Saturday, June 23, 2007
This week's Cartoon Saturday we're giving you a "Care Bears Stare" (ok, we're not really, since we don't have a picture of the eBay logo atop a calendar tattooed on our tummy, we're just gonna talk Care Bears for a sec).
The Care Bears were cute little bears that each represented an emotion, for use on greeting cards produced by the American Greetings firm. Within a few years, it occurred to someone that the bears had potential beyond wishing you a happy birthday or suggesting you get well soon. Kenner, who seemed to have made a deal with something in the 1980's got the job of coming up with a toy tie-in to a bunch of already well known cute bears. The decided to make teddy bears. That must have taken months to come up with.
In any event, they also made some cool posable action figures of the bears, jointed pretty much the same as Kenner's Star Wars line, but thankfully not using the same molds (or even the same type of plastic).
All that's well and good, but the important part of all of this marketing magic led to that greatest thing of almost all 1980's toy lines, the animated series. The Care Bears ran for three seasons (doing a reverse of the norm, starting in syndication and then moving to a network (ABC)'s Saturday morning line-up). In addition to the series, there were also three animated movies. Recently the Care Bears have had a bit of a resurgence, with old episodes making their way to DVD and brand new CGI versions of the Care Bears appearing in new direct-to-video films.
This is a nice Care Bears lunchbox with some art that pre-dates the animated series.
The Care Bears were cute little bears that each represented an emotion, for use on greeting cards produced by the American Greetings firm. Within a few years, it occurred to someone that the bears had potential beyond wishing you a happy birthday or suggesting you get well soon. Kenner, who seemed to have made a deal with something in the 1980's got the job of coming up with a toy tie-in to a bunch of already well known cute bears. The decided to make teddy bears. That must have taken months to come up with.
In any event, they also made some cool posable action figures of the bears, jointed pretty much the same as Kenner's Star Wars line, but thankfully not using the same molds (or even the same type of plastic).
All that's well and good, but the important part of all of this marketing magic led to that greatest thing of almost all 1980's toy lines, the animated series. The Care Bears ran for three seasons (doing a reverse of the norm, starting in syndication and then moving to a network (ABC)'s Saturday morning line-up). In addition to the series, there were also three animated movies. Recently the Care Bears have had a bit of a resurgence, with old episodes making their way to DVD and brand new CGI versions of the Care Bears appearing in new direct-to-video films.
This is a nice Care Bears lunchbox with some art that pre-dates the animated series.
posted by Box1551.com | 6:26 AM
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