First, let me say that the advertisements made this show seem almost bland and run of the mill. That is to say, it almost seemed like a Regular Show clone, only there's three main characters instead of two. I was sure I had We Bare Bears figured out at that point. The bears do something annoying or cause some sort of trouble, and it leads into some random, crazy, and nonsensical hi-jinks that they have to either solve or get out of. It starts out small, like becoming making an internet video, and then snowballs into something ridiculous that sometimes manages to be entertaining.
As you can probably tell, I personally think Regular Show is overrated. Not bad, just overrated.
Well, as it turned out, after watching the first episode of We Bare Bears, I was greatly surprised. The actual show, unlike those brief commercials, does not remind me of Regular Show at all. Even the animation is slightly different in style, shading, and movement.
Do you want to know what this show really reminds me of?
Hanna-Barbera.
I'm serious.
But I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll come back to that comment later on.
The Intro
Let's start with a quick word on the intro By the way, props to the creators for actually having an intro. I'm looking right at you, Regular Show and Amazing World of Gumball! Although the theme song does fall in the short and brief category that most modern Cartoon Network cartoon theme songs have, I have to say that the song is catchy and kinda sweet. The lyrics encompass part of the tone this show will have: slightly cute and upbeat.
Now, I say part of the tone because the the rest of it is conveyed through the visuals. We see our main characters stacked up on top of each other (a running visual gag constant throughout the series) and walking through the world this show takes place in. They interact with their surroundings almost nonchalantly as they go on about their day/days. We can deduce that these bears are, at the very least, nice and generally well meaning. We even catch a glimpse of what we can assume to be the main antagonist (A koala bear! Genius!). Ending with them taking a selfie also sets the time era, and unashamedly admits that the modern world will have an effect on this world and its stories. This is very refreshing, because most cartoons today either focus more on magic (Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Adventure Time) or try pretend that this new modern technology doesn't exist or just doesn't matter (Regular Show, Clarence). Smart phones, laptops, and other pieces of technology can offer up a wealth of material for fun jokes or plots. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
One last thing, having a the name of a Pixar story artist like Daniel Chong on you show is worth bonus points.
The Story
Okay, now it's time for the actual plot.The first episode of a show must introduce the characters and the world as best a possible.
In terms of fulfilling that task, I am willing to say that We Bare Bears has the BEST first episode ever made. The first few minutes of the episode is able to tell us everything we need to know about the show. I am not exaggerating when I say that.
The first main sequence of the series consists of the bears playing basketball against a team of humans. This was an excellent way to show that in this world, three talking bears walking around the city isn't at all strange, and it eases us into the world by setting up the rules of this unique toon-reality.
Then we see each of the bears' objects, which actually helps us understand their personalities more than you would think. Grizz has a wallet, a normal object which cements him as the most normal and well rounded, as well as the leader of the trio. Panda has a smartphone, and his slightly dramatic comment he makes about it cements him as the socially awkward, shy, gentle, slightly immature, and nerdy/geeky type of character. Then we have Ice Bear.
Oh my gosh, thank Chong for Ice Bear
Ice Bear is the embodiment of the Comedic Non Sequitur. What does he put in the backpack? Ninja stars. Why? Because he's Ice Bear. He also only speaks in the third person, and when he does speak, it's only in short sentences. Why? Because he's Ice Bear. In the intro, there's a part where Ice Bear rides a cow, while holding pliers, while wearing a tiara, while wearing a sash that says "Honorable Mention." Why? Because he's Ice Bear!
He's random, but mind you, he's only random up to a point so as to not seem overly stupid. He's not very emotionally expressive and only speaks in a monotone, but he still does react to things and has varying facial expressions so that it's made clear he's an actual living character. He's pretty much the kind of character who's chill all the time (ha-ha) and marches to the beat of his own drum.
As you can probably tell, Ice Bear is my favorite bear.
As for the basketball game itself, I should probably compliment the homage to Harlem Globetrotters whistling song. It's unique and different enough to get us into the action on screen. Then we have the way the bears interact with each other during the game, which really does do a good job representing how they mesh during the show. It also shows their personalities very well. Ice Bear often does things that are either awesome are weird, Panda is excitable but often get nervous and has second thoughts, and Grizz is clearly the leader who easily goes too far.
What I find really refreshing is how innocent these characters are. What do they do after they finally get a basket after being thoroughly trounced by the other team? They celebrate and skip off of the court with cheers and are thoroughly and genuinely proud of each other for finally making a basket.
Grizz: "Good job, bros. I'm proud of you, I saw improvement, and I saw heart, and you can't teach heart."
What impressed me was that this was played completely straight. No satire, no jokes, no irony. The show actually tries to teach the "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" moral, and does it pretty well, I might add.
After that expertly done character introduction, we move into this episode's conflict: someone has stolen the bear's backpack with all their stuff in it. The show keeps Panda's freak out brief, knowing that holding on a freak out for any length of time isn't really good comedy. Rather, the show breaks up his freak out and serves it to us in bite-size pieces throughout the next few minutes, allowing the comedy of it to stay fresh and funny.
After the Police Are Useless Trope is fulfilled in a refreshingly understandable way considering the bears' state of utter panic, we get the beginning of a rather funny Running Gag.
Grizzly: "FBI! We're on a very important case. Take us everywhere a criminal would hang out. Now!"
I laughed SO hard at this the first time I saw it. Personally, I think it actually stands for Federal Bear Investigators in this case.
Normally, most cartoons would have this scheme work. But the show surprise me again by having the taxi driver kick the bears out. So they go into a diner to come up with a plan. Grizz makes a model of the crime scene, and we see that the animators know how to pay attention to detail. Check out the salt and pepper shakers!
We also get some really good Anime-style mugshots of the humans at the court from Panda. The gold is in the details.
After a chuckle-worthy skit with a snarky waitress ("FBI, lady!"), the bears head back to interrogate some pigeons (of course!), and we get some randomness from Ice Bear that does pertain to what's going on ("Meow!").
A pigeon picks out the culprit from Panda's mugshots, and the bears follow the bird in a chase scene that calls back to the intro. This being the first episode makes this an acceptable decision.
The next scene takes place in a library. What do they do at this library?
They reference Find My iPhone.
Sure, they call it Phone Finder, but we all know what it is.
This is what I was talking about. This show knows that this is the modern world, accepts it, and works it into the plot. It also adds some logic to the story. If you lost your phone, you'd use the internet to track it. Simple. Occam's Razor at its finest.
So the bears arrive at the general location of the phone, and then Grizz uses the rolled up paper as a telescope. A small detail showing how innocent these characters are. They find the suspect the pigeon picked out, and proceed to sneak into his apartment through the open window, "Ninja Style." Unfortunately, the basket game on TV causes them to blow their own cover, leading to a hilarious routine that's contrived in the best way possible. There's no way the basketball game on TV could match the game of backpack keep-away going on the apartment so perfectly, but we don't care because it's so funny.
Through the magic of toon-logic, Panda falls out of the window with the backpack, but then ends up on a ledge against the wall. Cartoons really need to remember that they're cartoons and defy the laws of physics again. No magic, no science, no explanation. Just break logic and be toony again.
The bears escape via the narrow ledge, but then discover that the police were called on them, and are completely surrounded by an angry mob. Then they discover that the yellow backpack they took wasn't theirs, and the expressions on Grizz's face are absolutely priceless. And to make matters worse, it turns out that the chaos the bears caused during their pigeon chase scene actually has consequences.
Now, if this were a show like Regular Show or Teen Titans GO!, this would be the part where the characters try to figure a way to escape, get out of getting punished, or pin the blame on someone else.
Okay, prepare to get your mind blown here, and keep in mind that this show does NOT have an E/I bug (educational and informational digital on-screen graphic) on it.
After hanging their heads in shame, Grizz speaks for the tearful Panda and silent Ice Bear and says that in the end, they were the criminals and that they must face the consequences for their actions.
You heard me right. A modern, network, non-educational cartoon show stars well meaning, morally sound characters that know how to accept responsibility for their actions and any consequences that come with them.
In an era of self-centered, egotistical slackers like Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Mordecai, and Rigby; I have to say that We Bare Bears is a well needed breath of fresh air.
Now, I'm actually not going to spoil the ending here. Some might call it a Deus Ex Machina, but then again, the ending only worked out like it did because the bears were willing to allow themselves to be arrested, albeit on their own sentimental terms. The ending also fits into the part weird, part normal world, considering no one finds talking bears weird.
Also, the running gag meets its quick, painless, and proper end.
So yeah, the ending is perfect, much like the rest of this first episode. The comedy, the characters, the story; everything is absolutely great. It's actual wholesome entertainment. And it's not an E/I show. And it's not by Disney (Okay, it is by a guy from Pixar, but still).
This is why it reminds me of the Hannah-Barbera cartoons. Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, Yogi Bear, etc. The family friendly, yet intelligently written humor hearkens back to the good old days of cartoons. In addition to that, we have the whole talking anthropomorphic animals in a human world that the humans don't see as anything special Trope. And one last element is how simply the bears are designed.
The bears are drawn pretty much identically, the only difference being their colors. Their eyes are just black dots, and they resemble chubby teddy bears more than actual bears. But this does not make their design bad. This is just the style of this show (Okay, it's also staying true to the design of the original web comic), and quite frankly, I think it works. Sometimes, keeping character design simple allow the writer to make the character's personalities shine through. We come to know the bears through the little thinks they do. Panda's the shy one with phone, Grizz is the confident one who occasionally gives lets out a growl to remind us that he's a grizzly bear, and Ice Bear is. . . well, he's Ice Bear. It's their simple character design that makes them so memorable. It also draw our attention to them whenever their eyes actually widen for whatever reason.
So, the first episode is perfect. Meaning that I can use it to test out rating methods. I could just give it 5 out of 5 stars or an A+.
Or, I could use the following rating system:
BearStack Rating
3 out of 3 bears
Panda (The Characters, Emotions, and Morals): This first episode introduces the dynamic of the three bears. We see that these three are really close and supportive of one another and make a great team. They really do act like and feel like true brothers. The supporting human characters are written well. The segway cop doesn't come off as too mean, the waitress plays an excellent straight-man to the bear's antics, and the cop at the end is everything a good cop should be. Also, the morals about "doing your best is better than winning" and "take responsibility for your actions" were very well done.
Ice Bear (The Comedy): Between Panda's sporadic freak outs, Ice Bear's randomness, Grizz's FBI running gag, and that slapstick filled chase scene; this episode clearly knows how to do good comedy.
Let me know what you think about my rating system. Please tell me if I missed anything.
Well, that was Episode One of We Bare Bears reviewed and analyzed, and I bid you a beary good day.
Ice Bear Quotes:
"Ice Bear has ninja stars."
"Ice Bear meant to do that."
"The backpack."
"My spare ninja stars."
"Ice Bear wants justice."
"Ice Bear needs latte."
"Ice Bear has a conspiracy theory."
"Ice Bear wants to get moving."
"Ice Bear bought these legally."
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