's--

1396
01:05:56,648 --> 01:05:59,042
like, it's just a teddy bear,
so it's not valuable,

1397
01:05:59,129 --> 01:06:01,218
so they might have
thrown it away or something.

1398
01:06:01,305 --> 01:06:03,742
And I couldn't find it anywhere,

1399
01:06:03,829 --> 01:06:06,440
so I didn't know what to do.

1400
01:06:06,527 --> 01:06:09,139
That night, I went on Reddit,

1401
01:06:09,226 --> 01:06:12,142
and somebody suggested
that I reach out to local
news sources, which I did.

1402
01:06:12,229 --> 01:06:15,580
And thankfully,
CBC took pity on me,

1403
01:06:15,667 --> 01:06:21,064
and when Deborah Goble called
me for CBC, she said, "Listen,
I don't do this very often,

1404
01:06:21,151 --> 01:06:24,284
but I'll tweet about it,
along with my little blurb
on the radio for you."

1405
01:06:24,371 --> 01:06:27,679
So I was like,
"Great, thank you.
Anything and everything helps."

1406
01:06:27,766 --> 01:06:31,335
And then the next day,
our friend-- the friend
who got hit by the truck--

1407
01:06:31,422 --> 01:06:33,641
texted me, and said, "Hey,

1408
01:06:33,728 --> 01:06:36,166
did you know somebody
tweeted about your bear?

1409
01:06:36,253 --> 01:06:39,691
And I was, like, "Wha-- Who?"
He's like, "Ryan Reynolds."

1410
01:06:39,778 --> 01:06:41,345
Oh, I did not believe him.

1411
01:06:41,432 --> 01:06:43,390
I was like,
"This is a troll account,"

1412
01:06:43,477 --> 01:06:45,784
like, it's somebody
pretending to be Deadpool.

1413
01:06:45,871 --> 01:06:47,786
And lo and behold,
I go on Twitter,

1414
01:06:47,873 --> 01:06:50,658
and it was nuts!
Like, it was Ryan Reynolds.

1415
01:06:50,745 --> 01:06:53,574
He was offering a $5000 reward
to find my bear,

1416
01:06:53,661 --> 01:06:56,969
and it was a crazy
whirlwind after that.

1417
01:06:57,056 --> 01:07:00,407
Like, as soon as he did that,
everybody picked up on the news,

1418
01:07:00,494 --> 01:07:02,322
like, everybody
wanted to talk to me.

1419
01:07:02,409 --> 01:07:04,890
This teddy bear
held a special meaning.

1420
01:07:04,977 --> 01:07:07,371
I was absolutely devastated.

1421
01:07:07,458 --> 01:07:09,895
All I really cared about
was getting the bear back.

1422
01:07:09,982 --> 01:07:11,984
Aww!

1423
01:07:12,071 --> 01:07:14,073
[newscaster] This is
the touching moment Mara's mom

1424
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:16,423
played her the recording
for the first time.

1425
01:07:16,510 --> 01:07:18,904
I guess the story
really touched a lot of people.

1426
01:07:18,991 --> 01:07:21,515
I was honestly super-shocked
with the amount of coverage

1427
01:07:21,602 --> 01:07:22,690
that it was getting.

1428
01:07:22,777 --> 01:07:23,865
So many different people

1429
01:07:23,952 --> 01:07:25,302
and companies reached out

1430
01:07:25,389 --> 01:07:27,521
to match Ryan Reynolds' reward,

1431
01:07:27,608 --> 01:07:29,480
and it was getting really crazy,

1432
01:07:29,567 --> 01:07:31,569
and I couldn't believe
that people were doing that

1433
01:07:31,656 --> 01:07:34,354
for me, for a teddy bear,
and I honestly think

1434
01:07:34,441 --> 01:07:36,356
my mom would've gotten
a huge kick out of it.

1435
01:07:36,443 --> 01:07:39,098
And thanks to all of,
like, that news coverage,

1436
01:07:39,185 --> 01:07:41,100
three days later,
we got the bear back,

1437
01:07:41,187 --> 01:07:43,407
which is--
which never happens.

1438
01:07:43,494 --> 01:07:45,887
That never happens.
I couldn't believe it.

1439
01:07:45,974 --> 01:07:47,933
When I got
the bear back, it was--

1440
01:07:48,020 --> 01:07:49,891
it was like
getting my mom back again.

1441
01:07:49,978 --> 01:07:52,807
It was like
her telling me to calm down,

1442
01:07:52,894 --> 01:07:55,288
like, she has my back.

1443
01:07:55,375 --> 01:07:59,249
Like, the world has my back,
and I felt really

1444
01:07:59,336 --> 01:08:01,860
unbelievably grateful,
that that happened.

1445
01:08:01,947 --> 01:08:04,732
And it really felt like
she was looking out for me.

1446
01:08:06,647 --> 01:08:09,346
I will never let this bear
out of my sight ever again.

1447
01:08:09,433 --> 01:08:11,609
[Soriano chuckles]

1448
01:08:11,696 --> 01:08:19,486
[Mom]

1449
01:08:19,573 --> 01:08:27,277
[Mom]

1450
01:08:27,364 --> 01:08:30,062
Yeah. Yeah. She was so cheesy.

1451
01:08:30,149 --> 01:08:33,239
[chuckles] I love you
to infinity and beyond.

1452
01:08:33,326 --> 01:08:35,633
[Soriano laughs]

1453
01:08:38,157 --> 01:08:40,290
[Holmes] I'm so glad
she got her bear back.

1454
01:08:40,377 --> 01:08:43,206
Do you think Ryan Reynolds
really paid that reward?

1455
01:08:43,293 --> 01:08:47,079
-[narrating bear] He really did!
-Do you think Ryan Reynolds
will put me in his next movie?

1456
01:08:47,166 --> 01:08:48,820
[narrating bear]
He really won't!

1457
01:08:48,907 --> 01:08:50,952
That's fair.

1458
01:08:51,039 --> 01:08:54,695
[Price John] Right in the middle
of the retail apocalypse,

1459
01:08:54,782 --> 01:08:57,524
where scores
of retailers went bankrupt,

1460
01:08:57,611 --> 01:09:00,048
thousands of retail stores
were closed.

1461
01:09:00,136 --> 01:09:02,268
Thousands of retail stores
were closed.

1462
01:09:02,355 --> 01:09:04,792
And things like
Toys"R"Us went bankrupt,

1463
01:09:04,879 --> 01:09:07,926
and we were the largest,
last standing

1464
01:09:08,013 --> 01:09:10,755
toy store in America.

1465
01:09:10,842 --> 01:09:13,018
And this is where we then

1466
01:09:13,105 --> 01:09:15,673
sort of embraced this idea

1467
01:09:15,760 --> 01:09:18,632
of nothin' knocks the stuffin'
outta Build-A-Bear.

1468
01:09:18,719 --> 01:09:22,158
[narrating bear] Build-A-Bear
first appeared during the peak
of shopping malls.

1469
01:09:22,245 --> 01:09:27,511
In the mid '90s, 140 new malls
were being built every year.

1470
01:09:27,598 --> 01:09:32,907
By 2007, that number was zero.

1471
01:09:32,994 --> 01:09:35,606
Somewhere between 2012,

1472
01:09:35,693 --> 01:09:39,523
and 2018-19,

1473
01:09:39,610 --> 01:09:43,091
some estimates
are that mall traffic

1474
01:09:43,179 --> 01:09:46,878
declined cumulatively
by about 50%.

1475
01:09:46,965 --> 01:09:50,882
That is a massive decrease
in foot traffic.

1476
01:09:50,969 --> 01:09:53,319
It was hard
for retailers to understand

1477
01:09:53,406 --> 01:09:55,495
what to do in that environment,

1478
01:09:55,582 --> 01:09:59,107
particularly an experience-based
retailer like Build-A-Bear.

1479
01:09:59,195 --> 01:10:01,806
Where families were going
for fun and entertainment,

1480
01:10:01,893 --> 01:10:04,156
was no longer
predominantly the mall.

1481
01:10:04,243 --> 01:10:06,985
We started to think
about entirely new places

1482
01:10:07,072 --> 01:10:09,814
that we could be,
places like Great Wolf Lodge,

1483
01:10:09,901 --> 01:10:12,425
or on a Carnival Cruise Line,
or resorts,

1484
01:10:12,512 --> 01:10:15,646
and just pulling apart
the old model,

1485
01:10:15,733 --> 01:10:18,736
and it opened up
entirely new venues for us

1486
01:10:18,823 --> 01:10:21,347
to take Build-A-Bear
that have been very successful,

1487
01:10:21,434 --> 01:10:23,654
and now we have
a much more balanced portfolio,

1488
01:10:23,741 --> 01:10:26,439
with fewer of our locations
located in malls.

1489
01:10:26,526 --> 01:10:30,922
[Johnson] Walmart is a different
thing. Walmart's the biggest
retailer in the world,

1490
01:10:31,009 --> 01:10:34,230
and they have a lot of traffic,
you know, you can do everything.

1491
01:10:34,317 --> 01:10:36,710
You can buy
everything at Walmart,
including get your tires.

1492
01:10:36,797 --> 01:10:40,192
[Kruger]
This diversification
has been critical,

1493
01:10:40,279 --> 01:10:43,543
for us to becoming this thing
that has staying power.

1494
01:10:43,630 --> 01:10:47,808
[narrating bear] You never know
where the next big idea
in marketing will come from,

1495
01:10:47,895 --> 01:10:50,289
and in 2018,

1496
01:10:50,376 --> 01:10:54,554
one of the biggest came from
a meeting about birthdays
at Build-A-Bear.

1497
01:10:54,641 --> 01:10:56,339
Hey, you're doin'
great up there!

1498
01:10:56,426 --> 01:10:58,036
Is this
your first starring role?

1499
01:10:58,123 --> 01:11:00,517
[narrating bear]
Well, I mostly do theater.

1500
01:11:01,474 --> 01:11:04,260
The popular retailer
Build-A-Bear is trying to

1501
01:11:04,347 --> 01:11:07,045
make amends after it
pulled the plug on a big sale

1502
01:11:07,132 --> 01:11:08,568
due to overwhelming demand.

1503
01:11:08,655 --> 01:11:11,397
Ah, Pay Your Age Day?

1504
01:11:11,484 --> 01:11:13,965
Um, well, let's see, it's--

1505
01:11:14,052 --> 01:11:17,708
business had gotten kinda tough,
the "mall apocalypse", right?

1506
01:11:17,795 --> 01:11:20,406
So I was sittin' there, and
I was, you know, thinkin',

1507
01:11:20,493 --> 01:11:22,582
"Now, what can we do to get
the-- the business going?"

1508
01:11:22,669 --> 01:11:25,106
Well, we had
National Teddy Bear Day,

1509
01:11:25,193 --> 01:11:27,761
and what you could do is
you could come in on
National Teddy Bear Day

1510
01:11:27,848 --> 01:11:29,807
and get a signature bear
for five bucks.

1511
01:11:29,894 --> 01:11:32,418
And the lines were out the door.

1512
01:11:32,505 --> 01:11:34,594
And so I was thinking,

1513
01:11:34,681 --> 01:11:38,163
what could-- How could we sell
a bear for $5 every day?

1514
01:11:38,250 --> 01:11:39,556
So I went
in to Sharon, I said "Look.

1515
01:11:39,643 --> 01:11:41,253
The number one reason
that people come

1516
01:11:41,340 --> 01:11:43,429
to Build-A-Bear
is for their birthday."

1517
01:11:43,516 --> 01:11:47,433
About a third of the sales
for Build-A-Bear
come from birthdays.

1518
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:52,003
Millions of kids celebrated
their birthdays at
Build-A-Bear.

1519
01:11:52,090 --> 01:11:55,572
So what if, for every time
a kid turned five,

1520
01:11:55,659 --> 01:11:57,313
they could come in
and get a bear

1521
01:11:57,400 --> 01:11:59,445
on their birthday
for five bucks?

1522
01:11:59,532 --> 01:12:01,621
And she sat there
and she's like,

1523
01:12:01,708 --> 01:12:04,363
"It's a great idea,
except for one thing.

1524
01:12:04,450 --> 01:12:07,671
You're gonna be the one
to tell the four-year-old
that they don't get it."

1525
01:12:07,758 --> 01:12:10,978
And so, we were like,
"Okay, well,
maybe we could just make it

1526
01:12:11,065 --> 01:12:13,546
so it's available
for anyone to pay their age."

1527
01:12:13,633 --> 01:12:15,548
And then it was like,
"One dollar?"

1528
01:12:15,635 --> 01:12:17,985
And so did a little bit of,
you know, kinda math,

1529
01:12:18,072 --> 01:12:19,770
and adding up,
and it made sense,

1530
01:12:19,857 --> 01:12:21,772
'cause the average
was still gonna be five bucks.

1531
01:12:21,859 --> 01:12:23,861
So we came up with this idea
for a birthday bear.

1532
01:12:23,948 --> 01:12:27,168
And so then it was like, "How
do we introduce this," right?

1533
01:12:27,255 --> 01:12:30,607
Well, you get one chance
to make a splash.

1534
01:12:30,694 --> 01:12:32,522
And so we played around
with the idea of,

1535
01:12:32,609 --> 01:12:35,133
"What if everyone could come in
that one day and get it?"

1536
01:12:35,220 --> 01:12:38,266
Why would someone want
a Birthday Bear when it's
not their birthday, right?

1537
01:12:38,354 --> 01:12:40,573
'Cause it says
"Happy Birthday" on the paw.

1538
01:12:40,660 --> 01:12:42,183
So, I'm in my office,

1539
01:12:42,270 --> 01:12:44,229
and Sharon calls me.

1540
01:12:44,316 --> 01:12:45,926
"It needs to be all of 'em."

1541
01:12:46,013 --> 01:12:48,102
And, you know,
it would really break through,

1542
01:12:48,189 --> 01:12:51,279
and we were managing
our marketing dollars.

1543
01:12:51,367 --> 01:12:54,892
This was pushed out
on social media,
and that was practically it.

1544
01:12:54,979 --> 01:12:58,243
It was all fine, lookin'--
Gotten a little bit of buzz.
That was good.

1545
01:12:58,330 --> 01:13:00,898
This deal is just so amazing,
I can hardly bear it!

1546
01:13:00,985 --> 01:13:02,639
Don't miss
Build-A-Bear's first ever,

1547
01:13:02,726 --> 01:13:05,337
and biggest deal ever,
Pay Your Age Day.

1548
01:13:05,424 --> 01:13:08,427
And then all of a sudden,
like, the day before,

1549
01:13:08,514 --> 01:13:10,429
people are signing up
for the Bonus Club

1550
01:13:10,516 --> 01:13:11,735
in, like, record numbers.

1551
01:13:11,822 --> 01:13:13,258
In the middle of July,

1552
01:13:13,345 --> 01:13:15,086
with nothing else going on,

1553
01:13:15,173 --> 01:13:16,609
we put it out there.

1554
01:13:16,696 --> 01:13:20,134
Not really knowing

1555
01:13:20,221 --> 01:13:22,136
that it would be
as big as it did.

1556
01:13:22,223 --> 01:13:24,138
We drove that traffic

1557
01:13:24,225 --> 01:13:26,358
to shopping centers
around the world.

1558
01:13:26,445 --> 01:13:30,449
-[alarm buzzing]
-[Chris Hurt] I was at--
I was actually in bed,

1559
01:13:30,536 --> 01:13:32,843
about two in the morning,
but my phone rang.

1560
01:13:32,930 --> 01:13:34,497
It's a call from the UK.

1561
01:13:34,584 --> 01:13:37,282
I'm like, "Hello?"
And he's like, "Chris,

1562
01:13:37,369 --> 01:13:40,546
there are lines all the way
outside of the mall!"

1563
01:13:40,633 --> 01:13:42,679
I'm like, "Okay."

1564
01:13:42,766 --> 01:13:44,724
Now, in retail,
especially in the field,

1565
01:13:44,811 --> 01:13:46,857
we-- we're not afraid
to embellish a little bit.

1566
01:13:46,944 --> 01:13:49,120
"Define 'line
outside the mall.'"

1567
01:13:49,207 --> 01:13:52,689
He's like, "Chris, literally
the line is outside the mall.

1568
01:13:52,776 --> 01:13:54,342
It's into the parking lot."

1569
01:13:54,430 --> 01:13:57,694
And I had to hear it

1570
01:13:57,781 --> 01:13:59,304
a couple of times,

1571
01:13:59,391 --> 01:14:02,873
and then did
a little Google search

1572
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:05,876
to see that what
they were saying was true.

1573
01:14:05,963 --> 01:14:08,095
[announcer] Build-A-Bear
may have had its first clue,

1574
01:14:08,182 --> 01:14:10,184
when posts like this
started hitting Twitter.

1575
01:14:10,271 --> 01:14:11,882
In England,
mums are starting to turn.

1576
01:14:11,969 --> 01:14:14,145
This one read,
"The end is nigh."

1577
01:14:14,232 --> 01:14:17,409
We went... [gasps]
..."This is really happening."

1578
01:14:17,496 --> 01:14:22,066
Well, good morning, everybody!
Are we ready?

1579
01:14:22,153 --> 01:14:24,764
The saying goes, "If you
build it, they will come."

1580
01:14:24,851 --> 01:14:26,810
Today, here in Douglasville,
it's more like,

1581
01:14:26,897 --> 01:14:28,551
"If you let them
build it at a really good
price,

1582
01:14:28,638 --> 01:14:30,074
a whole lot of 'em
will show up."

1583
01:14:30,161 --> 01:14:33,381
We started to see
people lining up,

1584
01:14:33,469 --> 01:14:35,122
on the East Coast,

1585
01:14:35,209 --> 01:14:38,561
and decided to push out

1586
01:14:38,648 --> 01:14:42,478
some social media
on "Don't come to Build-A-Bear."

1587
01:14:42,565 --> 01:14:45,350
I mean,
that's not anything you ever
think you're going to do.

1588
01:14:45,437 --> 01:14:47,526
[announcer] "Per local
authorities, we cannot accept

1589
01:14:47,613 --> 01:14:49,920
additional guests
at our locations."

1590
01:14:50,007 --> 01:14:51,704
However, the event
had already drawn crowds

1591
01:14:51,791 --> 01:14:53,401
all around the country.

1592
01:14:53,489 --> 01:14:55,186
In Arizona, Washington,

1593
01:14:55,273 --> 01:14:59,016
-Florida, New York.
-It's been a struggle.

1594
01:14:59,103 --> 01:15:01,801
It was our-- it was--
Of course, we were getting calls

1595
01:15:01,888 --> 01:15:04,282
from media outlets
all over the country.

1596
01:15:04,369 --> 01:15:07,415
It was almost like
you could see as stores opened

1597
01:15:07,503 --> 01:15:10,331
across the country, right,
'cause East coast opened first,

1598
01:15:10,418 --> 01:15:12,464
so the calls would come
from the East coast.

1599
01:15:12,551 --> 01:15:14,074
And then
it'd come through, like,

1600
01:15:14,161 --> 01:15:15,989
"Oh, well, it--
We opened in Indiana.

1601
01:15:16,076 --> 01:15:18,644
Okay, oops, we're--
Made it to Missouri."

1602
01:15:18,731 --> 01:15:21,429
The news kept getting bigger,
and bigger, and bigger,

1603
01:15:21,517 --> 01:15:24,345
and the media kept,
you know, hyping and hyping.

1604
01:15:24,432 --> 01:15:27,740
[reporter] You have
got to take a look at this
breaking Build-A-Bear news.

1605
01:15:27,827 --> 01:15:30,047
Thousands of people
across the country today

1606
01:15:30,134 --> 01:15:32,876
got to the malls early,
they stood in line for hours,

1607
01:15:32,963 --> 01:15:36,575
-all for stuffed animals.
-[announcer 2] It felt like
the Black Fridays of old.

1608
01:15:36,662 --> 01:15:38,969
We're told there
was just too much interest,

1609
01:15:39,056 --> 01:15:41,406
and they had to cancel the
event
because of safety concerns.

1610
01:15:41,493 --> 01:15:44,757
I mean,
this was a difficult scenario

1611
01:15:44,844 --> 01:15:47,281
for the folks at the stores.

1612
01:15:47,368 --> 01:15:49,414
[store clerk] Our line ended up
going outside of the mall,

1613
01:15:49,501 --> 01:15:51,634
and it wrapped
around the mall building.

1614
01:15:51,721 --> 01:15:55,289
It was very long, people
waited for hours, and then--

1615
01:15:55,376 --> 01:15:59,119
very upset
when they couldn't get in.
Um, but it was very intense.

1616
01:15:59,206 --> 01:16:01,382
We actually ended up
getting shut down
because of it.

1617
01:16:01,469 --> 01:16:04,342
-What went wrong?
-Do you feel that you owe an
apology

1618
01:16:04,429 --> 01:16:06,736
-to those people
who stood in line?
-Well, absolutely, I mean,

1619
01:16:06,823 --> 01:16:09,086
that, that is not
what we are about.

1620
01:16:09,173 --> 01:16:12,002
I guess the takeaway is,
"Don't promise
what you can't deliver."

1621
01:16:12,089 --> 01:16:14,134
Also, in a day
and age of iPhones

1622
01:16:14,221 --> 01:16:16,876
and fancy video games,
the good old-fashioned

1623
01:16:16,963 --> 01:16:19,575
teddy bear
still gets people out.

1624
01:16:19,662 --> 01:16:21,794
Well, look,
you know, it's funny.

1625
01:16:21,881 --> 01:16:24,754
Businesses come up with ideas

1626
01:16:24,841 --> 01:16:26,843
that you look
back in hindsight, and you go,

1627
01:16:26,930 --> 01:16:29,367
"What were they thinking?"

1628
01:16:29,454 --> 01:16:33,414
The fact that, you know, little
Build-A-Bear could virtually

1629
01:16:33,501 --> 01:16:35,852
shut down all the malls
in the United States,

1630
01:16:35,939 --> 01:16:38,332
there's no way
we could have predicted that.

1631
01:16:38,419 --> 01:16:42,772
I mean, when was
the last time there was chaos
in the malls when, like...

1632
01:16:42,859 --> 01:16:45,209
Backstreet Boys were performing?
[laughs]

1633
01:16:45,296 --> 01:16:48,081
But I tell you what, everybody
heard about Build-A-Bear

1634
01:16:48,168 --> 01:16:50,736
at the end of that thing,
one way or the other.

1635
01:16:50,823 --> 01:16:53,217
People woke up to the fact
that Build-A-Bear

1636
01:16:53,304 --> 01:16:54,740
is around, right?

1637
01:16:54,827 --> 01:16:56,394
To a certain extent,
people were like,

1638
01:16:56,481 --> 01:16:58,135
"Oh, I remember
doing that as a kid."

1639
01:16:58,222 --> 01:17:01,747
But all of a sudden,
it was like, "What is goin' on?"

1640
01:17:01,834 --> 01:17:04,794
I think it was
an important milestone

1641
01:17:04,881 --> 01:17:09,189
that is part of why
we're thriving today.

1642
01:17:09,276 --> 01:17:12,889
The Birthday Treat Bear's
our best-selling product,

1643
01:17:12,976 --> 01:17:15,456
and it has been
since we launched that.

1644
01:17:15,543 --> 01:17:17,415
He's lookin' at the screen.

1645
01:17:17,502 --> 01:17:19,809
[Price John] We're glad that
the kids get to come in

1646
01:17:19,896 --> 01:17:22,028
on their most special day,
and pay their age

1647
01:17:22,115 --> 01:17:23,769
for the Birthday Treat Bear.

1648
01:17:23,856 --> 01:17:25,771
Oh, but by the way,
we did not sell out

1649
01:17:25,858 --> 01:17:27,425
of furry friends
that day, right?

1650
01:17:27,512 --> 01:17:29,775
It was just a matter
of the number of people

1651
01:17:29,862 --> 01:17:31,734
that we could put through,
because it takes

1652
01:17:31,821 --> 01:17:34,388
an amount of time
to stuff the animals.

1653
01:17:34,475 --> 01:17:36,303
So it wasn't an inventory thing,

1654
01:17:36,390 --> 01:17:39,742
it was-- You know,
just the-- the physical demand.

1655
01:17:40,307 --> 01:17:44,529
You know, we gotta start
makin' sandwiches.

1656
01:17:44,616 --> 01:17:48,707
You get a lot of orders
for sandwiches.

1657
01:17:48,794 --> 01:17:52,493
It is really extraordinary,
how often Build-A-Bear

1658
01:17:52,580 --> 01:17:55,801
is just referenced
constantly in pop culture.

1659
01:17:55,888 --> 01:17:58,804
[Wiggum humming]

1660
01:18:01,154 --> 01:18:04,070
[Wiggum laughs] Snow day!

1661
01:18:04,157 --> 01:18:05,550
This was my idea.

1662
01:18:05,637 --> 01:18:07,857
Honestly,
until this exact second,

1663
01:18:07,944 --> 01:18:10,381
-I thought you
were Build-A-Bear.
-[Rocket Raccoon] Maybe I am.

1664
01:18:10,468 --> 01:18:12,339
[Fry] Build-A-Bot Workshop.

1665
01:18:12,426 --> 01:18:13,906
[Wilde] Stuff-A-Bear.

1666
01:18:13,993 --> 01:18:15,255
[bear explodes]

1667
01:18:15,342 --> 01:18:17,388
-Ooh.
-[Gru] I don't think so.

1668
01:18:17,475 --> 01:18:19,738
Hey, Peter.
Ready to go to Build-A-Bear?

1669
01:18:19,825 --> 01:18:21,479
Sheldon, if you
don't like this stuff,

1670
01:18:21,566 --> 01:18:23,742
let's just go next door
and build her a bear.

1671
01:18:23,829 --> 01:18:27,964
Ye-- I told you before,
bears are terrifying.

1672
01:18:28,051 --> 01:18:31,968
As a pop culture icon,
to ourselves,

1673
01:18:32,055 --> 01:18:35,667
we were able
to mash up our brand

1674
01:18:35,754 --> 01:18:37,364
with other pop culture icons,

1675
01:18:37,451 --> 01:18:41,238
not just making
a replica of the product,

1676
01:18:41,325 --> 01:18:44,632
but things that had
never been made before.

1677
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:48,811
Like, it wasn't just us making
a stuffed Darth Vader,

1678
01:18:48,898 --> 01:18:52,553
it's us making
a Darth Vader bear.

1679
01:18:52,640 --> 01:18:55,600
It's a Frozenbear.

1680
01:18:55,687 --> 01:18:57,733
Elsa's a bear.

1681
01:18:57,820 --> 01:19:01,301
It's not that common,
that these brands

1682
01:19:01,388 --> 01:19:05,175
allow you to evolve
their own brand,

1683
01:19:05,262 --> 01:19:07,612
to be a part of yours.

1684
01:19:07,699 --> 01:19:10,528
But that's the kind of brand
Build-A-Bear is.

1685
01:19:10,615 --> 01:19:13,487
[narrating bear] Build-A-Bear
had survived the recession,

1686
01:19:13,574 --> 01:19:17,187
the decline of malls,
the retail apocalypse, Brexit.

1687
01:19:17,274 --> 01:19:21,104
It was on track to be more
successful than ever before.

1688
01:19:21,191 --> 01:19:25,412
And then, in 2020,

1689
01:19:25,499 --> 01:19:27,937
a whole new challenge appeared.

1690
01:19:29,939 --> 01:19:33,333
When we first found out about

1691
01:19:33,420 --> 01:19:37,207
this pending, um, situation,

1692
01:19:37,294 --> 01:19:40,645
uh, we, as many,

1693
01:19:40,732 --> 01:19:44,475
didn't believe it would be
as dramatic as it was.

1694
01:19:44,562 --> 01:19:46,564
I'll never forget,
I called Sharon, I said,

1695
01:19:46,651 --> 01:19:49,132
"Sharon, we're gonna have to
shut the stores down."

1696
01:19:50,524 --> 01:19:53,266
And within a matter of weeks,

1697
01:19:53,353 --> 01:19:56,966
we had furloughed
90% of the organization,

1698
01:19:57,531 --> 01:20:02,275
and we were having
daily calls on what to do.

1699
01:20:02,362 --> 01:20:04,974
How could Build-A-Bear
survive the pandemic,

1700
01:20:05,061 --> 01:20:08,194
knowing that everyone
thought of us as a place to go,

1701
01:20:08,281 --> 01:20:11,241
um, in a store,
when all of our doors,

1702
01:20:11,328 --> 01:20:13,852
um, and all of our
retail locations closed.

1703
01:20:13,939 --> 01:20:16,159
We had to quickly shift gears,

1704
01:20:16,246 --> 01:20:19,075
and so we went
from an indoor experience,

1705
01:20:19,162 --> 01:20:21,207
somewhere that you come to make

1706
01:20:21,294 --> 01:20:23,340
a personalized teddy bear,

1707
01:20:23,427 --> 01:20:27,170
to an experience
that's now, um, online.

1708
01:20:27,257 --> 01:20:29,346
And we looked at it

1709
01:20:29,433 --> 01:20:31,435
as it-- as it was.

1710
01:20:31,522 --> 01:20:34,090
As our only
viable revenue stream.

1711
01:20:34,177 --> 01:20:36,222
But over the entire company,

1712
01:20:36,309 --> 01:20:38,355
it was this can-do attitude.

1713
01:20:38,442 --> 01:20:41,445
It was,
"How do we make this happen?

1714
01:20:41,532 --> 01:20:43,403
How can we do it safe,

1715
01:20:43,490 --> 01:20:45,318
and keep--
and keep the company going?"

1716
01:20:45,405 --> 01:20:48,626
I just said to the team,
I'm like, "Look.

1717
01:20:48,713 --> 01:20:50,758
I don't know what the path is,

1718
01:20:50,846 --> 01:20:53,457
but I can tell you, we have one.

1719
01:20:54,719 --> 01:20:56,112
We have mapped a path,

1720
01:20:56,199 --> 01:20:59,550
so this is possible.

1721
01:20:59,637 --> 01:21:02,379
And all we need is possible."

1722
01:21:02,466 --> 01:21:04,598
Between us, though,
I mean, Dorrie knows this.

1723
01:21:04,685 --> 01:21:07,340
That possible path...

1724
01:21:07,427 --> 01:21:12,824
was about as narrow-- It was
like, this needed to happen,
then this needed to happen,

1725
01:21:12,911 --> 01:21:15,740
this needed to happen,
that needed to happen,
that needed to not happen,

1726
01:21:15,827 --> 01:21:18,047
and this-- But there was a path.

1727
01:21:18,134 --> 01:21:20,919
We were in a really
interesting position.

1728
01:21:21,006 --> 01:21:27,839
We had announced
to our guests that we were
going to be offering Grogu,

1729
01:21:27,926 --> 01:21:29,493
sometimes known as Baby Yoda.

1730
01:21:29,580 --> 01:21:31,669
Build-A-Bear Workshop debuts

1731
01:21:31,756 --> 01:21:33,801
its long-awaited
plush Baby Yoda.

1732
01:21:33,889 --> 01:21:35,803
How hot is this toy right now?

1733
01:21:35,891 --> 01:21:37,893
When we knew when we were
gonna get it, I was like,

1734
01:21:37,980 --> 01:21:40,808
"This is gonna be big," 'cause
it's the cutest little thing.

1735
01:21:40,896 --> 01:21:43,115
This is
the Build-A-Bear Baby Yoda.

1736
01:21:43,202 --> 01:21:45,465
-[plush squeals]
-What?

1737
01:21:45,552 --> 01:21:48,512
And there was a tremendous
amount of anticipation for that.

1738
01:21:48,599 --> 01:21:51,210
[audience aww-ing]

1739
01:21:51,297 --> 01:21:53,909
-I know.
-It's gonna be best-seller.

1740
01:21:53,996 --> 01:21:57,564
Hitting the stores this spring.

1741
01:21:57,651 --> 01:22:00,611
We have
all of this inventory there,

1742
01:22:00,698 --> 01:22:03,396
and we knew, once we put Grogu

1743
01:22:03,483 --> 01:22:05,268
live on our website,

1744
01:22:05,355 --> 01:22:07,705
that it would sell

1745
01:22:07,792 --> 01:22:10,012
at an incredible velocity,

1746
01:22:10,099 --> 01:22:13,493
and so we had to
prepare ourselves for that.

1747
01:22:13,580 --> 01:22:16,453
Well, our warehouse
can only handle stuffing

1748
01:22:16,540 --> 01:22:18,411
so many orders a day.

1749
01:22:18,498 --> 01:22:22,024
We hired back
many of our bear-builders

1750
01:22:22,111 --> 01:22:24,330
who have been furloughed,
and we brought in

1751
01:22:24,417 --> 01:22:28,465
stuffing machines to create
what we called the nursery.

1752
01:22:28,552 --> 01:22:31,859
It was truly
an extraordinary moment.

1753
01:22:31,947 --> 01:22:34,210
There he is, yes.

1754
01:22:34,297 --> 01:22:35,733
Oh, my goodness.

1755
01:22:36,516 --> 01:22:40,477
Thousands and thousands
and thousands
and thousands of these.

1756
01:22:40,564 --> 01:22:43,567
In many ways, Baby Yoda
was such a pivotal part

1757
01:22:43,654 --> 01:22:45,569
of getting through the pandemic.

1758
01:22:45,656 --> 01:22:49,268
We were able to make
a lot of people happy

1759
01:22:49,355 --> 01:22:53,490
at a time when
it mattered more than ever.

1760
01:22:53,577 --> 01:22:55,361
An important furry friend,

1761
01:22:55,448 --> 01:22:57,885
as we like to say for--
for Build-A-Bear. [chuckles]

1762
01:22:57,973 --> 01:23:00,758
During COVID, there was
the South Parkspecial

1763
01:23:00,845 --> 01:23:05,154
about COVID that's clearly,
you know, more appropriate
for an older audience.

1764
01:23:05,241 --> 01:23:08,070
[Butters] Hey, Dad.
You think maybe we could
go to Build-A-Bear today?

1765
01:23:08,157 --> 01:23:11,029
[Mr. Stotch]
Butters, for the last time,
you can't go to Build-A-Bear!

1766
01:23:11,116 --> 01:23:14,380
I think one of the things
that was most extraordinary
about that

1767
01:23:14,467 --> 01:23:17,427
was that in the storyline,

1768
01:23:17,514 --> 01:23:22,171
Build-A-Bear was the example
of what returning to normal was.

1769
01:23:22,258 --> 01:23:24,303
[Marsh] Butters, Butters. Look!

1770
01:23:24,390 --> 01:23:26,392
[Butters] Whoa!

1771
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:28,481
[Price John]
And that's pretty amazing.

1772
01:23:31,136 --> 01:23:34,618
[narrating bear]
Now, this is my favorite part.

1773
01:23:34,705 --> 01:23:37,012
Oh, hi, there, Curly.

1774
01:23:37,882 --> 01:23:40,189
Hi. How are you doing? Yeah.

1775
01:23:40,276 --> 01:23:42,452
["I'm Yours" by
Build-A-Bear Kids playing]

1776
01:23:46,978 --> 01:23:48,936
[chuckling] I love it.

1777
01:23:49,937 --> 01:23:51,504
Oh, yay.

1778
01:23:53,376 --> 01:23:56,814
Aww. Cute.

1779
01:23:57,684 --> 01:24:00,209
♪ I fell right
Through the cracks ♪

1780
01:24:00,296 --> 01:24:02,385
♪ And now
I'm trying to get back ♪

1781
01:24:02,472 --> 01:24:04,517
What do you want me to do with
this thing? Do I hold it?

1782
01:24:04,604 --> 01:24:06,041
[laughing]

1783
01:24:06,128 --> 01:24:09,348
Wow! Huh. Very nice.

1784
01:24:09,435 --> 01:24:10,828
♪ Divine intervention ♪

1785
01:24:10,915 --> 01:24:12,177
♪ I reckon it's again my turn ♪

1786
01:24:12,264 --> 01:24:13,526
Is that a Build-A-Bear?

1787
01:24:13,613 --> 01:24:15,093
Thank you!

1788
01:24:15,180 --> 01:24:17,313
♪ Or learn some ♪

1789
01:24:17,400 --> 01:24:19,880
♪ But I won't hesitate... ♪

1790
01:24:19,967 --> 01:24:22,535
This isn't
a Build-A-Bear, is it?
It is a Build-A-Bear?

1791
01:24:22,622 --> 01:24:25,190
I've never built one.
How'd they build it?

1792
01:24:25,277 --> 01:24:28,324
See, they're always
so flexible and cuddly.

1793
01:24:28,411 --> 01:24:30,674
And they're not
hard to figure out, you know,

1794
01:24:30,761 --> 01:24:34,286
like a computer game, or,
you know, something that
you have to put together.

1795
01:24:34,373 --> 01:24:38,029
They're already kind of put
together, and so you get just
to look at them, and hug them,

1796
01:24:38,116 --> 01:24:40,336
and love them,
and smile at them, and--

1797
01:24:40,423 --> 01:24:43,469
Cool. [chuckles]

1798
01:24:43,556 --> 01:24:45,950
This is great. My little buddy.

1799
01:24:46,037 --> 01:24:48,344
I mean, it's just so delicious.

1800
01:24:48,431 --> 01:24:49,736
How do you not love, like,

1801
01:24:49,823 --> 01:24:52,957
a little stuffed thing.

1802
01:24:53,044 --> 01:24:55,786
This is good, this is a good
little cuddly guy right here.

1803
01:24:55,873 --> 01:24:57,744
It's-- I feel like
takin' a nap now.

1804
01:24:57,831 --> 01:25:00,617
♪ Listen to the moment
People dance and sing ♪

1805
01:25:00,704 --> 01:25:03,402
♪ We're just one big family ♪

1806
01:25:03,489 --> 01:25:05,535
♪ And it's our
God-ordained right ♪

1807
01:25:05,622 --> 01:25:10,496
♪ To be loved, loved
Loved, loved, loved ♪

1808
01:25:10,583 --> 01:25:13,282
-Sorry.
-[vocalizes, chuckles]

1809
01:25:13,369 --> 01:25:15,371
It's gonna do,
like, a breakdance.

1810
01:25:15,458 --> 01:25:16,894
♪ But I won't hesitate... ♪

1811
01:25:16,981 --> 01:25:18,287
I like teddy bears.

1812
01:25:18,374 --> 01:25:19,940
You know, it's--
Isn't that funny?

1813
01:25:20,027 --> 01:25:21,855
You see babies,
and you go, "Aww,"

1814
01:25:21,942 --> 01:25:23,901
and you see like,
little puppies, and it's, "Aww,"

1815
01:25:23,988 --> 01:25:25,990
and then you get a little bear,
and it's "Aww!"

1816
01:25:26,077 --> 01:25:28,645
And they're so soft. Hi!

1817
01:25:28,732 --> 01:25:31,648
There's always love for a bear.
I mean, doesn't it just
sort of-- I just--

1818
01:25:31,735 --> 01:25:33,432
everybody just squeezes it.

1819
01:25:33,519 --> 01:25:35,782
I think I need a tutu on him.

1820
01:25:35,869 --> 01:25:37,132
I mean, that's fun!

1821
01:25:37,219 --> 01:25:39,308
He's-- he's a cutie-pie.

1822
01:25:39,395 --> 01:25:40,744
Oops!

1823
01:25:42,659 --> 01:25:44,704
Can't go without your boots.

1824
01:25:46,141 --> 01:25:49,448
There's always some sentiment
to toys and things that
you collect, and I just,

1825
01:25:49,535 --> 01:25:51,929
as an almost 50-year-old man,
don't wanna start crying

1826
01:25:52,016 --> 01:25:53,887
about-- about it,
about having a teddy bear.

1827
01:25:53,974 --> 01:25:56,629
I don't know, just being able
to have a connection like this,

1828
01:25:56,716 --> 01:26:00,285
and hug it, and squeeze it,
and cry, and like,

1829
01:26:00,372 --> 01:26:03,114
all of the emotions that you can
go through with a teddy bear.

1830
01:26:03,201 --> 01:26:05,856
It's the best thing
that you could ever ask for.

1831
01:26:07,249 --> 01:26:10,687
Bye! [laughs] I'll miss you.

1832
01:26:10,774 --> 01:26:14,952
♪ Oh, I'm yours ♪

1833
01:26:15,039 --> 01:26:16,345
Don't leave me!

1834
01:26:16,432 --> 01:26:19,174
♪ Oh, you believe I'm yours ♪

1835
01:26:19,261 --> 01:26:21,567
[narrating bear]
So, how did Build-A-Bear

1836
01:26:21,654 --> 01:26:24,918
manage to survive
all these years?

1837
01:26:25,005 --> 01:26:27,443
Maybe it's because Build-A-Bear

1838
01:26:27,530 --> 01:26:31,098
was never really
just a toy store after all.

1839
01:26:31,186 --> 01:26:33,188
You have
this relationship, not just

1840
01:26:33,275 --> 01:26:35,451
with the store itself,
but with the people.

1841
01:26:35,538 --> 01:26:38,236
But especially with the feeling
of what this brings.

1842
01:26:38,323 --> 01:26:40,717
Well, here's the thing,
it's like, when you go shopping

1843
01:26:40,804 --> 01:26:43,633
at a store,
you're buying a thing.

1844
01:26:43,720 --> 01:26:45,330
When you're going
to Build-A-Bear,

1845
01:26:45,417 --> 01:26:47,419
you're having an experience.

1846
01:26:48,290 --> 01:26:50,466
I think the reason
that Build-A-Bear resonates

1847
01:26:50,553 --> 01:26:53,599
for so many people
is because they were--

1848
01:26:53,686 --> 01:26:56,863
they weren't making a bear,
they're actually
making memories.

1849
01:26:56,950 --> 01:26:58,996
It was somebody's birthday,
somebody's anniversary.

1850
01:26:59,083 --> 01:27:00,606
I mean,
there were so many things,

1851
01:27:00,693 --> 01:27:02,086
it wasn't really about the bear,

1852
01:27:02,173 --> 01:27:03,522
and I think
that's the part that--

1853
01:27:03,609 --> 01:27:05,437
We became
part of family memories,

1854
01:27:05,524 --> 01:27:07,178
so people can still be telling

1855
01:27:07,265 --> 01:27:09,224
their stories,
so you can't sell that.

1856
01:27:09,311 --> 01:27:11,051
You can't manufacture that.

1857
01:27:11,138 --> 01:27:13,358
I think that
in my time at Build-A-Bear,

1858
01:27:13,445 --> 01:27:16,187
the one thing I would be
most proud of is the fact

1859
01:27:16,274 --> 01:27:18,711
that Build-A-Bear
is going to live

1860
01:27:18,798 --> 01:27:20,626
for another generation.

1861
01:27:20,713 --> 01:27:22,149
Because at the end of the day,

1862
01:27:22,237 --> 01:27:25,501
the need for that teddy bear,

1863
01:27:25,588 --> 01:27:28,112
that teddy bear hug,
that connection,

1864
01:27:28,199 --> 01:27:31,768
is as important,
maybe more important than ever,

1865
01:27:31,855 --> 01:27:36,033
as we become
more and more digital,
and I'm really proud of that.

1866
01:27:36,120 --> 01:27:38,296
I'm proud that this company
and these teddy bears

1867
01:27:38,383 --> 01:27:40,733
are still gonna be there.

1868
01:27:40,820 --> 01:27:43,997
You know, we have this saying,
"Once a bear, always a bear."

1869
01:27:44,084 --> 01:27:48,045
And we have a lot of bears
out there, in the human form.

1870
01:27:48,132 --> 01:27:50,177
And, uh, we made
a lot of best friends,

1871
01:27:50,265 --> 01:27:53,659
not only furry,
but also human best friends.

1872
01:27:53,746 --> 01:27:58,403
Which is probably the most
significant part of my life.

1873
01:27:58,490 --> 01:28:00,405
And meeting Maxine.

1874
01:28:00,492 --> 01:28:02,581
It seems like just yesterday
I was standing

1875
01:28:02,668 --> 01:28:04,888
at the ribbon cutting
at the St. Louis Galleria.

1876
01:28:04,975 --> 01:28:07,194
Boy, have we grown.

1877
01:28:07,282 --> 01:28:09,719
But, you know,
you forget all the little
changes that you've made.

1878
01:28:09,806 --> 01:28:12,069
You just remember the day
that you stood in line,

1879
01:28:12,156 --> 01:28:15,202
and all these customers
came pouring in the door.

1880
01:28:15,290 --> 01:28:18,205
Sorry, it is
an emotional experience.

1881
01:28:18,293 --> 01:28:22,297
To see that 25 years
and 200-plus million children

1882
01:28:22,384 --> 01:28:24,168
have made bears in our company

1883
01:28:24,255 --> 01:28:27,040
and have a memory
that's like that,

1884
01:28:27,127 --> 01:28:30,261
that's a gift that
you can't really imagine.

1885
01:28:30,348 --> 01:28:33,133
You know, I don't know
what life would be
without Build-A-Bear,

1886
01:28:33,220 --> 01:28:35,832
and I hope they don't know
what life would be
without Build-A-Bear,

1887
01:28:35,919 --> 01:28:38,530
and that Build-A-Bear
will be here,
you know, for a long time.

1888
01:28:38,617 --> 01:28:42,447
And I try to encourage as many
entrepreneurs as I possibly can
to build their dream too.

1889
01:28:42,534 --> 01:28:45,581
Because I didn't dream this.
It evolved.

1890
01:28:45,668 --> 01:28:49,106
And so you don't ever know
what's possible
until you give it a try,

1891
01:28:49,193 --> 01:28:51,500
and so Build-A-Bear
is about giving it a try,

1892
01:28:51,587 --> 01:28:53,545
whether it's a stuffed animal,
or a business.

1893
01:28:53,632 --> 01:28:55,982
There's a million ways
to-- to be thankful,

1894
01:28:56,069 --> 01:28:58,768
right now, about building
a company that's come

1895
01:28:58,855 --> 01:29:01,945
to this point in its life
and has so much further to go.

1896
01:29:04,426 --> 01:29:06,036
[applause, cheering]

1897
01:29:06,123 --> 01:29:09,213
Whoo! Whoa!

1898
01:29:09,300 --> 01:29:11,998
You-- you guys are back!

1899
01:29:12,085 --> 01:29:15,741
Look, you-- you know, when
I was a kid, I always used to
tell jokes to my teddy bears,

1900
01:29:15,828 --> 01:29:18,222
and it would be a dream
come true if I could...

1901
01:29:18,309 --> 01:29:21,051
tell some jokes for you guys?
Yeah? Okay.

1902
01:29:23,836 --> 01:29:26,970
All right, okay, bears.

1903
01:29:27,057 --> 01:29:31,061
[clears throat] Um, so,
uh, what do you bears, uh--

1904
01:29:31,148 --> 01:29:35,021
what do you bears think
the employee discount is
at the dollar store?

1905
01:29:36,283 --> 01:29:38,068
You ever think about that?

1906
01:29:38,634 --> 01:29:42,115
You think it might just be, uh,
"just take it"? [chuckles]

1907
01:29:42,202 --> 01:29:44,204
[murmuring]

1908
01:29:44,291 --> 01:29:46,511
No?

1909
01:29:46,598 --> 01:29:48,687
[narrating bear]
Hey, do the bear jokes!

1910
01:29:48,774 --> 01:29:52,125
Um, people--
It's not a fair stereotype.

1911
01:29:52,212 --> 01:29:54,911
People say bears
love honey, huh?

1912
01:29:54,998 --> 01:29:56,869
"Oh, look at those bears,
they love honey."

1913
01:29:56,956 --> 01:29:58,480
Doesn't everybody love honey?

1914
01:29:58,567 --> 01:30:00,743
-[laughter]
-Right?

1915
01:30:00,830 --> 01:30:03,963
I mean, who do you give honey,
and they're like,
"Oh, no thanks.

1916
01:30:04,050 --> 01:30:07,053
-What-- what,
do you think I'm a bear?"
-[laughter]

1917
01:30:07,140 --> 01:30:09,316
"I'm a maple syrup guy."
Get outta here.

1918
01:30:09,404 --> 01:30:11,580
Yeah, I mean, this guy knows
what I'm talking about.

1919
01:30:11,667 --> 01:30:17,455
-[laughter]
-[narrating bear
laughing loudly]

1920
01:30:17,542 --> 01:30:20,937
I-- I feel like bears
are better than human beings.
Bears should rule the world.

1921
01:30:21,024 --> 01:30:23,156
I'm not just saying that
to "panda" to you.

1922
01:30:23,243 --> 01:30:26,290
-[laughter]
-Well, did you know that
a bear has enough, uh, strength

1923
01:30:26,377 --> 01:30:29,772
in its jaw to bite
through a bowling ball?

1924
01:30:29,859 --> 01:30:34,341
I looked it up, that's true.
Cut to me cutting my tooth
on a very stale pistachio.

1925
01:30:34,429 --> 01:30:36,343
[laughter]

1926
01:30:36,431 --> 01:30:38,650
You guys are better,
is what I'm saying.

1927
01:30:38,737 --> 01:30:41,827
-[laughter]
-Ah, grizzly bears.
Any grizzlies?

1928
01:30:41,914 --> 01:30:44,090
Roar if you're--
if you're a grizzly.

1929
01:30:44,177 --> 01:30:47,485
-[bear] Roar!
-Grizzly bears can actually
run 40 miles per hour.

1930
01:30:47,572 --> 01:30:50,836
That's as fast as a greyhound.
We race greyhounds.

1931
01:30:50,923 --> 01:30:53,491
-Why aren't we
raising grizzly bears?
-[laughter]

1932
01:30:53,578 --> 01:30:55,798
Probably because
a greyhound won't hop the fence

1933
01:30:55,885 --> 01:30:58,017
and maul a woman
for her Cracker Jacks.

1934
01:30:58,104 --> 01:31:01,238
[laughter]

1935
01:31:02,631 --> 01:31:04,502
Who are you talkin' to?

1936
01:31:07,113 --> 01:31:09,420
[whimsical music playing]

1937
01:31:18,516 --> 01:31:21,127
Hey, Pete.
Did you forget somethin'?

1938
01:31:28,657 --> 01:31:29,875
[Holmes] Marty?

1939
01:31:29,962 --> 01:31:35,228
[♪]

1940
01:31:39,276 --> 01:31:40,886
[Marty] I love you, Pete.

1941
01:31:40,973 --> 01:31:42,758
You're my best friend.

1942
01:31:42,845 --> 01:31:45,717
["Build-A-Bear Theme"
by Timmy Tappan playing]

1943
01:31:50,330 --> 01:31:54,073
♪ Build a bear ♪

1944
01:31:57,424 --> 01:32:00,863
♪ Build a bear
At the Build-A-Bear Workshop ♪

1945
01:32:00,950 --> 01:32:04,344
♪ Where there's
A bear for everyone ♪

1946
01:32:04,431 --> 01:32:08,174
♪ Here a bear, there a bear
Everywhere a bear, bear ♪

1947
01:32:08,261 --> 01:32:11,961
♪ You're gonna have some fun ♪

1948
01:32:12,048 --> 01:32:15,355
♪ Choose me
Stuff me, stitch me up ♪

1949
01:32:15,442 --> 01:32:19,403
♪ Fluff me, dress me
Fill me with love ♪

1950
01:32:19,490 --> 01:32:24,234
♪ You'll never be alone
When you take me home ♪

1951
01:32:24,321 --> 01:32:26,932
♪ Oh, won't you take me home ♪

1952
01:32:27,019 --> 01:32:30,457
♪ There's a bear
At the Build-A-Bear Workshop ♪

1953
01:32:30,545 --> 01:32:33,635
♪ Just waiting for you ♪

1954
01:32:33,722 --> 01:32:37,247
♪ Big bear, little bear
There's a funny bunny there ♪

1955
01:32:37,334 --> 01:32:40,946
♪ All kinds of friends
For you to choose ♪

1956
01:32:41,033 --> 01:32:44,297
♪ Sing together
And play all day ♪

1957
01:32:44,384 --> 01:32:47,823
♪ So think real hard
Give me a name ♪

1958
01:32:47,910 --> 01:32:50,477
♪ Won't you give me a name? ♪

1959
01:32:50,565 --> 01:32:55,874
[♪]

1960
01:33:19,898 --> 01:33:21,421
[girl] My bear is special.

1961
01:33:21,508 --> 01:33:22,858
I brought it to life.

1962
01:33:22,945 --> 01:33:24,729
I chose it, I stuffed it,

1963
01:33:24,816 --> 01:33:26,775
and now I'm taking it home!

1964
01:33:26,862 --> 01:33:30,039
Best friends are forever,
so I promise right now

1965
01:33:30,126 --> 01:33:32,563
to make my bear
my number one pal.

1966
01:33:32,650 --> 01:33:35,087
[narrating bear]
Bye, everybody. Goodbye!