Tag Archives: Berenstain Bears

The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw Review

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It’s time for the next Berenstain Bears adventure. This time the gang is going up against a very powerful threat but violence may not be the answer. The family will have to reflect on what it means to be a family before the town makes a decisive move. It’s a fun enough special that goes by quickly. Bigpaw also ends up being a solid new character.

The special starts with Papa Bear taking the kids to go get supplies for the Thanksgiving feast. Mama Bear gives him some warnings about how Bigpaw will be showing up thanks to a fortune that she did with some honey. Papa reminds Mama that it’s all a bunch of hogwash and he is proudly determined to prove this. He continues to plunge forward but when Bigpaw shows up, Papa figures he has to lead the charge against him.

I’ll give the town credit here for banding everyone together to take him down. I figured they would be too scared to do anything but when the chips were down, they were prepared. Naturally this is not that kind of special so we don’t get to the fight but it did help Papa’s rep as well since he was leading the charge. He was going to do what was necessary to protect his family.

Papa is always portrayed as having minimal intelligence and not being the kind of guy who thinks before he acts. That always puts him in really tough situations but at least he doesn’t give up which is the important thing. The kids also do their best and help to keep everyone from fighting but they got really lucky here. They definitely did not have their guard up at all.

As for Bigpaw, I liked his overall confidence. It’s clear that nobody was going to be taking him down easily. He may not have been totally looking for a fight this time but based on the fact that there are whole legends about him, I’m guessing that he has been in his share of battles. So everyone being afraid of him does make a lot of sense.

Mama Bear ends up being correct in hindsight but I do think that she didn’t really take the threat seriously enough here. If Bigpaw had turned out to be a bad apple, she would not have been prepared to stop him. She certainly hadn’t trained for this moment and that’s a big problem. There is a fine line between avoiding conflict and being a total pacifist. You want to be careful not to cross that line or you end up creating a bunch of trouble for everyone.

I like how the characters continue to talk in rhymes. That has been a fun dynamic to the series. The songs could use a lot of work though. As a whole the writing is good and this is something you could easily let your kids watch without any real doubts. Then you have the animation which has aged rather well. I like this traditional style which isn’t going for anything fancy but does end up looking real smooth.

The special is fairly short so it will be over before you know it. As a result there isn’t a whole lot that can happen but I’d still say it’s worth the watch. As long as you enjoy the bears and their adventures then this will be another fun one to add to the pile. There also aren’t a ton of Thanksgiving titles out there so you want to savor the ones that you do get. It’s a shame that they don’t make too many Berenstain products in the present at this point. It really could have been an Arthur level hit if they really tried.

Overall, This was a fun special. I wouldn’t say it super stands out or anything like that but it is a wholesome story with a good moral at the end. Don’t judge on appearances and always be ready with a peaceful alternative. So you can’t really go wrong with that but I admit that an action packed climax would still have been a lot of fun. I don’t think the bears would have beaten Bigpaw even with their numbers though. Not when he had the high ground and everything. His opening attack looked like it would have wiped out around half of their army at once.

Overall 6/10

The Berenstain Bears’ Christmas Tree Review

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The Berenstain Bears is a series that I grew up with but you don’t really see it much anymore. It didn’t really survive the test of time as well as some other titles. That said, it still has a good amount of quality to it and I was eager to see what their Christmas special looks like. It’s definitely really crazy and I would also say that it plays out more like a Dr. Seuss story with all of the rhyming throughout the dialogue. It’s very different from the usual adventure.

The basic plot is that Christmas is nearly here and the bears don’t have a Christmas tree yet! Mama Bear says they should buy one from Gus but Papa Bear scoffs at the idea. He will get a tree the old fashioned way and quickly gets Brother and Sister Bear to go along with him. The problem is that every tree is already spoken for with different animals living in them. Time is ticking and the heroes are no closer to their goal. What can they do?

It should be noted that most of the problems here are directly a result of Papa Bear’s actions. The guy really cannot be reasoned with and in this special he also doesn’t seem to be very smart. At one point he forgets what his name is and he basically ignores the rest of the characters when they are talking. It’s his way or the highway at all times which is not really what you want to hear from the guy since he has no plan. I appreciate wanting to cut down the tree yourself but then you should probably have done that well in advance. It is nice that he stops once the animals are in trouble but it’s definitely more of a hollow victory at times.

I do think the animals were pretty mean to the guy though. He actively stopped in his efforts to cut down the tree so the animals should probably be grateful. Instead they go after Papa and try to murder him but if he fought back they would be the ones to lose. They were not really thinking with their heads on that one. I was glad that generally speaking the kids weren’t too upset with Papa though. They were sad about the circumstances but didn’t try to put all of the blame on his feet or anything like that. It would have still been valid but I was glad they didn’t kick him while he was down.

In a way Papa Bear is the main character and the only one to constantly be doing something so having him in the center of the action the whole time did help keep things entertaining. They did a good job with the animation of showing just how psycho his eyes would get the whole time. Even right to the end with the fish, Sister Bear brings up a good point and then he immediately goes into psycho mode. That was definitely pretty crazy and a super intense way to end the special. He may be crazy but that’s exactly why you want him on your side.

It’s also a good thing that the special was short because if it was too long then I think it would have ended up having a serious pacing issue. As it stands, I would say it was balanced well. Papa Bear keeps it just interesting enough where you aren’t waiting for it to end or anything. It’s not really my kind of style of special generally with the dialogue being a bit too slow but the novelty factor really helps it out. If you like the Berenstain Bears then you’ll probably appreciate this take on them.

Once again I’d give a shoutout to the animation here because it really matches the chaotic energy of the special well. In fact you could argue that without the animation, the rest of the story wouldn’t work so well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story was based around the animation as opposed to the other way around. It can be a little rarer to see animation this chaotic outside of anime nowadays so you definitely need to savor it while you can.

Overall, The Christmas Tree made for a pretty fun adventure as you watched the heroes do their best and everything got really chaotic. It’s certainly really out there and by the end you don’t really know if this was a super cheerful adventure or not. What you do know is that it was generally entertaining. I think it’s a tricky recommendation though, I would only suggest it if you are really familiar with the franchise. Otherwise as a general viewing I would definitely say to check some other titles out first. This definitely feels like a very hit or miss kind of special.

Overall 6/10