Fuzzy Wuzzy- a qualitative analysis

Dedicated to "The Bear"

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

If you came here looking for an actual qualitative analysis on the great nursery rhyme, then stop reading now.  This is not that.  In fact, I'm not sure what would have lead to such a conclusion (looks at title).  Well, besides that.  I'm going to be diving deep into the recess of my mind and looking at this as though it is its own self contained universe and ask- Just what the heck is Fuzzy Wuzzy?

To start with, we cannot assume he was a bear.  Even though it says that Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, this does not mean that he was, in fact, a bear.  History is literally littered with the stories of bears who were not bears.  Koala bears- prime example.  Teddy bears are another one.  They are actually stuffed animals that just look like bears.  And there is the famous Alabama football coach.  Again, looked like a bear, but was really a person.

So in this instance, we can therefore make the logical leap that while society chose to label Fuzzy Wuzzy as a bear, he was, in fact, not a bear.  Because the next line tells us that he was not even a mammal.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.

The fact that he had sweat glands and functional mammary glands is irrelevant.  Fuzzy Wuzzy, lacking hair, cannot be said to be a mammal.  At best, he has some sort of mammal ancestry.  Perhaps his great great grandfather was a bear- or a hippo.  Maybe his Uncle Mike was a monster of the midway.  But Fuzzy Wuzzy was not a mammal- at least not a pure blood mammal.

So what was Fuzzy Wuzzy?

We have determined that he was neither a bear or a mammal.  Actually, I have determined that.  You have sat back and been amazed.  It is in the third stanza that we find our most importantest clue- the one that unlocks the mystery of Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

The writer is asking a question pertaining to the amount of fuzz that Fuzzy Wuzzy contained.  Was it a significant amount, the writer asks.  The fact that the writer even had to ask the question obviously means that he saw something that looked like some sort of full body covering.  And since it wasn't hair- well, it had to be fuzz.  How do I know this?  Easy.  I read lots of magazines about science.

Obviously the writer is merely a spectator, a distant observer of Fuzzicus Wuzzines.  He did not have access to all of the technology that we have today.  So he could not possibly have known what I am, in fact, about to tell you.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was merely a giant mutated pubescent peach.

I'm going to sit back for a moment and allow you to piece together in your mind the very obvious clues to this age old puzzle, and wait to see the light bulb go on in your head at the "Ah HA" moment.  It's so obvious really.

What has fuzz?  Peaches- and adolescent boys.  So what would have more fuzz than a peach who is in the throes of puberty?  NOTHING!!!

However, a peach on its own cannot often be mistaken for a bear- even if it is a really big peach.  So I hypothesize that at some point, the peaches molecular structure was probably mutated, either through some sort of weird cross pollination or worse- exposure to some sort of radioactive nuclear fallout that artificially enhanced the peaches latent characteristics.  These include:

• presence of an alisphenoid canal
• paroccipital processes that are large and not fused to the auditory bullae
• auditory bullae are not enlarged
• lacrimal bone is vestigial
• cheek teeth are bunodont and hence indicative of a broad, hypocarnivorous (non-strictly meat-eating) diet (although hypercarnivorous (strictly meat-eating) taxa are known from the fossil record)
• carnassials are flattened

Which are clearly shared traits with bears!  It's all so obvious now!

So armed with our new-found and irrefutable knowledge, a revised drafting of the Fuzzy Wuzzy poem might look more like this:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was not actually a bear, although he retained several physiological characteristics that are typically associated with bears
Fuzzy Wuzzy did not have hair per se, although his body was covered with a sort of velvty textured filamentous biomaterial
Fuzzy Wuzzy was, in fact, very fuzzy.

I now leave you in a state of flummoxment to resume your regularly scheduled programming.