{"id":1173,"date":"2021-11-19T23:26:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T04:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2021-11-19T23:26:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T04:26:51","slug":"80s-cartoon-review-gummi-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=1173","title":{"rendered":"80&#8217;s Cartoon Review: Gummi Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you grew up in the 80&#8217;s and loved television (howdy, fellow Gen-X&#8217;ers!), there&#8217;s a decent chance you watched Adventures of the Gummi Bears. If you weren&#8217;t savvy and determined enough to record live TV on VHS tapes, this show has faded into the mists of your 80&#8217;s childhood nostalgia, along with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reebok.com\/us\/blog\/303124-this-iconic-reebok-pump-is-back-and-more-fashionable-than-ever\">Reebok Pumps<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/loneblockbuster?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">weekend Blockbuster runs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/pWsz9pgd1X1Re\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" frameBorder=\"0\" class=\"giphy-embed\" allowFullScreen><\/iframe><p><a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/80s-vhs-pWsz9pgd1X1Re\">via GIPHY<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Luckily, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1677720\/\">Ready Player One<\/a> isn&#8217;t the only party cashing in on your midlife income and your craving to foist your childhood memories on the next generation. Disney+ (the OG Plus [yes, Paramount, Hulu, and Peacock &#8211; that was a diss]), has thrown open the vaunted Disney Vault to bring back such quality programming as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.disneyplus.com\/movies\/mr-boogedy\/Zjr97zPeqnzj\">Mr. Boogedy<\/a> and  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.disneyplus.com\/series\/chip-n-dales-rescue-rangers\/3XQjKZ32LuES\">Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One surprisingly pleasant discovery was Gummi Bears, which I, in my childhood obliviousness, didn&#8217;t even encode as a Disney property. As with all things half-remembered from childhood and rediscovered in adulthood, there was a lot more going on than I realized at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sheer ambition of Gummi Bears&#8217;s writers\/creators is impressive. Consider the elements that it attempts to pack in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Anthropomorphic bears based on an iconic candy<\/li><li>A child-hero bear with no special skills meant to be an avatar of the viewer<\/li><li>A young, empowered preteen female heroine bear who wants to be a singing star but lacks the voice for it<\/li><li>An old, wise, wizard bear<\/li><li>A matronly bear figure that keeps all the bears in line with stern glances and sharp rebukes<\/li><li>A manly builder-bear meant to reinforce 80&#8217;s American masculine stereotypes, often supporting but occasionally mocking them<\/li><li>A fat bear called Tummi Gummi who is voiced by the actor from Garfield, and who apparently shares Garfield&#8217;s single-minded comical focus on the next meal<\/li><li>Dragons, but not scary ones<\/li><li>Ogres that serve as comic villains<\/li><li>Castles<\/li><li>Knights and knight paraphernalia a la Dungeons and Dragons<\/li><li>Princesses<\/li><li>Ancient advanced technology<\/li><li>Moral lessons that are sufficiently religious-distant to encode 80&#8217;s publick morality<\/li><li>A robber-baron knight villain with an overly enthusiastic British-adjacent accent, meant to engender a subtle disdain of high-class culture that was so often seen in the 80&#8217;s (see: MacGyver&#8217;s folksy humility)<\/li><li>A class-misfit human child who is in love with a princess, who is the only true believer in the Gummi Bears, and who benefits from the combination of their mythical status and his special knowledge of them<\/li><li>Awkward pre-teen love plot lines<\/li><li>Gummi Berry Juice<\/li><li>Ancient Lore<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ancient lore, discovered by both the viewers and the show&#8217;s characters at the same time, becomes a reusable <em>deus ex machina<\/em>, allowing the show&#8217;s writers to insert magic to alter the Gummi&#8217;s abilities and pull them out of whatever sticky jam (pun unapologetically intended) they may be in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The theme song is worthy of mention, because it&#8217;s an awkward masterpiece in itself. It attempts to lay out all the elements of the show, unintentionally becoming almost comical in its thematic whiplash. But the best part is a near-religious soaring vocal track that, even in my childhood, seemed inappropriately passionate to be used on cartoon-mythical-candy-bears. I dare you to watch it in the video below and find yourself embarrassed as you try to refrain from whistling it for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yYZH7B498gE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watching the show with my kids has been a fun return to my own childhood, and has allowed me to see and appreciate the times in which I grew up with the perspective of distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Did you watch the Adventures of the Gummi Bears? Are there any other old movies or TV shows that you&#8217;ve rediscovered?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you grew up in the 80&#8217;s and loved television (howdy, fellow Gen-X&#8217;ers!), there&#8217;s a decent chance you watched Adventures of the Gummi Bears. If you weren&#8217;t savvy and determined enough to record live TV on VHS tapes, this show has faded into the mists of your 80&#8217;s childhood nostalgia, along with Reebok Pumps and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=1173\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">80&#8217;s Cartoon Review: Gummi Bears<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[394,395,219,141],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-misc","tag-80s","tag-nostalgia","tag-reviews","tag-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdZlL-iV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-photo-4842488.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}