Look away now children, because the truth is stranger than fiction; one of your most loved young friends was once just a humble white bath-mat.
Forty-five years ago Constable Kenny Koala was first stitched together from the fluffiest material to hand in order to make his debut alongside the federal Commissioner at the time, Sir Colin Woods.
And as the story goes, Constable Kenny's attractiveness to a police dog, eager to sink sizeable teeth into this strange albino-like artifice, nearly caused the concept's early demise.
Yet one of ACT Policing's most enduring officers somehow managed to both survive that early chomping encounter and prosper in the decades to follow, visiting a record 27,000 school children throughout the ACT in 2019.
Sadly, just as he reached the heights of his popularity, this feltball of rapid career momentum hit a roadblock in the guise of a national coronavirus pandemic.
It's a tough break for the beloved bug-eared officer, who has barely progressed to Leading Senior Constable despite a long and storied police career.
Like many of us, he is now confined to the online space, where he can offer only virtual safety messages and advice until he receives the official go-ahead from ACT Education to return to the classrooms.
"It is really unfortunate, but what can you do?" Constable Kenny's "handler" David Packwood said.
"Kenny gets about Canberra so much - toward the end of last year we were going to four or five schools and talking to eight classes a day - that from the police and the Education directorate's perspective the risk, however tiny, was not worth taking."
Three years ago, the gravel-voiced long-serving Constable Kenny handler Stewart Waters handed - literally - the job over to David Packwood, who unconsciously mimicked the same delivery style as his predecessor to maintain the continuity.
Unsworn police officer Packwood's career has spanned the media - for many years he was best known as the well-informed radio voice on the sidelines at Canberra Raiders' matches - the Australian institute of Sport and its drug-testing agency, but says that being Kenny's human pal is the most satisfying job he's ever had.
"It's a bit like what most uniformed police say when you ask them why they joined up; they do it to make a difference," he said.
"What I've always wanted to do, in everything I've done, is to make a difference," he said.
"And this role really, honestly, does that.
"This is all about talking to kids, using Constable Kenny as that way of connecting with young kids and giving them those simple, important messages that might keep them out of trouble, or even save a life."
Late last year a mother thanked him profusely after an incident at the Belconnen Mall when she was using an ATM, looked away for a short time, and her child had gone missing.
"She told me her heart sank," he said.
Five minutes later, she heard a voice over the mall's loudspeaker system, asking her to come to the main information desk.
Her missing child had heeded Constable Kenny's message about the right people from whom to seek safety or refuge when lost or uncertain.
He says he loves to make the kids smile and laugh, and is genuinely delighted when parents come up and thank him for his work.
The repetitive opening and closing of Kenny's mouth for much of the day last year caused him the unexpected physical side-effect of carpal tunnel but minor surgery soon fixed the issue.
