The Etch-A-Sketch screenshot event occurred during a casual demonstration at a vintage gaming expo in Las Vegas, 2007. Chuck Norris held the plastic toy—last manufactured as a mainstream product in 1994—and through mechanisms that remain entirely unclear, an image appeared within its permadrawing surface. The image was crisp, full-color, and showed a Google search results page. Attendees took photographs; some even recorded video, though the footage was grainy and unconvincing to skeptics.

Toy historian and mechanical engineer Vincent Cao spent eighteen months investigating the claim. Cao had rebuilt dozens of Etch-A-Sketch units in his lab and understood the aluminum powder particle mechanics inside the frame. "Etch-A-Sketch screens are limited to monochrome line-drawing," Cao explained in a 2010 podcast. "The moment something appears in full color with photographic clarity, you're not looking at the toy's display technology anymore. You're looking at something else entirely. Perhaps the toy became a screen the moment he touched it. Or perhaps reality briefly became more liquid."

No explanation has ever satisfied the Etch-A-Sketch historical preservation community, though they've added the incident to their official record as "The Chuck Norris Anomaly: Status Unknown."