Care Bears Care

What do you remember most from your childhood?

Whenever I look back to my younger years, which by the way isn’t too long ago =)… I always remember watching “Care Bears”. Hehehe. All of my playmates before knew this TV series and I can’t imagine anyone who didn’t get hook on the said animated show.

Until now, I still have my care bears coloring books, stickers and stuffed toys.

The Care Bears are a group of adorable, furry friends each with a special caring mission. They help teach people how to care. Every Care Bear wears a bright-colored tummy picture that tells the world who they are and what is their special area of caring.

In their cloud-land home, called Care-a-lot, the Care Bears help each other learn to care. Sometimes they magically bring a child with a special caring concern to Care-a-lot so that they can better teach them some of the finer points of being a caring person.

Sometimes, too, the Care Bears have to speed down to Earth to help with some crisis in caring.

Wherever the Care Bears go, and whatever the Care Bears do, in their soft, fuzzy, and funny way, they share their special gift of caring with everyone they meet.

The ten original Care Bears consisted of: Bedtime Bear, Birthday Bear, Cheer Bear, Friend Bear, Funshine Bear, Good Luck Bear, Grumpy Bear, Love-A-Lot Bear, Tenderheart Bear and Wish Bear.

Later on, additional bears joined them, as well as the Cousins.

The Care Bears' ultimate "weapon" is the "Care Bear Stare," in which the collected Bears stand together and radiate light from their respective tummy symbols, combining to form a ray of love and good cheer which could bring care and joy into the target's heart.

The Care Bear Stare has several different looks. One has a beam coming from the tummy being made up of several replicated images of the symbol. Another variation forms a rainbow when multiple Bears and/or Cousins are involved. A yellow beam with red hearts is sometimes seen as well.

The Care Bears were successful in promoting friendship, love and concern to all the young children and to those young at heart.

The saddening part about all this is the fact that the Care Bear’s message about friendship and caring is something rarely heard of today.

In today’s greedy corporate and selfish lives, and the "every man for himself" mentality each one of us is guilty of, caring seems to be an forgotten virtue.

The animation for Care Bears is pretty good considering that it is only a tv series intended for kids. The animators did a pretty good job, doing a lot of things with the kiddy show --- adding up a lot of details and colors into it.

Care Bears is definitely a feel-good animation that seems like a fantasy born out of too many Me Generation warm fuzzies. It comes filled with lots of bright colors, and there is much talk about happy feelings (everybody wears a heart on their chest that lights up in pastel rainbows when they care) and the banishing of bad feelings.

I will never outgrow my love for “care bears”. They will always be close to my heart. They will remain to be one of my favorite TV series aside from EWOKS. Hehehe.