Literature / The Berenstain Bears

"When you're reading this page
Don't get up your hopes
For even these bears
Cannot help but use tropes."

A TV Tropes related example of the little poems that are found at the beginning of the Berenstain Bear Books

The Berenstain Bears is a long-running children's book series created by Stan and Jan Berenstain (hey, that rhymes!) in 1962. It centers on a family of bears composed of Mama and Papa Bear, and their children, Brother (formerly Small), Sister, and Honey Bear. Yes, those are their real names. It started out as series of simple picture books in the line of Dr. Seuss, but soon evolved into a series of story picture books for children. Starting in 1993, the Berenstains (that's the authors) began writing the Big Chapter Books spinoff series, which put the characters into more serious situations in much longer (but still kid-oriented) books. The picture books have also taken several formats as well, ranging from small hardcovers written in rhyme, to square picture books. Almost all of the books take the title "The Berenstain Bears and __________"

Note that the name is spelled Berenstain. Spelling it Berenstein is a very common error, to the point that even official materials have (mis)spelled it that way occasionally.

There were also several Animated Adaptations over time: Christmas Tree, Meet Bigpaw, Easter Surprise, Valentine Special and Littlest Leaguer (also called Play Ball), all of which aired on NBC. A TV series (The Berenstain Bears Show) aired on CBS between 1985 and 1986, and a second began in 2002 on Treehouse TV and PBS Kids. The 1980s cartoon was an International Coproduction between the American and Australian Hanna-Barbera units and Aussie's Southern Star (originally a subsidiary of H-B AU prior to the end of The '80s, later folded into Endemol); the PBS series was produced by Canada's Nelvana. Nelvana also previously held the rights to the older CBS series after Southern Star was folded into Endemol.

A feature film from Narnia company Walden Media and Night at the Museum's Shawn Levy was in the works, although nothing came out after its announcement, and this announcement confirmed that the film was "still in the script phase".

The entirety of the 2002 series is available (outside the US) on YouTube here, thanks to Nelvana's Treehouse Direct channel and the complete series was also made available on DVD for those who prefer that format. PBS still releases some episodes of the show on DVDs and continues to exclusively distribute the series in the US as of today.

With Stan's death in 2005 and Jan's in 2012, their son Mike Berenstain continues to write more Berenstain Bears books for them to share with everyone else around the world.

For tropes from the Big Chapter Books spinoff series, see The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books.

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The main series and cartoons feature examples of the following:

A-C

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • In The Trouble With Grownups, once they get over the initial shock, this is Mama and Papa's reaction to the titular play in the PBS version; it's also Mama's reaction in the picture book, where she laughs with tears in her eyes in the audience; subverted with Papa, who just stares in bewilderment. With the idea that turnabout is fair play when Mama and Papa dress up as the cubs.
  • In Too Much Vacation, this is how the entire family reacts when they review their vacation photos, with appropriate captions.
  • In In the Dark, Sister is able to tease Brother about his having scared her with a mystery he read aloud after Papa Bear installs a nightlight in their bedroom. Meanwhile, ironically enough, Brother Bear is creeped out by the Nightmare Face she makes.
• Abusive Parents: Tuffy's reason why she became a bully in The Berenstain Bears and the Bully.
• Acid Reflux Nightmare: Downplayed in "The Bad Dream", where Brother Bear thinks that his nightmare about being chased by a bunch of clones of the villain from a Show Within a Show and a giant banana roll-up was partly due to eating too many honey squares before bed. However, he and his family agree that it was mostly, if not entirely, because he was scared of the character.
• Adaptation Expansion: The cartoon adaptations of the storybooks would often add in scenes that weren't in the original stories. For example, the cartoon version of The Truth has Brother and Sister play a bit of soccer outside before they eventually go back inside and break Mama's lamp.
  • While the book version of Get the Gimmies simply dealt with the cubs' greed and tantrums, the cartoon inserted a "let's think of others in need" variation that changed the whole moral (probably because the original storyline would have been narmy and unfitting with the slow-paced tone of the show).
  • The cartoon version of The Sitter actually shows Mama & Papa Bear at the community meeting; apparently, their whole reason for going in the first place was because Papa was frustrated with the fact that the gas stations no longer served free coffee & donuts.
  • The cartoon version of The Trouble with Grownups gives an explanation as to Mama & Papa's bad tempers — Papa's jigsaw breaks down, so he needs to use the "for sale" section of the paper (which is why he gets mad at Brother for taking it without asking), and Mama has been expecting an important call, which is why she gets mad at Sister for hogging the phone. Also, Mama and Papa apologize for being hard on the cubs, and point out that while they agree that it isn't always easy being a cub, being a parent isn't easy either, leading to the role reversal when Brother and Sister disagree. Just like in the book, Brother and Sister promise to take newspapers from the recycling box when they need one and to try to stop using the phone so much respectively, but Mama and Papa also promise to try and be more patient with their children whenever things get stressful.
  • The cartoon version of Too Much Junk Food gives Papa and the cubs a reason to quit junk food — an annual race is coming up in Bear Country and the three find themselves wearing out after running a few miles. A visit to Dr. Grizzly has them realize they have to start eating healthy in order become fit for the race. One notable difference is that in the book Mama puts the junk food in the freezer so that the family would forget about them, whereas in the cartoon the cubs themselves put the snacks in the freezer after their visit to Dr. Grizzly. Also, in the original book, Mama and Dr. Grizzly manage to take the family clean off junk food, whereas the cartoon is more moderate with Dr. Grizzly stating that it's okay to eat such things from time to time.
  • Forget Their Manners, in the original book, was a glaringly obvious case of Compressed Vice; Brother, Sister, and Papa clean out of nowhere just suddenly forget everything about being polite for absolutely no reason. The cartoon version addresses this by having Brother and Sister attend a party that Too-Tall happens to be at, and his rude manners manage to rub off onto them.
  • Get in a Fight is also a good example of addressing Compressed Vice. In the original book, Brother and Sister getting into a fight with each other is mostly just shrugged off, and they just wake up one day angry at each other. In the cartoon version, there's buildup about "waking up on the wrong side of bed", and what happens when two people wake up in such a way.
  • In the original book The Week at Grandma's, we don't see much of Mama and Papa Bear's second honeymoon. But in the cartoon version, we do, and Mama and Papa don't have such a great time at the Grizzly Mountain Lodge compared to their first honeymoon, while Brother and Sister end up having fun staying with Grizzly Gramps and Gran (which seems to add to the life-lesson, as Brother and Sister thought they would not enjoy staying with the grandparents for a whole week while Mama and Papa have the time of their lives.)
  • The original book of Go to the Doctor just details Brother and Sister's checkup. The cartoon version goes on to show their little cousin Honey (not to be confused with their baby sister Honey who was born later in the book series) being nervous about her own first checkup and Sister acting out a pretend checkup with her at home to show her it's nothing to be afraid of.
• Adaptational Heroism: The Living Lights book Love Their Neighbors, based on the story of the Good Samaritan, has a rather different portrayal of the Bogg Brothers from previous versions, which portrayed them as Siblings in Crime who go out of their way to cause trouble.
• Adaptational Name Change: Mr. Smock, Mizz McGrizz and Bertha Broom have been re-named Mr. Drewberry, Widder Jones and Betsy respectively in the 2002 TV series.
• Adults Are Useless: Unless they're your parents or grandparents. Especially don't contact the school authorities about bullies... wait...
  • In the 1985 series, this comes up often in episodes featuring the Bear Scouts, Bear Detectives or Raffish Ralph. The adults are bewildered by mysteries, fail to help the cubs earn merit badges, or very susceptible to Ralph's various schemes, and it falls upon Brother and Sister to fix things.
• Adults Dressed as Children: Mama and Papa in The Trouble with Grown Ups (both book and animated adaptation) as their own children going on a rampage screaming, running and demanding food and allowance money on the cubs to "show" them how they're really like. Their children don't necessarily misbehave to that extent, but they were pretty pissed by how their kids antagonized them in a play at school in front of every adult bear in town. To be fair, Brother and Sister find it Actually Pretty Funny and everyone bursts out in giggles.
• Aesop Amnesia: Papa Bear manages to forget one Aesop in the very same book about it. He calmly tells Mama to not throw a fit because the cubs accidentally broke a vase... but when they break a window, Berserk Button.
• Affection-Hating Kid:
  • The animated Valentines Special is built on this trope, as Brother reacts with total disgust to pretty much anything related to romance and Valentine's Day. He even gets a whole musical number, "Down With Love", about it.
  • In the Living Books adaptation of The Berenstain Bears in the Dark, clicking on Brother in the library will make him go through various books and react to them. One book, a romance, he reacts to by slamming it shut and going "Ew, yuck!"
• Big Brother Instinct: Brother has this for Sister Bear, so that he's prepared to beat up Tuffy up until realizing that she's a girl. He then goes to Plan B, teaching Sister how to defend herself.
• All Bikers are Hells Angels: In the PBS version of New Neighbors, one of the reasons Papa doesn't trust the newcomers is that the mother of the family rides a motorcycle, and Papa Bear apparently has this stereotype. Things finally come out alright in the end when Mama Bear ends up finding the motorcycle rather helpful for things like errands, and Papa resolves his feelings about the father of the house, whose lawn-mower machine he didn't trust at first.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The 2002 cartoon was dubbed into the Lakota language spoken by a certain ethnic group in North and South Dakota. That particular dub completely overhauls the background music, replacing the countryside tunes with the sounds of Sioux flutes; this includes the theme song, which has a completely different melody from the original English version.
• Always a Bigger Fish: As seen in the climax of And the Double Dare, when Too-Tall is causing trouble, there's one sure way to stop him — for his dad, Two-Ton Grizzly, who's even more intimidating and a stern parent (but a nice guy at heart) to show up and scold him.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Played with — the majority of the picture books try to teach a lesson and start off with a simple four-line rhyme explaining it before getting into the story, rather than having the lesson spelled out at the ending.
• Animal Lover: Applies to both of the cubs, for instance, Sister was the one who saved the baby chipmunk one time, and both of them were the ones who suggested getting Little Lady the dog.
• Animated Adaptation: See above.
• Animated Musical: The original specials have a music number roughly every five minutes or so.
• Anti-Advice: In the early book The Bike Ride, Papa tries to teach Small Bear how to ride the new bike he got, and continually messes up everything from getting on to negotiating hills and puddles. To cover for himself, he insists that he's showing his son what not to do. Small Bear buys it; Mama doesn't.
• Anxiety Dreams: In "Too Much Pressure", Papa, Brother and Sister all have their own anxiety dream each on the same night about their overscheduled lives. In Sister's nightmare, she's on a merry-go-round of activites, which kept going round and round. She tried to get off, but regardless of how hard she tried, she couldn't. In Brother's nightmare, he's caught in a whirlwind of baseballs, soccer balls, and computers. In Papa's nightmare, he's riding the schedule that's hanging on the wall, in the form of a magic carpet, into a deep black hole. Mama, however, didn't fall asleep that night, as she laid awake in bed thinking about how she'll get through the next day.
• Art Evolution: Mama, Papa, and Brother had different character designs before the "First Time Books" was introduced to the series. A notable difference is that Mama, Papa, and Brother/Small Bear were usually depicted with pupils but sometimes switched to simple Black Bead Eyes.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: In "Trouble with Pets", the family covers every puppy care ground, stressing the importance of responsibility — until Lady chews up the living room. Then, Papa builds her a house and a fenced in area out in the yard, with the assumption that she'll be living out there from now on. This really isn't the best place to keep a dog, especially if you're doing it to avoid dealing with a behavioral issue. Later done away with as Lady lives in the house, though she does still have the doghouse for when the family needs to put her outside, and clearly has been better trained.
• Aside Glance: At the end of the PBS animated version of "Double Dare", when Mama Bear asks Brother Bear if getting Sister Bear's jump rope back from Too-Tall and his gang was really as easy as simply asking him for it, he admits "Well, it wasn't really that easy," then tosses a wink at the audience regarding the hijinks he went through in the story.
• Baby See, Baby Do: In "Sick Days", Honey says, "Bedder" as a response to Mama Bear talking about Sister Bear getting better.
• Babysitting Episode: And The Sitter is this where Ms. Grizzle babysits Brother and Sister while their parents go off to a town meeting. The cubs are nervous about her as they think she's not very nice but learn An Aesop about how babysitters can be nice.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: In "The Bully", Brother advises Sister to avoid Tuffy at school, which she does successfully for the first two days of the week. What drives her into fighting Tuffy on Wednesday? Seeing Tuffy throw stones at a baby bird.
• Baffled by Own Biology:
  • In "The Bad Dream", Sister wakes up screaming from a nightmare about being chased by Space Grizzlies. Considering her young age, she doesn't know that it's not real and ends up running into her parents' room for reassurance.
  • In "Go to the Doctor", Papa Bear is sick (presumably with a cold, since his symptoms point to a respiratory disease but he isn't very lethargic). He doesn't realise he's sick, at first thinking his sneezing was from sawdust or bright light.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: In "Papa's Pizza", Brother and Sister Bear reveal to Mama Bear that they have both invited all of their friends over to play on Saturday. Mama, sounding troubled, says that it sounds less like just having friends over, and more like a party.
  Mama: ...which is perfectly fine with me!
• Banister Slide: In the 1980s episode "The Berenstain Bears and the Trojan Pumpkin" (later adapted into the Bear Scouts book And the Humongous Pumpkin, though the scene in question was not in the book), Brother and Sister slide down one railing on the front steps of their tree home before going to Papa's pumpkin patch to talk to him.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Most of the characters in Bear Country. Professor Actual Factual wears spats over his feet while Bigpaw goes au naturale.
  • Bigpaw's "prototype", Great Natural Bear from the 70s Almanac and Science Fair books, also goes naked (and lives in a cave, hibernates, and eats raw fish), because he was created to illustrate "natural" bear behavior in contrast to the "civilized" residents of Bear Country.
• Baseball Episode:
  • The 1983 special The Berenstain Bears Littlest Leaguer (AKA The Berenstain Bears Play Ball), in which Papa turns into something of a competition freak after learning about Little League tryouts being held and fixating on the idea of Brother becoming a baseball star, while Brother isn't really interested in joining; meanwhile, Sister is interested, but Papa tells her baseball isn't for girls and she should concentrate on more typical "girls' activities". In the end, Brother and his friends teach Papa a lesson about how it's not whether you win or lose that counts — it's how much fun you have playing the game, while he comes to realize that gender doesn't matter and if Sister wants to play, he shouldn't try to stop her.
  • The 1987 book Go Out for The Team (1987) also involves it, as Brother and Sister have been playing with their friends, and it's suggested they try out for an official Little League team.
  • In one of the Living Lights books, Brother and Sister's baseball team has a game and Brother learns a lesson about prayer.
• Bedsheet Ghost:
  • Done in the book "The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest" (which was also done as an episode of the 80s TV series, "Bust a Ghost"). Papa Bear decides to scare the Cub Scouts on an overnight forest camping trip by disguising as the "Ghost of the Forest" by wearing an old white sheet with two eyeholes cut in it. Scout Leader Jane overhears Papa's plan and decides to get back by crafting her own stick-and-leaves ghost face rigged with a flashlight, effectively scaring Papa and foiling his plan.
  • This is also Papa Bear's costume in "Trick or Treat" from the PBS series, with an added Jack-o'-lantern head. It actually manages to scare Brother and Sister Bear a bit... until he starts complaining that he can't see and starts bumbling around bumping into stuff.
• Be Yourself: The main aesop of "The In-Crowd," where Sister attempts to "fit in" with the new trendsetter and learns that being herself is far more fulfilling.
• The Big Guy: Too-Tall, who's a head taller and larger than the other cubs in his class, and is rather strong and tough.
• Big "SHUT UP!":
  • Papa Bear screams "QUIEEEEEEETTTTTTTT!!!!" in Messy Room after running in to see what the commotion is when Mama begins throwing out Brother and Sister's belongings.
  • Also happens in the TV version of "The Slumber Party", done by Lizzie's babysitter (once again with a loud "QUIEEEET!").
  • Sister actually yells "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" at Brother in the 1980s cartoon adaptation of "Get In A Fight" while arguing with him. The phrase "shut up!" was actually used in the book as well.
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: Said word for word in the episode "The Spooky Old Mansion", where Papa finds a bear-like squirrel in the family mailbox and it tells him it's "Just the usual bills and junk" before saying "Bill, bill, junk, bill..." as it tosses the letters to him. Papa is not amused.
• Birthday Party Goes Wrong: In Too Much Birthday, Sister Bear has a bad sixth birthday because she was the first one out on Going to Jerusalem/Musical Chairs, picked first for Spin the Bottle, didn't win anything for Pin the Tail on the Donkey because it "wasn't polite", Freddy squirted her new birthday blouse with his trick flower, the pony she rides on gave her a bumpy ride, she got sick from the merry-go-round ride and taking her six tries to blow out her candles, which made her friends claim she was going to have six cubs and she only wanted three. Thankfully, it comes around when she's told she hasn't opened any of her presents yet, and it was cake and ice cream time.
• Bittersweet Ending: A rare one in "The Bully"; Sister punches out Tuffy, the cub who had earlier beat her senseless, but comes to understand Tuffy's bad behavior when she makes a tearful confession of how her parents tend to treat her. Sister is visibly saddened by Tuffy's story, and while Sister is not punished for acting out of self-defense, Tuffy is assigned to see the school counselor about her behavior. Tuffy's parents are (thankfully) not notified of the incident.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: In "The Fly Away Pizza", Papa comes up with rather disgusting ideas for pizza toppings: fried honeycomb, candied milkweed pods, skunk cabbage, sweet and sour pinenuts, and snail poaste. The cubs are rather grossed out by this.
• Bland-Name Product: Brother has a handheld console called a Game Bear.
• The Boxing Episode: A portion of The Berenstain Bears and the Bully is Brother Bear teaching Sister Bear to box so that she can defend herself from a bully at school. Sister is a natural at it, from what the pictures let us see.
• A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: With the addition of Honey Bear.
• Both Sides Have a Point: In "...No Girls Allowed," the boys are wrong to ban girls from their clubhouse after Sister repeatedly outdoes them at games and athletics, but as Mama helps Sister realize, they aren't just being sore losers, but naturally annoyed by Sister's Unsportsmanlike Gloating.
• "Brave the Ride" Plot: In one episode, Brother Bear is scared to go on a roller coaster, so he takes advantage of the long queue and deliberately eats his pizza slowly.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The ending line of the 1980s Animated Adaptation's theme:
  "You may think that this starts our show / Well, it does!"
  • To the tune of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever", by the way.
• Broken Aesop:
  • The Berenstain Bears' New Neighbours has an anti-racist aesop^note in fact, it provides the image on the Fantastic Racism page — which really falls apart when you take into account weasels are consistently portrayed as bad guys. Racism is only bad when you do it towards pandas...? Although it should be noted Weasel McGreed and his hench-weasels were only made for the 80s cartoon and Bear Scouts chapter books, which are not canon with the main books. It's also unclear if the bears are making blanket statements about weasels in general, which would make it a Broken Aesop, or talking about this specific group of weasels, which considering their designs for Bear Country and its residents, is fair.
  • In The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday, we're supposed to think Sister's birthday party goes wrong because Papa ignores Mama's advice and makes the party too big and crazy. But of all the things that go wrong, the only problem caused by the party being over-the-top is when Sister eats too many treats and then feels sick after riding the ponies and merry-go-round. The other problems (Sister losing a game, winning a game but not getting the prize because "it wouldn't be polite," getting nervous during Spin the Bottle, Cousin Freddy squirting water on her, and her friends teasing her when she fails to blow out the candles) could have happened even at a simple party. A more consistent Aesop would have been "Sometimes things go wrong at your birthday party and that's okay" than "There's such a thing as too much birthday."
  • In The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room, the intended moral is that you should have a clean room because it will help to know where things are, and your parents may actually be willing to help you. Unfortunately, the way it's presented instead seems to suggest you should have an organised room so your parents don't throw your possessions away.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Too Tall has moments of this, such as fawning over a kitten.
• Bumbling Dad: Papa Bear, though he is the voice of reason in Messy Room. The 2002 series somewhat tones this down and makes him wiser and more helpful, while still acting goofy once in a while.
• The Bully:
  • Too-Tall Grizzly is the thuggish leader of a gang of bullies — aptly called the Too-Tall Gang — who harass Brother and Sister Bear from time to time.
  • Tuffy from "The Bully", although she ceases her behavior by the end of the episode.
• Catchphrase: In the 1980s cartoon version, Brother often says "I don't know if I can stand the excitement." in Sarcasm Mode.
• Character Development: In the 2002 series, Brother and Too-Tall have a shared character arc. It's notable in that it encompasses the entire series, instead of being confined to a single episode. In the early episodes, Too-Tall is your basic bully and troublemaker who's very clearly jealous of Brother Bear, and Brother in return thinks Too-Tall doesn't have a personality beyond dumb, mean kid. They surprise each other though, several times, and gradually gain respect for each other. By the later episodes, Too-Tall mellows out a lot as a result of Brother's influence, and the two cubs seem to be becoming friends. Said arc plays out over "Double Dare", "Trick Or Treat", "Mighty Milton", "The Talent Show", "The Big Red Kite", "Showdown At Birder's Wood", "White Water Adventure", "Big Road Race", "Papa's Pizza" and "The Female Fullback".
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase
• Cheaters Never Prosper: The Big Road Race has five cars participating in the titular race. The driver in green decides to play dirty late in the race to eliminate the last large car, and thinks he's got it won as a result... but ends up losing to Little Red (Brother Bear), who was never careless or cheated throughout the race.
• Childish Pillow Fight: Among the other shenanigans, one of these happens during the slumber party in "The Slumber Party" from the PBS version, resulting in feathers all over the floor.
• Children Are Tender-Hearted: In the TV version of "Too Much Pressure", the car breaks down. Mama, who has been extremely stressed about having to take the kids to so many activities, breaks down sobbing, and Brother and Sister start crying out of sympathy.
• Christmas Episode: The NBC special The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree
• Civilized Animal: In the 1985 series, many of the non-anthropomorphic animals can converse with the bears in English. Some even wear clothes and perform jobs within Bear Country.
• Clothespin Nose Plug: The special Meet Bigpaw has a scene where Papa is rallying the bears of Beartown to travel up to Bigpaw's cave for an attack on him (before Mama stops him long enough to get him to go investigate and be sure Bigpaw really is a threat). One brief scene shows him walking past a group of "skunk bombs", skunks carried on watermelons, with a clothespin over his nose to block out their odor.
• Clueless Aesop: See here for the 8 most awkward titles.
  • If your immediate reaction to #1's cover is "Fantastic Racism!", TV Tropes Ruined Your Life. (Or you've already been to the trope page and seen it as the page image.)
  • One of the books had an anti-TV Aesop. It was adapted into an episode of the 2002 TV series. Three guesses as to why that's hard to take seriously.
• Comically Missing the Point: The TV version of "Too Much TV" has this little tidbit.
  Mama: (attempting to get the cubs to go out and play instead of watch TV) It's a beautiful day outside. Look at all that sunshine!
  Brother: I know. The glare is wrecking the picture. (closes the drapes)
• Compliment Backfire: Happens in TV adaptation of The Truth:
  Brother: Come on, Sister; you like soccer and you're pretty good for a girl.
  Sister: Pretty good for a girl!? What's that supposed to mean?
• Compressed Vice: The plot point of several books, among them: eating too much junk food, watching too much television, throwing tantrums, letting her room get too messy, lying about Mama's lamp, and forgetting their manners. It gets lampshaded in the Christmas book, where Sister feels guilty recalling some of these adventures while wondering if Santa Bear will label her as naughty.
• Congestion Speak: In "The Berenstain Bears Come Clean for School", Lizzie Bruin and later Papa Bear say, "I don't feel berry good; I thing I'm coming down with a coad".
• Continuity Nod: Multiple:
  • During Papa's holiday monologue in The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw, the melody from the closing number of The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree plays when Papa touches on Christmas.
  • Speaking of Christmas, during The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear, Sister has flashbacks to The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight, The Berenstain Bears and The Truth, and The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room when she's recalling times she hasn't been good.
• Continuity Reboot/Alternate Continuity: The 2002 series is of a different canon from both the books and especially the 1985 series.
• Cool Old Guy/Cool Old Lady:
  • The Week at Grandma's has Brother and Sister find this out about their grandparents.
  • And The Sitter reveals that Ms. Grizzle is more fun than Brother and Sister's first encounters with her would suggest.
• Crying at Your Birthday Party: The cover art for the book "Too Much Birthday" shows Sister Bear crying as her guests celebrate. In the book, Sister Bear cries because her party went wrong.
• Cyberbullying: In “Computer Trouble,” speaking toward the drawbacks of social media after Sister is shaken after receiving a (rather childish) hurtful message from someone she thought was a friend.

D-F

• Darker and Edgier: Downplayed with the 1985 animated series. Compared to the original 1970s animated shorts and the 2002 series, this series actually had antagonists in the form of the weasels, and had more yelling and arguing among the Bear Family, which rarely happened in both the 1970s shorts and the 2002 series.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mama, in Too Much Television. When Papa complains that he won't be able to check the weather if he can't catch the TV weather report, Mama fires back with "Try this. It's called sticking your hand out the window to see if it's raining."
• Decon-Recon Switch: Learn About Strangers is this with Too Smart for Strangers. Papa's lecture to Sister makes her think the world is full of dangerous strangers out to get her and Mama realizes this. Later, Mama tells Sister that what Papa said was true but because it was better to be safe than paranoid.
• Denser and Wackier: In contrast to the more down-to-earth 2002 cartoon, the 80s animated adaptation is far more cartoony than the original books were.
  • The Berenstain Bears Beginner Books also fit this trope with them having a ton of slapstick, usually directed towards Papa Bear.
• The Dentist Episode: In Visit the Dentist, Sister has a loose tooth, and Brother has a dentist appointment at Dr. Bearson's around the same time. Brother tells Sister that if she doesn't get her loose tooth out by the time they go to the dentist, Dr. Bearson will yank it out, frightening her. Karma catches up with Brother when it is revealed that he has a small cavity, and has to have Dr. Bearson fill it for him. Afterwards, Dr. Bearson pulls out Sister's loose tooth so she can put it under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. This book was also adapted into an episode of the 2002 Animated Adaptation.
• Didn't Think This Through: In In the Dark, Brother Bear after reading a scary mystery to Sister notices that she's having trouble falling asleep at night. He then makes a scary noise, which causes her to have a Freak Out and call for Mama and Papa. Afterward, she refuses to sleep with the lights off, which keeps him awake because he can't sleep after she turns on the lights. The end result is that everyone is exhausted in the morning.
• Disease-Prevention Aesop: In "Go to the Doctor", Brother, Sister, and Papa learn the importance of check-ups. Nailed in for Papa because he thought he didn't need them, and then got sick.
• Disrupting the Theater: In one episode, Brother Bear is at the movies, but a tall guy in front of him, who he later calls a "giant" to his parents, blocks the view.
• The Ditherer: In the PBS animated series, when issues are brought before the town council, the response from the person leading the meeting is always as follows: "X is of great concern to our town council and I can assure you we will reach a decision on the matter at the appropriate time..."
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The 1980s cartoon has its theme song sung by the Bear family and a few of the supporting characters. Brian Cummings also provides the Opening Narration in character as Papa.
• Dream Episode: "The Bad Dream", in which Brother and Sister get nightmares after watching a scary show.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Aside from Brother Bear being called Small Bear, anything that was written before The Berenstain Bears' New Baby (the first "First Time Book"). Later entries in those previous lines (e.g., Beginner Books) were written to reflect the First Time Books.^note Which are generally considered to be the "main continuity" of the series. Moreover, the Bears themselves had similar, but nonetheless different designs from the First Time Books. In fact some of the books written before Sister Bear's debut were very humorous and didn't focus on life lessons (such as the 1966 book The Bears Picnic where Mama, Papa, and Small/Brother Bear almost get run over by a plane just to find a perfect spot to have a picnic).
  • Another notable difference is that the first couple of books were inhabited by different anthropomorphic animals (such as monkeys, pigs, dogs, giraffes, bears, hippos, and rabbits) compared to only inhabited by anthropomorphic bears (save for the Easter Bunny from the 1981 Easter Special).
• Easter Special: The Berenstain Bears' Easter Surprise.
• Empathic Environment: In Get in a Fight, Brother and Sister suddenly have a feud midway through the book and the moment they draw a line between each other while sitting on their tree house, rain suddenly pours. It gets even worse when they end up arguing with each other and a thunderstorm suddenly precipitates, and right after Mama solves the problem and the cubs apologize to each other, the storm fades away.
• Episode Tagline:
  • In "Go to the Doctor", Papa Bear often says, "I never get sick", but he gets sick anyway.
  • In "Get the 'Don't Hafta's", Sister Bear replies, "I don't hafta" when asked to go to the bathroom several times.
  • In the book about the environment, Papa Bear often says, "Piffle!" about his family's environmentalism.
  • In the cartoon version of "The New Neighbours", Mama Bear repeatedly tells her husband and cubs that "the best way to have a good neighbour is to be a good neighbour."
  • In one episode, both parents tell their cubs to "instead of spending today wishing it was yesterday, go out and see what today has to offer."
  • In "Too Much Car Trip", Mama Bear keeps saying, "Keep an open mind" to the point where the cubs get bored of it.
  • In "The Hiccup Cure", the opening rhyme (when eating your food remember to chew; it's not just good manners, it's healthy for you) becomes the Episode Tagline, with everyone saying it to Papa Bear.
  • In the cartoon version of "Draw It!", "X is difficult and because it's difficult, there are some things you have to learn first" becomes a repeated line and the lesson that Brother Bear learns.
• Everybody Cries: The cartoon adaptation of Too Much Pressure has Brother and Sister crying along with Mama when she breaks down from the pressure of taking everyone to their activities and their car fails to start. Subverted when the only one who doesn't cry is Papa, who, upon noticing everyone else crying, decides to cancel their plans for the day.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone refers to members of the Bear family by their role in the family. Keep in mind that everyone outside the Bear family has a proper name.
  • Before Sister Bear was born, Brother Bear was originally called Small Bear.
  • In the German translation (at least of the TV series), Brother and Sister are renamed Bastel and Suse.
  • The pattern stopped in 2000 with the introduction of Honey Bear.
  • Brother and Sister's cousin Fred is called "Cousin Fred" by everyone, even teachers.
  • Lampshaded with Papa's full name: Papa Q. Bear.
• Evil Laugh: In "The Bad Dream" from the 2002 series, Sleezo the Mastermind of Space on Space Grizzlies has one. When Sister and Brother Bear both start having nightmares about him, they hear it in their nightmares.
• Exact Words: In the 2002 animated series story "The Female Fullback", Betsy never told Brother, Freddy and Too Tall's football team that she would play in their big game, only that she would help them. And though they didn't realize it at the time, she did, by putting them variously through regimens of basketball, track and ballet, which provided them with needed skills for their football game.
• Exiled to the Couch: A variation happens in the 1980s cartoon when Papa gets exiled to a tent for a while after getting sprayed by a skunk.
• Exploding Closet: Inevitable in Messy Room, where Mama gets buried underneath Brother and Sister's toys.
  • Also happened in the TV special The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree when Papa and Brother open the closet full of decorations; at first it seems like the trope is averted but just after Mama breathes a sigh of relief, said decorations fall out and spill all over the floor.
• Expy: In the early books, Papa, Mama, and Small Bear are obvious expies of The Three Bears. Downplayed when Sister is born and Small Bear becomes Brother, but the similarity is still sometimes alluded to: for example, the beginning of the cartoon adaptation of Get in a Fight shows the Bears having porridge for breakfast.
• Eyelash Fluttering: At the end of the book The Berenstain Bears Play a Good Game, while the cubs are eating at a restaurant, Too-Much Grizzly flutters her eyelashes at Brother, who has a Crush Blush and continues to eat like normal.
• Facepalm: This is Mama Bear's reaction in "The Green-Eyed Monster" from the PBS series when she explains the green-eyed monster to Sister Bear after she wants to ride Brother's bike and she just whines "But Mama, it's such a beautiful bike."
• Family Theme Naming:
  • Too-Tall Grizzly's family includes father Two-Ton, mother Too-Too, and sister Too-Much.
  • The Bear Family as well, at least until Honey Bear was born, with Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Brother Bear (formerly Small Bear), and Sister Bear.
• Fantastic Racism: In New Neighbors (which also provides the main page image for this trope), a panda family moves in next door. Aesops abound concerning prejudice and bias.
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: And The Truth has Brother and Sister try to cover up their accidental breaking of Mama's lamp with a "whopper" of a lie. However, they get the details mixed up when they try to repeat the story for Papa, and the truth comes out.
• Feud Episode:
  • Get In A Fight deals with Brother and Sister getting into a bitter argument with each other.
  • Trouble With Friends sees Sister first meet and befriend Lizzy Bruin, only to get into a fight with her over who gets to be the teacher when they play school. In the end they make up, though, and stay best friends for the rest of the series.
• Fictional Counterpart:
  • Bear Country is set in a counterpart to the United States inhabited by anthropomorphic bears.
  • "Bearbie" dolls, present in the books and cartoon. Also Beary Bubbies.
  • In fact, this series provides lots of them. Among them are Santa Bear, Amelia "Bearhart"^note Which isn't a new one either., the Burger Bear, the Dairy Bear, and the Game Bear.
  • An episode in the 2002 show has Britney Bear and The Backstreet Bears.
• Fight for the Last Bite: In one episode of the show, Brother and Papa Bear are fighting over a snack that is the last one left in a bowl, and saying things such as "En garde!" and "Touche!".
• First Pet Story: The Trouble With Pets.
• Fleeting Demographic Rule: Interestingly averted for the 2002 TV series. Despite there being more than enough space between it and the 1985 series for a grown up demographic, the 2002 series avoids adapting any books that had already been done in the prior series.
• F--: Downplayed, and also Played for Drama in The Trouble at School. Because Brother has put off studying all his work during sick days, he is completely unprepared for a quiz (a test in the TV version) that happens to be on the same day he returns. In both versions, he performs exceptionally poorly; the book version doesn't explicitly state any grade he makes, but the teacher writes "Very poor! Must be signed by a parent!" on it. In the TV version, his demands that Brother get it signed are only spoken out, and his grade on the test is a zero.
• Foul Fox: In "Learn About Strangers", Papa reads Sister a book called Silly Goose and Wily Fox. In it, Wily Fox tricks Silly Goose into entering his lair and it ends with him eating her.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The main family. Papa, the ill-tempered Bumbling Dad, is choleric. Mama, the slightly bossy Only Sane Man, is melancholic. Brother, the laid-back Nice Guy, is phlegmatic. Sister, the emotional Genki Girl, is sanguine. And Honey, the baby with little personality, is eclectic.
• Freudian Excuse: The whole reason Tuffy was a bully in The Bully was because she got badly abused by her parents at home.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: In "Big Bear, Small Bear" on the PBS version, when Sister Bear tells Papa that he's not that old, that there are some dinosaurs older than him, he subjects her to the "tickle-o-saurus".

G-L

• Gender-Equal Ensemble: For the longest time, the Bear family consisted of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Brother Bear and Sister Bear. This balance was undone with the introduction of Honey Bear in 2000.
• Genre Blindness: In-universe example. In the TV version of "Too Much TV", a crime drama show that Brother and Sister are watching has them irritated at the characters missing incredibly obvious clues.
  Brother: I knew that guy was the crook a half hour ago!
  Sister: Me too.
  Detective in show: Do you recognize this bear? (holds up an image of a person who obviously runs a hot dog stand, and was already seen in the background just a second ago)
  Brother: It's the hot dog bear!
  Woman in show: Why, is that the hot dog bear?
  Brother: Ugh! (He grabs his pillow in irritation and does a Face Palm with it)
• "Getting Ready for Bed" Plot: In "The Bedtime Battle", Brother and Sister are reluctantly put to bed.
• Going Cold Turkey:
  • And Too Much TV has Papa and the cubs going cold turkey from television. Unlike other examples of this trope, it's not self-imposed; Mama strictly enforces the ban after laying it down.
  • And too much Junk Food has Papa and the cubs, again, going cold turkey, this time from junk food.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: In Forget Their Manners, the name-calling that goes on between Brother and Sister is written on the illustration. The terms used are not explicitly shown to be swear words but are still rather creative: "SILLYHEAD!" "FUZZBRAIN!" "NOODLEPUS!"
• Go to Your Room!: In Get the Gimmies, Papa Bear sends both Brother Bear and Sister Bear to their room after they greet their grandparents by shouting, "WHAJA BRING ME!?" As they're headed up there, he also declares that they're getting no treats for a week... a month... a year. Grandpa Bear then asks him if he's having a bad day and tells a tale of when Papa Bear had the gimmies just as badly.
• Grandfather Clause:
  • Decades into the franchise, the Bear family's regular attire has not changed, with some of it being obsolete — notably Mama Bear's polka dot house dress and matching nightcap.
  • Queenie was introduced in 1989. She still dresses like a Flashdance extra.
• Green Aesop:
  • The 1991 book Don't Pollute (Anymore), along with its animated adaptation in the 2002 TV series.
  • The 1985 series's adaptation of "Too Much Birthday" has a very brief, minor one that isn't in the book version; after Papa Bear saws down a big tree and before the cubs eventually notice the annual rings on the fallen tree, Papa and the cubs get to work planting young trees.
    Papa: Well, you can't just take from Mother Nature. You have to give back, too!
• Green-Eyed Monster: In The Green-Eyed Monster, Sister is overcome with this when she sees Brother's brand-new bicycle. That night, she has a dream where she meets up with said monster, and when she gets on the bike, it grows in size until it crashes. Toward the end, it starts to get to Papa when he notices Mr. Bruin's new car, but is quickly subdued when Sister warns him.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: In "The Green-Eyed Monster", Sister feels envious about Brother's new bicycle and desperately wants it. Mama tells her that she wouldn't be able to ride it anyway since her feet can't reach the pedals. That night, Sister dreams about the eponymous Green-Eyed Monster (who looks just like Sister, except she has green fur and horns) coming to visit her. The Green-Eyed Monster convinces her to try to ride Brother's bike. The bike suddenly grows while Sister is on it, making it impossible for Sister to steer. She collides into a rock, destroying the bicycle instantly. Sister screams, "What have I done?!" When she wakes up, she deeply regrets being envious.
• Happy Birthday to You!: The 1985 animated adaptation of "Too Much Birthday" has everyone sing to the tune of "London Bridge", as "Happy Birthday to You!" was still under copyright when the episode was produced.
  Happy birthday, Sister Bear,
  Sister Bear, Sister Bear,
  Happy birthday Sister Bear,
  We all love you!
• Heaven Above: When Goldie the fish dies, Papa Bear says that she went to the big castle in the sky, a metaphor for the afterlife.
• Hiccup Hijinks: The 2002 series has the episode "The Hiccup Cure". Papa Bear gets hiccups when he eats his pancakes too fast before talking to the squire. Throughout the episode, he keeps getting hiccups when he eats his food too fast.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Papa breaks his promise to not attempt to get more Wild, Wild Honey in the 1980s cartoon episode "The Great Honey Pipeline" via building the titular pipeline, Brother and Sister get several of the other animals they know to not only return the honey to Queen Nectar and her hive, but use that same pipeline to send the smell of skunk spray towards Papa the next time he tries to get honey; Papa later gets forced to sleep in a tent due to smelling bad to ensure that he learned his lesson about not breaking a promise.
• Honesty Aesop: There's the book "The Berenstain Bears and the Truth", in which Brother and Sister goof around with a soccer ball inside despite being told not to and accidentally break a lamp. They lie that a bird broke it, until they get caught because they're inconsistent on what the bird looked like.
• Horrible Camping Trip: Too Much Vacation has the Bear family going through several mishaps during their vacation to the wilderness. They did at least get a good laugh when looking back at the photos later on.
• Humiliation Conga: In the "Week at Grandma's" episode of the 2002 series, Mama and Papa take Brother and Sister over to Grandma and Grandpa's house to spend the weekend while they go on a honeymoon anniversary trip. The kids expect to be bored while their parents have all the fun, but quite the opposite happened: Mama and Papa's tennis game was ruined by a sleeping dog that was woken up, while canoeing Papa was stung by a bee and accidentally knocked their picnic lunch basket into the river, their gourmet dinner at a seafood restaurant turned out to only serve tiny steaks, and the evening dance had a hard rock band playing.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: In Get the Gimmies, Papa Bear despairs over the increasingly bratty behavior of Brother and Sister, who keep wanting all manner of toys and trinkets. Later, his own parents gently remind him that he acted much the same way when he was a cub. Nonetheless, they understand his fear of his children becoming Spoiled Brats and help him curb their behavior.
• Hypocritical Humor: Papa Bear, repeatedly. When Brother and Sister complain about not being allowed to watch TV for a week in Too Much Television (not as a punishment, but just because Mama felt the family needed a break from it), Papa lectures them about being good sports — and then finishes with "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a sports show I want to watch." He's shocked when he learns that the week-long TV ban also applies to him, because Mama wants them to set a good example during the no-TV week.
• I Can't Hear You: This is used in "The Slumber Party" in the PBS series when Too Tall plays a loud boombox at Lizzie's slumber party. The babysitter tells him to turn it down, but he tells her that he can't hear her because the music's too loud.
• Illness Blanket: In "Sick Days", Sister Bear spends the second stage of her illness wrapped in a blanket watching TV.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Some sources accidentally (and erroneously) spell "Berenstain" as "Berenstein".
• In Medias Res: The fourth book, Moving Day, explained how the family moved into their tree house. The PBS animated series adapted this one as well.
• Innocent Awkward Question: In "The Berenstain Bears and the Big Question", Sister Bear, after saying grace, asks Mama Bear, "What's God?". Taken aback, she says, "Well, that's a big question", then states that God created everything. Sister Bear then asks why God created unpleasant things such as stomach aches and slugs, but Mama has no answer, so she takes Sister to church.
• Innocent Swearing:
  • Happens to Sister Bear and her friend Lizzie in The Big Blooper with a bad word after they watch a video owned by Lizzie's brother — ''Trouble At Big Bear High.'' In the book, Sister just learns a few insults like "phooey" and "fudge" while an offensive word uses Symbol Swearing, while in the episode, the word that Sister learns in question is "furball", a word that is apparently offensive bears.
  • In the Finnish dub of the 2002 series, the word Sister Bear uses in the episode "The Big Blooper" is 'pölkkypää' ('loggerhead'), which is an actual term of abuse in Finnish language but is considered pretty tame in today's standards, especially due to the wide use of more vulgar terms of abuse.
• Interactive Narrator: A sort of minor example in the book Baby makes Five. Over the course of the story, Sister isn't happy about her new baby sister Honey. It reaches a climax when Mama asks Sister why she didn't include Honey in the picture she drew of her family and Sister finally snaps. Sister's angry outburst is enough to make the narration drop the neutral stance for a specifically horrified reaction.
  "Dear," Mama asked, "why didn't you put your new baby sister in the picture?"
  "Because," snarled Sister, "there wasn't enough room on the paper!"
  Then she stomped up the stairs, went into her room, and slammed the door.
  Oh, dear!
• Iris Out: Actually not the standard method for ending episodes of the 2002 series, but it is used at the end of "The Hiccup Cure" with Papa Bear after he hiccups at the Squire's party and then says that he's just kidding. It's also used with Kenny in "Big Road Race" as the race ends.
• Ironic Birthday: In Too Much Birthday, things go wrong for Sister Bear during her sixth birthday party, such as being the first one out at Going to Jerusalem/Musical Chairs, being teased at Spin the Bottle for not wanting to kiss anyone except Brother, being unable to accept the prize for Pin the Tail on the Donkey because it's her party and it wouldn't be polite, having her new birthday blouse soaked by a friend's squirting flower, and getting motion sickness from riding the rented ponies and merry-go-round. But the last straw comes when she's initially unable to blow out any of her birthday candles and her friends tease her with saying she'll end up having six cubs when she grows up, and she begins to cry, sadly telling Mama all the mishaps that occurred to her throughout the party. But she cheers up when the others remind her she hasn't opened her presents yet, and by the end, Sister gets to learn the true importance of birthdays.
• It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: At the beginning of "Too Much Vacation" on the PBS Kids version, the Bear family declares that their vacation will be "the best vacation ever." Throughout the episode, as things go wrong, Papa Bear's refrain becomes "We won't let (x) spoil our best vacation ever." He finally gets fed up, though, after a flood hits the cabin that they're staying in and he gets washed away into a stream, a quite rude awakening. He grumbles that they were supposed to be having fun, but it turns out that Sister and Brother were having fun and thought that he was too, showing him the pictures of his antics during the vacation. They put a smile on his face and he decides that he was looking at things all wrong, deciding that it was, indeed, the best vacation ever.
• Jealous Pet: In the book "The New Kitten", Lady the dog gets jealous of Gracie the new kitten. The vet suggests stroking Lady more to rectify this.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In "Forget Their Manners", Papa (who has suffered most from Mama's "Politeness Plan") rightly brings up that you need to have common sense along with good manners ("If you let everybody cut in front of you at the checkout, you'll be in line forever."), and that sometimes you have to interrupt somebody. He perfectly demonstrates the latter by politely interrupting a customer at the supermarket to inform her that she has a leaking bottle in her shopping kart.
• Jump Rope Blunders:
  • In "The In Crowd", Sister Bear and several of her friends try to all jump rope at once, but they fall over.
  • At the start of the episode "The Jump Rope Contest", Queenie attempts to use a jump rope, only to get the rope all twisted when she tries to jump over it. Babs tries to show her how to use it, only to do the same thing.
• Kid Detective: Brother, Sister, Cousin Fred and later Lizzie Bruin form the Bear Detectives, solving mysteries from a missing pumpkin to empty jars of honey.
• Kids Are Cruel: Tuffy, thanks to her Abusive Parents. She beats up Sister, taunts Brother when he refuses to fight her and throws stones at a baby bird.
• Kids Love Dinosaurs: Dinosaurs frequently pop up throughout the franchise, mainly because Brother is a dinosaur-lover. One book was even titled "Brother Bear Loves Dinosaurs".
• Laborious Laziness: Both "By the Sea" and "Up and Down" on the PBS version exemplify this, with Brother/Sister and Papa respectively trying to avoid work but ending up doing about twice as much in the process until they learn their lesson.
• Lame Comeback: Lizzie's big putdown in Trouble with Friends: "Sister's mad and I'm glad!"; Sister's response to this is the equally lame "Lizzie, Lizzie, in a tizzy!" Justified since they're about 6.
• Lampshade Hanging: In the Too Much TV episode of the PBS series, Brother Bear comments that he could learn just as much from a nature show on "BBS" than from a book. (The name is most likely spoofing PBS with "Bear" in place of "Public", in typical Berenstain Bears fashion.)
• Last-Second Showoff: The Big Road Race is "The Tortoise and the Hare" with four hares (one of whom is a terrible cheater). Brother Bear drives a slow red car, and the other cars are orange, yellow, green, and blue. The drivers of the yellow and orange cars each take the lead and boast about how they will win, only to get into accidents and be eliminated from the race. The driver of the green car then figures that if he beats the blue car, he will win, so he leaves tacks on the road and blows the blue car's tires. When he is almost at the finish line, he passes a fast-food restaurant and decides to order a burger. He gets his burger just in time to see that he has inadvertently given Brother enough time to pass him and win the race.
• Learning to Ride a Bike: In the book "The Bike Lesson", Papa Bear tries to teach Brother Bear (then named Small Bear, since Sister Bear wasn't born), how to ride a bike, but keeps goofing up. He saves face by claiming that he was just giving him lessons on what not to do.
• Lighter and Softer: The 2002 series. The adaption of "Get the Gimmies", along with the moral expansion, takes out the tantrum scene, for one example. In fact, as a whole the series seemed to tone down a lot of the quarreling and screaming that was commonplace in the books and the 1985 series; this is easiest to notice with Mama, who would scream at the cubs for doing something as small as not cleaning their room, yet in the 2002 series her tone is only mildly stern following Sister and all the other girls trashing Lizzie's house in "The Slumber Party".
• Limited Animation: All three animated incarnations, though the specials and Nelvana series hide it a little better than the '80s series.
  • Specifically, in "The Messy Room" episode, in a scene where Mama looks across her cubs messy room. Said scene is replayed, with Brother and Sister saying "Hi, Mama!", with the very same music cue.
• Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded when Freddie and Lizzy are borrowing Sister and Brother's clothes. The artwork shows their closets have twenty of the exact same outfit.
  • Similarly, "The Trouble with Grownups" plays with this — since everyone on the show usually only wears one thing, when Brother and Sister portray Papa and Mama, they dress up in their standard outfits, which makes it instantly recognizable who it is that they're portraying. The reverse becomes true later when Mama and Papa dress up as Sister and Brother.
• Literal Bookworm: In the Living Books adaptation of The Berenstain Bears in the Dark, clicking on one of the books in the library will cause a glasses-wearing bookworm to pop out, who rubs his tummy in satisfaction and says, "Mm! I love a good book."
• Long Runner: The series has been around since The '60s.
• Loose Tooth Episode:
  • One book is about a school play of the Nativity. A subplot involves a boy playing one of the Wise Men having a loose tooth, which gives him a Speech Impediment. By the time of the actual play, the tooth has fallen out, allowing him to speak normally again.
  • In "Visit the Dentist", Sister gets a loose tooth, so her parents book an appointment for her. Brother teases her about it and says the dentist will yank it out, but he ends up having to get a cavity filled in. The dentist extracts Sister's tooth and she gets money from the tooth fairy the next day. This was also made into a TV episode.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Queenie, who isn't that malicious; her bad traits are that in her first appearance she excludes Sister due to being Innocently Insensitive, and she occasionally goes out with Too-Tall.

M-R

• Magic Feather: In The Bad Dream, Sister Bear goes to the local movie house to see the romantic comedy The Magic Toeshoes, which is premised entirely on this trope. (Brother opts instead to catch the infinitely cooler Space Grizzlies!)
• Making Room for Baby: In Moving Day, one of the reasons that the bears move from their small cave to the bigger tree house is to have space to expand their family. Sister Bear is born in the next book.
• Mama Bear: Well, that's her name, anyway...
• Mindless Sheep: In "The Double Dare", Brother Bear keeps getting dared to do bad things like stealing by Too-Tall, Scuzz, and Smirk, with the bullies saying, "What are you, chicken?" when he refuses. Farmer Ben tells Brother Bear that he doesn't need to follow the bad dares to prove he's not chicken, because "following along like a sheep" is just as bad. In the orignal book, he even calls them a "buncha sheep".
  Brother Bear: I'm not chicken! But I'm not a sheep either!
• Minsky Pickup: The 1985 cartoon's theme song has one right before the bears start singing the lyrics.
• Mocking Sing-Song: Since two of the main protagonists in the franchise are kids, it happens...
  • In "Too Much Teasing", when Too-Tall and his gang get jealous of Brother Bear becoming the principal's special messenger at school, they constantly tease Brother with this...
    "Brother, Brother, teacher's pet,
    Now he is the principal's pet!"
  • This is how Sister calls out "Brother talked to a stranger!" when running to tell Mama and Papa in the TV version of "Learn About Strangers".
  • The TV version of "Too Much Birthday" has some of the party guests sing "Now we'll know your sweetheart!" to Sister this way when it's her turn at Spin the Bottle.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens in the animated version of The Messy Room. Much of the episode has Mama screaming at the cubs and the cubs screaming at each other. After a long drawn out panic attack of Mama threatening to throw away all the cubs' toys, Papa Bear walks in on the situation and fusses at the cubs as Mama had been doing earlier... and then very abruptly switches to a rather calm "Now let's sit down and talk about this."
• The Moral Substitute: Not as bad as many other examples, but still rather infamously there are Christian Berenstain Bear books. Most notably, The Berenstain Bears and the Big Question, in which they are heavily suggested to be Quaker. There is also a Berenstain Bears children's Bible. No really.
• Moving Angst:
  • In "The Bad Influence", Miranda Moss moves to Bear Country and is angry about having left her friends and school behind. She gets over it relatively quickly, however, when she meets Sister and they go on a tricycle ride together.
  • In the Whole Episode Flashback "Moving Day", the Bears are going to move to the valley. Brother is initially just worried that all of his belongings might not be able to come along (which they will), but then he points out that he'll leave his friends behind. Mama tells him that he can still write letters to them and visit, and he gets over his concerns once they all move into their tree house.
• The Moving Experience: The book Moving Day flashbacks to before Sister Bear was born and the Bear family lived in a cave, before deciding to move to their split-level tree house in Bear Country. When the book was adapted into a TV episode (in the PBS/Nelvana series), the story was appropriately told in flashback and book-ended with Brother and Sister being distraught that two of their friends from school will be moving away.
• Negative Continuity: In both the book and cartoon versions of The Excuse Note, it's stated that gym class at Bear Country School has to take place in the regular classrooms because the school can't afford an actual gym, but later books and episodes show that Bear Country School already has a regular gym.
• Never My Fault: In "The Blame Game", Brother and Sister were playing baseball and broke a window with a ball. Sister tries to pin the blame on Brother.... while holding a baseball bat.
• New Baby Episode:
  • "The Birds, the Bees, and the Berenstain Bears" focuses on Sister learning that Mama Bear is pregnant, and how that stuff works, and ends with Honey Bear being born.
  • "Baby Makes Five" focuses on Sister Bear learning to accept the newborn Honey, despite her stealing the attention and making dirty diapers.
  • In "New Baby", Brother (then named Small Bear) outgrows his old bed Papa made for him when he was a baby, so the two go into the woods to collect wood to make a new, bigger bed. As Brother wonders what will happen to his old bed, Mama is revealed to be pregnant, and Papa tells him about this. When Brother and Papa return, they find Brother's old bed is gone, and has been handed down to Sister, his newborn sister.
• Nightmare Fuel: Two in-universe examples for Brother and Sister in "The Bad Dream". The Space Grizzlies toys and movies each appear in their dreams, along with Sister's ballet movie in hers and her paper dolls in Brother's.
• No More for Me: A variant in the 1985 series' episode "The Spooky Old Mansion", where Brother and Sister have gotten creeped out by passing the Widder Grizzly's old house on Spook Hill. Brother, having been eating cookies and dropping a few on the ground, sees one of them moving soon after, and thinks it's haunted... but when he looks again, it isn't moving, and he comments to himself "Must have been seeing things. That'll teach me to eat too many cookies." before heading off. After he does, it's revealed that the cookie was moving because it had landed on the back of a frog.
• Non-Indicative Name: The name "Berenstain" does not describe anything in-universe; it's the surname of the authors, not the bears themselves.
• Not Now, Kiddo:
  • Spousal variant in Too Much Pressure, where Papa tries to warn Mama that the spark plugs of the car need cleaning. Mama, who's already been running herself ragged trying to keep up with the cubs' busy schedules, cuts Papa off and drives away, which later leads to the car breaking down on their busiest day yet.
  • In the 1985 series, whenever Raffish Ralph attempts to swindle Papa, Brother and Sister will invariably try to warn Papa, only for him to brush them off in this manner.
• Obsessive Hobby Episode: In "Too Much Internet", the Bears take up the Internet but spend too much time online, so they resolve to only spend an hour a day online.
• Ocular Gushers: In "Get the Gimmies" on the PBS series, young Papa Bear cried these to get his parents to get him a toy truck he wanted, though he ended up donating it to a boy in a needy family.
• On One Condition: In the 1985 series' episode "The Spooky Old Mansion", the Bear family is told they'll inherit "a gift of great worth" from Widder Grizzly, but only if they go to her house on Spook Hill at the stroke of midnight. Things are complicated by the fact that the house is full of owls, spiders, bats and frogs who are determined to scare them away, thinking the Bears will want to get rid of them. In the end, the "gift" turns out to be the courage they demonstrated by coming in... and the house itself, which goes to all citizens of creatures of Bear Country to share. The Bears end up having the place renovated and turned into the Bear Country Library and Community Center.
• Only Sane Man: This trope gets passed around a lot but frequent holders are Brother, Mama and Sister; Lizzie has also gotten it when the conflict is between Brother and Sister.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mama is normally the level-headed one in the family, which becomes shocking in Too Much Pressure when she breaks down in tears due to being overwhelmed with taking Brother and Sister to their activities and the car breaking down.
• Opening Narration: The 2002 series has a character reciting the opening rhyme (in voiceover) from the book the episode is based on.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: In "House of Mirrors" from the PBS version, Sister Bear overhears Lizzie's mother telling her that Sister Bear has "big ears" in warning her not to speak so loudly about the surprise she's planning for Sister. Sister Bear only hears the part about the "big ears" and takes it literally, resulting in her being down about self-image.
• Out Sick:
  • This starts all of Brother Bear's problems in The Trouble at School: he catches a cold, misses several days of school, forgets to study while at home, then flunks a test when he goes back, and is replaced on the soccer team too.
  • In Sick Days, Sister Bear stays home from school because she's sick.
• Overly Polite Pals: Brother and Sister become this in an effort to both keep out of trouble and annoy Mama Bear into cancelling the Politeness Plan in Forget Their Manners. It backfires because not only does Mama not get annoyed, but they wind up getting into the good manners habit and start being polite without thinking about it.
• Parents as People: Papa and Mama Bear are not without their flaws. Papa can be oafish and Mama can be somewhat righteous. And both of them have been shown to lose their temper at times (e.g. Papa in Trouble with Money or Mama in The Messy Room). Also, The Trouble with Grownups is a virtual lampshading of part of this trope, although it examines the parent-child relationship from both sides of the fence.
• Pepper Sneeze: Happens a few times during the 1980s cartoon episode "The Mansion Mystery".
• Pet Baby Wild Animal: In one of the PBS Kids TV stories, Sister Bear adopts a baby chipmunk.
• Playground Song: The kids, including Brother and Sister Bear, sing "Down by the Bay" in "Go to Camp" during the bus ride to camp.
• Potty Emergency: The book "Get the Don't Haftas" has the Bear family preparing to go on a long car ride to visit Aunt Dorothy, and Mama keeps reminding Sister that using the bathroom before they leave would be a good idea, but she keeps insisting "I don't hafta." Of course, among leaving the house and starting to drive through Beartown, Sister cries out "I HAFTA!" — and Papa, Mama and Brother also have to use the bathroom as well, so they immediately turn around back to their treehouse. The final page shows Sister, apparently having finished doing her business first, asking from outside the front door, "Hey, everybody! Are we going to visit Aunt Dorothy or not?"
• Prejudice Aesop: In the book "The New Neighbours", some panda bears move in next door. Papa Bear is prejudiced against them for not being "real bears", but then learns to accept them. The TV version of this book changes it so that they are a standard bear family like the other characters in the show, but come from a vastly different background that still sets off Papa's prejudices.
• Produce Pelting: Kumquats are thrown at Raffish Ralph and Weasel McGreed when their plans are foiled at the end of the 1980s cartoon episode "Save the Farm".
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The Theme Song of the 1985 series includes segments from John Philip Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and Edwin Eugene Bagley's "National Emblem" marches.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Mama and Papa during "The Bad Dream" when Brother Bear wants to see the Space Grizzlies movie and Sister vetoes it because she finds the franchise scary. Papa Bear compromises; he says Brother can see Space Grizzlies with his friends, while he and Mama go to see a movie with Sister that she would like, The Magic Toeshoes. Both siblings are satisfied.
  • Mr. Honeycomb, the principal of the school Brother and Sister attend, is much more reasonable than his vice principal, "Bullhorn" Grizzmeyer.
• Recurring Riff: In the 1985 series, a section of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" plays throughout, most notably during the opening and ending credits, as well as on some of the episode title cards.
• Recycled Soundtrack: A scene from Learn About Strangers used an instrumental version of "Down with Mush" from The Berenstain Bears' Valentine Special. Other episodes use some of Elliot Lawrence's background music tracks from the early specials as well.
• Red Ones Go Faster: Inverted in The Big Road Race, in which Brother drives a red car and is ridiculed by the other competitors for being extremely slow.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation: Combined with Adaptational Name Change. In the 2002 cartoon series, Cousin Freddy's parents are named Artie and Dottie, and Artie is Papa's half-brother. But in the books, namely those published after the series, Freddy's parents are named Wilbur and Min, and Min is Mama's sister.
• Retro Universe: No matter what modern features may appear in the series, the family always drives a 1930s-style car (identified as a 1954 roadster from Grizzly Garage in the Big Chapter Book And the Ghost of the Auto Graveyard). The clothing styles tend to be evocative of rural America in the early 20th century. Candlestick telephones also seem to remain in vogue, but the series flip-flops a bit on that.
• Retcon:
  • When Lizzy Bruin is introduced in Trouble with Friends, she's said to be an only cub (which is why she tends to expect her own way all the time). But later in the series, she gained an older brother, Barry Bruin.
  • The Berenstain Bears and the Sitter introduces a "Cousin Wilbur" (presumably either Mama or Papa's cousin, since he's an adult). In later books, he becomes Uncle Wilbur, the father of Cousin Freddy.
• Rhymes on a Dime: All of the early books under The Bears label, as well as all five of the animated specials.

S-U

• Samus Is a Girl: In the 1982 half-hour special The Berenstain Bears Comic Valentine, the last section of the story involves an ice skating match between the Bear Country Cousins and the Beartown Bullies. After the Cousins win, the Bullies' goalie, a big, intimidating bear in a hockey mask, removes it to reveal a girl bear. And to top it off, she turns out to be Honey Bear, the girl who's been sending Brother Valentine's cards proclaiming herself his super-secret Valentine the entire special.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
  • In The Ghost from the Forest (adapted into the 80s TV series as "Bust a Ghost"), Papa Bear, Scout Leader Jane, and Mama Bear each set these up. Subverted in that none of them had malicious intent; it was just a prank by Papa Bear to scare the cubs during a camping trip, and by Scout Leader Jane and Mama Bear to get back at Papa Bear.
  • In the 80s TV episode "The Great Grizzly Comet", Bear Country is abuzz with the news of the Great Grizzly Comet, which only passes by Earth's atmosphere once every hundred years, will be visible one night. Papa Bear believes it will be a Comet of Doom, and then Little Green Bear aliens land in a flying saucer to warn them that the Great Grizzly Comet will collide with Bear Country, and as this news spreads around town, Raffish Ralph offers to buy the area while everyone evacuates the area. Brother and Sister Bear are suspicious about this (especially since Actual Factual had stated a few times there is no danger from the comet), and so they investigate and find out that the "Little Green Bears" are actually Weasel McGreed and three other henchweasels disguised in full-body alien suits (albeit with their true hands visible) flying in an inflatable saucer, in a scheme Ralph had cooked up to take advantage of the comet hype. Luckily Bigpaw is able to help Brother and Sister in foiling Ralph and the weasels' plan.
  • In The Haunted Lighthouse (a chapter book that was also adapted into an episode of the 2002 series), the Bear family goes on vacation to an old defunct lighthouse that's rumored to be haunted, because Papa is very interested in old service buildings. Brother and Sister notice strange things going on, including seeing what looks like the ghost of the old lighthouse keeper Captain Salt, rumored to have disappeared after the lighthouse was taken out of service due to modern technology rendering it obsolete. Their investigation takes them to the hideout of Captain Salt himself, who had been pretending to be a ghost to scare everyone away from the old lighthouse, but once he realizes Brother and Sister Bear find all of his nautical stuff cool, he is more welcoming of the Bear family and tells them his great experiences of being a lighthouse keeper, and is then given the idea to turn the lighthouse into a nautical museum so everyone can see his stuff on display and hear his stories.
• Serial Escalation: "The Slumber Party" starts off with the eponymous sleepover only involving Sister, Lizzie, Anna, and Millie. However, the start inviting other friends to the party initially using the excuse "What's one more?" every time. It pretty quickly escalates to the likes of "What's a hundred more?" due to how many others get invited, which leads to the party getting overcrowded and out of hand, especially when Too-Tall and his gang crash the party with their boombox.
• Severely Specialized Store: The Big Honey Hunt (the very first book in the series) has Mama sending (or trying to send) Papa and Small Bear to the "Honey Store", which can be seen from the Bears' dining room window.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the "Too Much TV" episode of the 2002 series, Sister points out that the TV is playing the movie "Honey, I Shrunk The Cubs".
  • In that same episode, Brother Bear mentions something about watching nature shows on PBS, which was the channel the show aired on back then.
  • The Beary Bubbies in the book "Mad, Mad, Mad Toy Craze" are an obvious reference to Beanie Babies.
  • The in-universe franchise Space Grizzlies is Star Wars by way of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
• Show Stopper: In "The Talent Show" on the PBS version, Brother Bear is assigned as the talent scout for the school talent show. He finds a number of good acts, but is desperate to find his "showstopper", the big act that will bring down the house. His showstopper turns out to be Too Tall, who has a surprisingly tender and compelling singing voice.
• Shown Their Work: For "Under the Sea", the author made sure to depict the sea life accurately and clearly shows. The blobfish is even portrayed in its natural state rather than the more well-known deformed one.
• Show Within a Show: In "The Bad Dream" from the 2002 series, the entire Bear family sits down for Space Grizzlies, though Brother and Sister both decide to stop watching it after they start having nightmares about the show's villain character, Sleezo, Mastermind of Space.
• Shrug Take: In the 1985 animated adaptation of "Too Much Birthday", the rest of the cubs react this way when Sister starts crying due to being overwhelmed by all the mishaps at her party.
• Sick Episode:
  • In "Sick Days", Sister Bear gets an ambiguous disease that makes her sluggish and hoarse. Later, Mama catches it.
  • In "Go to the Doctor", Papa Bear sneezes repeatedly, but denies he ever gets sick. It turns out, he has a cold. By then, he's also developed a fever and a red throat.
  • In "The Trouble at School", Brother Bear gets a cold and misses a few days of school. Even though he was able to do his homework, he didn't, so he flunked his test when he got better. Sister Bear then catches it off him.
• Silly Prayer: In one book, Brother and Sister try to stall going to bed by saying a very long prayer asking to bless a whole lot of people.
• Similar Item Confusion: The 1987 episode "The Crystal Ball Caper" uses it twice. First, Raffish Ralph sneaks into Gran and Gramps' house and steals Gran's magic crystal ball from the bag it was kept in, substituting a nearly-identical crystal ball and taking the original to Weasel McGreed... only to discover he accidentally stole Gramps' bowling ball instead. Meanwhile, Gran discovers the switch and, at the same time, realizes that Gramps — who keeps his bowling ball in an identical bag to the one her crystal ball was in — had accidentally taken the wrong bag with him to the bowling alley earlier.
• Sleepwalking: At the end of And the Missing Honey, it turns out that Papa's honey was "stolen" by none other than Papa himself, who walked out to the shed and ate it in his sleep.
• Slow and Steady Wins the Race: In "The Big Road Race", "Little Red" (Brother Bear)'s car may be slow, but he just keeps going anyway and ends up winning, due to the other drivers being eliminated through carelessness, sabotage or ego.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Look at Brother in The New Baby. Kayaking, snorkeling, and all sorts of activities. The New School Year is post-Honey's birth (to the point where she's walking). Brother is in 3rd grade and Sister is in 1st. No way is Brother 2 in the first book, and no way is Sister 4 in the Bear Scout books.
• Soundtrack Lullaby: In one of the animated episodes, Raffish Ralph is meeting with Weasel McGreed about his latest plan to take over Bear Country, which involves hypnotism. Weasel demonstrates by hypnotizing Ralph to sleep, which is accompanied by a statement of "Rock-a-Bye Baby" on the saxophone, the main instrument of Ralph's Leitmotif.
• Soup Is Medicine: In the cartoon episode "Trouble at School", when Sister catches Brother's cold, Mama Bear heats up chicken soup.
• Species Surname: The Bear family of course, but also Dr. and Too-Tall Grizzly, the Ursus family, Queeny McBear, Lizzy Bruin, and practically every other character has a surname that is some variation of the word Bear, or a particular species thereof.
  • If not bear, "Honey" seems to be quite common.
• Spin the Bottle: The cubs play this game in Too Much Birthday — at Sister's sixth birthday party, no less!
• Split-Screen Phone Call: Used near the middle of the 1980s cartoon episode "The Not So Buried Treasure" when Mama Bear is talking to Gran on the phone.
• Spoiler Title: The Nelvana animated series has "Papa's Pizza" in which Brother and Sister are throwing a party, but can't figure out what to serve for food because all of their friends have different likes and dislikes. Three guesses how the problem is solved, and the first two don't count.
• Steam Never Dies: Sister and Brother Bear may eat too much modern junk food, watch too much TV and do their homework on a computer, but when the time comes to take the train to visit Aunt Tilly in All Aboard!, suddenly it's the very early 20th century all over again. The Grizzly Express comes complete with colorful steam engine, coal tender, old-looking passenger cars, and engineers wearing blue coveralls and funny hats.
• Stock Animal Diet:
  • While the bears will eat anything else that's edible (bears are omnivores, after all), they are still especially fond of honey, berries, and fish.
  • When the panda family moves in in And the New Neighbors, they promptly plant their favorite food — bamboo — outside.
• Stock Animal Name: In The Berenstain Bears Lose a Friend, the pet goldfish of Sister's that dies is, unsurprisingly, named Goldie. The goldfish that her parents replace it with to try to spare her feelings is named Goldie Two once Sister realizes the switcheroo.
• Stock Beehive: Averted. Honeybees are consistently portrayed as nesting inside hollow tree trunks, just like in real life.
• Stock Sound Effects: In the audio-book production of The Berenstain Bears and the Baby Chipmunk, the sound effect for the squealing of the chipmunk should be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever owned a guinea pig.
• Supreme Chef: Mama Bear is one.
• Suspender Snag: In Easter Surprise, when Papa Bear is sawing off a tree branch, Brother warns him too late that he's standing on the branch he's sawing off. Papa falls as the branch comes off, but luckily he gets left hanging from another branch by the back of his overalls just before he hits the ground.
• Swapped Roles: In "The Trouble with Grownups", Brother and Sister Bear put on a play and pretend to be their parents to show how they perceive parenting. The next day, Mama and Papa Bear return the favor by pretending to be the cubs.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Sister towards Tuffy in "The Bully"; after having punched her in the nose in self-defense, Sister finds herself feeling sorry for Tuffy when she learns the real reason why Tuffy treated others so badly, driven to tears by fear of what her parents will do to her.
• Take That!: The "Mad Mad Mad Toy Craze" is one big Author Tract against Beanie Babies.
• Tempting Fate: In The Berenstain Bears Show episode "The Trojan Pumpkin", Papa Bear says "What possible harm could come from one tiny pumpkin seed?" Naturally, it turns out that the seed grows into a giant pumpkin made to house a war machine built by the weasels.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Sister's bow. Indeed, without their identifying articles of clothing, male and female bears are virtually identical.
  • In The Berenstain Bears Go to the Doctor, though, Brother and Sister strip down for their checkup and reveal that they are wearing matching undergarments (white tank tops with matching boxer-briefs).
• "Test Your Strength" Game: The 1980s episode "Ring the Bell" features a "Strongest Bear" contest at a fair with a high striker. Among finding out he's going to compete in the contest, Papa Bear decides to test it out before the contest begins, but only succeeds in getting the striker to go up one third of the way. Then during the actual contest, Too-Tall's father Two-Ton Grizzly easily gets the striker to hit the bell, but when it's Papa's turn, the bees seeking revenge on Papa for stealing his honey to make his famous six-flavored honey for the fair's honey contest (which he won) all fly towards Papa in the shape of a harpoon and sting his behind, resulting in Papa hitting the striker so hard he breaks it and wins the "Strongest Bear" trophy!
• Thanksgiving Episode:
  • "The Prize Pumpkin" in the 2002 series, adapted from the 1990 book of the same name, involves Papa Bear entering the largest pumpkin from his patch in the annual Thanksgiving pumpkin contest.
  • Predating this story is the 1980 TV special "The Berenstain Bears and the Legend of Bigpaw", which is also a Thanksgiving story.
  • The 2009 book "The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks" has sister befriend Squanto, the turkey Farmer Ben is raising for the Bears' Thanksgiving dinner. In the end, Mama and Papa agree to let her keep him as a pet and serve salmon for Thanksgiving instead.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: Both TV adaptations do this. Though the '80s series includes a few of the supporting cast members as well.
• This Is My Side: Done with Brother and Sister's tree house in ...Get in a Fight. Provides the trope image.
• Three Shorts: Both the Hanna-Barbera and Nelvana cartoons split their stories up into 11-minute pairs.
• Title Confusion: In spite of the series title, the protagonists are not named "Berenstain". The authors are.
• Title Theme Tune: Many of the shows started with one.
• Tongue-Out Insult: "The Bears' Nature Guide", which shows a frog and a toad both trying to catch the same fly and getting their tongues stuck together, with its Spoof Aesop being "Never stick out your tongue at your cousin".
• Too Smart for Strangers: A comparatively realistic and intelligent handling of the subject.
• Toxic Family Influence: In The Berenstain Bears and the Bully, Sister Bear has a bully named Tuffy. After a fight with Sister Bear, Tuffy reveals that the reason she's a bully is because her parents spank her.
• TV Telephone Etiquette: In "Slumber Party" from the PBS animated series, every time that Sister and Lizzie take another call from someone else wanting to attend Lizzie's slumber party, they wrap up the conversation with "Sure, what's one more?" and hang up.
• Two Girls to a Team: Inverted by the Bear family after Honey's birth.
• Unexpected Art Upgrade Moment: Happens at least twice in the books:
  • ...Visit the Dentist: Sister Bear finds that she has a loose baby tooth, and coincidentally, Brother Bear also needs to go to the dentist for a checkup. After being preoccupied with the tooth for the whole story, the dentist seats Sister in the examination chair, takes a piece of gauze, and gently, but firmly, pulls the tooth out. On the next two-page spread, a closeup illustration shows Sister Bear looking joyously at the first baby tooth she has ever lost in the hand of the dentist.
  • ...and the Bad Dream: Brother Bear is an enormous fan of the "Space Grizzlies" line of action figures and playsets, and he bargains for Sister Bear to role-play (by playing games and activities that Sister wants to do first), and they eventually both get into the fun. When it's announced that a Space Grizzlies motion picture is releasing to cinemas soon, Brother Bear is, of course, thrilled. However, the cinematic experience proves to be a bit intense by himself, on Avengers level, if the two-page spread of the battles blazing on the movie screen is anything to go by. This leads to the eponymous bad dreams (made up of the Space Grizzlies characters and the various activities from earlier in the story) that he and Sister Bear experience that night.

U-Z

• Unexpected Kindness: In "Trick or Treat", all the kids in town think that Miz McGrizz is a Wicked Witch. Too-Tall brings them to Miz McGrizz's house so that they can prank her, but then she comes out just then, much to their horror. To their surprise, though, she's just offering them candied apples, so they all realize she's nice after all.
• Walk Into Camera Obstruction:
  • In the theme song in 1985, where a bear in purple overalls walks into the screen.
  • And the theme song in 2002, where Papa Bear is riding a unicycle, but runs into the screen.
• A Weighty Aesop: Too Much Junk Food is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — all the Bears save Mama end up eating too much junk food, and it takes a visit to the doctor to Scare 'Em Straight.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: "Brother" and "Sister"; lampshaded by Queenie in her introduction where she is baffled at Sister's name.
  • Hilary snidely asks Sister the same question in the PBS Kids version of "The In-Crowd". Sister has no response except an angry huff and an indignant pout.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Or, for that matter, what happened to the dog? An early book depicts them getting a pet dog who is never shown again. Granted, she appears in the 2002 cartoon a few times.
  • Same thing with Honey Bear, the baby. She is never seen or mentioned in the 2002 cartoon, despite being born in the books.
• Women Are Wiser: Except for that incident in Messy Room where she lost her temper and started throwing out all the cubs' toys and Papa got to be the voice of reason, Mama is always right and Papa is always wrong. (In some of the rhyming advice books, he's not just wrong, but almost lethally stupid.)
  • Thankfully, there was another moment where, after the slumber party goes a little too out of hand, Papa mentions that maybe it was their fault too, since they didn't ask if Lizzie's parents would be home.
  • In the PBS series, he's often not nearly as bad. (See You Are Grounded! for just one example.)
• Worm in an Apple: In "The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Strangers", Mama Bear, who is talking to Sister Bear, compares strangers to apples, saying that some apples may look bumpy on the outside, but then cutting the bumpy apple she brought out and revealing the inside is fine. Then she brings out an apple that isn't bumpy, but has a bunch of worms inside when sliced; Sister is disgusted, and so is Brother when he enters the room. The lesson Mama is teaching here is that some strangers may be "bad apples" that look friendly on the outside but actually aren't.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tuffy's parents apparently physically harm their daughter on a frequent basis.
  Tuffy: If the principal tells my mom and dad about this, I won't be able to sit down for a- well, a long time.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The whole reason for the plot in The Berenstain Bears and the Bully: In the beginning Brother is all ready to personally deal with Tuffy for beating up Sister until the moment he finds out she's a girl, with his only reasoning for refusing to fight her being "...there was no way he could hit a girl. If he did, then he'd be the bully", making him resort to teaching Sister how to fight back instead.
• You Are Grounded!:
  • Sister is grounded in "The Slumber Party" by Mama Bear after things go south at Lizzie's slumber party. It's actually Papa Bear who is the voice of reason and admits that they as parents were partially to blame for not knowing just how wacky things had ended up with the slumber party (which had basically become a little bear cub girl equivalent of a bad college frat party.)
  • Brother Bear is also severely grounded by Papa in Report Card Trouble for a terrible report card, being stripped of basically everything except studying until his grades improve. Mama at first approves of this completely, only putting her foot down when the grounding threatens to get out of hand, but eventually realizes that they should have been checking his work as parents too.
• You, Get Me Coffee: The PBS Kids version has an unusually positive example in "The Big Race". Kenny, a cub who's even younger than Sister Bear, wants to help Brother Bear, Freddy and Too Tall in making a racecar for the big race. They, however, already have things pretty much covered, but agree to let him help out, doing things that are pretty much "you get me coffee" type-of tasks. However, at no time are they ever mean to him and, in fact, treat him as a valuable member of the group. In the end, he is able to help them out when they realize that they're lacking a wheel by providing one from his prized wagon. They decide to let him be the one to drive the racecar at the race, though they pretend to draw straws for it, secretly snapping their own straws behind their backs so that Kenny was guaranteed the longest straw.

The Bear Scouts chapter books contain examples of the following:

Bear Scouts tropes

• Adaptational Alternate Ending: Both The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin and the 1985 episode "The Trojan Pumpkin" end with the cubs destroying the titular pumpkin via sending it rolling down a hill. However, the circumstances are changed:
  • In the episode, it was daylight when Mama and Papa both saw their cubs sending the giant pumpkin to its doom, and subsequently witnessed the weasels emerging from the ruins, thus learning that they'd been trying to use the pumpkin as a disguise for a weapon.
  • In the book, it's still dark out, so Papa only sees the pumpkin rolling down the hill from a distance and thus doesn't see the weasels and never learns of their involvement, nor that all four Bear Scouts were responsible (despite their being right there by where it stood before falling).
• Adaptation Expansion: A full dozen out of the twenty books are expanded versions of episodes from The Berenstain Bears Show (the 1980s version), or in one case a TV special that pre-dated the show.
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin is expanded from episode 4, "The Trojan Pumpkin".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts in Giant Bat Cave is expanded from episode 7, "The Giant Bat Cave".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts Meet Bigpaw zigzags it — the book is an expanded and reduced version of The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw, the second of the five TV specials released from 1979-1983, trading the Thanksgiving-centered plot for one involving the Bear Scouts and Professor Actual Factual.
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Coughing Catfish is expanded from episode 42, "The Coughing Catfish" (which had previously been adapted into a "Happy House" book, The Berenstain Bears and the Coughing Catfish).
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts Save That Backscratcher is expanded from episode 18, "The Condemned Backscratcher".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Terrible Talking Termite is expanded from episode 2, "The Terrible Termite".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sci-Fi Pizza is expanded from episode 6, "The Flyaway Pizza".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Magic Crystal Caper is expanded from episode 47, "The Crystal Ball Caper".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Ice Monster is expanded from episode 46, "The Ice Monster".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts Scream Their Heads Off is a loose adaptation of episode 5, "The Spooky Old Mansion".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Really Big Disaster is expanded from episode 34, "The Bigpaw Problem".
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Evil Eye is expanded from episode 30, "The Wicked Weasel Spell".
• Adaptation Name Change: The 1985 Southern Star cartoon series introduced Raffish Ralph, a recurring con artist character. As with the Big Chapter Books, this series changes his name to Ralph Ripoff.
• Always Chaotic Evil: As in The Berenstain Bears Show, the weasels of Weaselworld are absolutely always evil, with no exceptions.
• Ambiguous Syntax: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts in Giant Bat Cave, the scouts defend Giant Bat Cave from developers by taking advantage of the ambiguous syntax of its name to spread a rumor about the cave being inhabited by a giant vampire bat.
  Which is giant, the cave or the bat?
• The Bet: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts Ghost Versus Ghost, Ralph Ripoff makes one with the Bear Scouts — if they can spend one full night in a supposedly haunted forest, he'll go straight, while if they lose, they have to spend a year keeping his houseboat and the surrounding area clean. The cubs win (despite Ralph trying to cheat), but end up joining him in cleaning up his houseboat anyway as thanks for his saving them from a group of crooks who were operating in the same area that they'd been camping in.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ralph Ripoff of all bears in The Berenstain Bear Scouts Ghost Versus Ghost. He came into the woods with the intention of scaring the Bear Scouts with a ghost costume (in order to win a bet), but when a group of more dangerous criminals decide to pull a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax in order to scare the cubs away from their illegal logging operation, Ralph doesn't hesitate to jump in and fend off the crooks with his cane long enough for the cops to show up.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Early on in The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sinister Smoke Ring, Farmer Ben is faced by a group of anti-smoking protestors, who vehemently oppose him growing tobacco plants on his farm. Annoyed, he insists that they have no right to protest on his property, while they insist he has no right to grow such a "filthy weed." In the end, the police defuse the situation using this trope, pointing out that while Ben is right that they have no right to protest on his property, they can do so all they want on the street away from it. Meanwhile, on the protestors' end, the police agree with them that Smoking Is Not Cool, but point out that tobacco is a legal crop, so Ben has every right to grow it on his farm if he wants.
• Bound and Gagged: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, Ralph Ripoff gets tied up, gagged and stuffed in a closet by the weasels to keep him from blabbing about their plans before they can carry them out. The cubs later find him, but leave him there at his request.
• Canon Immigrant: Ralph Ripoff was introduced in the 1980s cartoon (as "Raffish Ralph") before becoming a recurring character in the Big Chapter Books and subsequently this series.
• Card-Carrying Villain: This series' version of Ralph Ripoff is a crook and not shy about it. He even has a little song about it, first seen in The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin and loosely based off the one he sings in The Berenstain Bears Show.
• Destroy the Evidence: Done by the weasels in The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin — in order to hide the evidence of their scheme, they gather up the remains of the giant pumpkin and the machinery inside and dispose of them before anyone besides the Bear Scouts can see what had happened. They also remove the passage that Ralph had used to reach Weaselworld, in case anyone saw him (which they suspect had happened, though they never confirm it).
• Disney Villain Death: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, the humongous pumpkin and the war machine inside it are destroyed when the Bear Scouts use levers to send it over the edge of the hill, crashing to its doom.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Ralph Ripoff may be a swindler (and is more of a problem in this series than in The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books), but he still has his moments where he shows there are things he won't do.
  • In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, when Ralph finds out what the humongous pumpkin is meant for (to house and disguise a war machine), he's horrified, and warns the Bear Scouts to get back up to Bear Country for their own safety.
  • In The Berenstain Bear Scouts Ghost Versus Ghost, he willingly comes to the Scouts' rescue when they're threatened by a group of more dangerous crooks (the Bogg Brothers Gang), whom he fights off with his cane until the cops arrive.
• The Family That Slays Together: As in the Big Chapter Books, this series features the Bogg Brothers, herein expanded into an entire family of criminals and their associates rather than just the core three siblings.
• Geo Effects: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, when Ralph and Weasel McGreed are discussing why to give Papa the pumpkin seed instead of Farmer Ben, this is one of the reasons Ralph cites — McGreed had said at an earlier time that they needed high ground, and "It's Papa's pumpkin patch that has the high ground. Overlooks the whole valley." Since they're planning to turn the pumpkin into a war machine (not that Ralph knows this at the time), starting from a high point will give them an advantage.
• Given Name Reveal: Towards the end of The Berenstain Bear Scouts Save That Backscratcher, Gramps's real name is revealed to be Ernest when Mayor Honeypot recognizes him as an old friend from their younger days.
• Green Aesop:
  • The plot of The Berenstain Bear Scouts in Giant Bat Cave revolves around cubs stopping the adults from turning the titular bat cave into a tourist trap, and protecting the ecosystem inside in the process.
  • The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Coughing Catfish deals with the hazards of water pollution (the titular catfish coughs due to the water being all dirty and polluted).
• Hidden Villain: The weasels in general, including their leader Weasel McGreed. Most of Bear Country doesn't even know their society exists, let alone believe that they're a threat, save for Gramps and later the cubs after they end up in the weasels' Underground City and see for themselves that the weasels are plotting against the surface-dwellers.
• Kitchen Sink Included: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Run-Amuck Robot, the titular robot is described as being made of "Everything but the kitchen sink. And quite a few sink parts."
• Merit Badges for Everything: Most, if not all, of the books start with the cubs discussing what new merit badge to try for, some of which are decidedly unusual. The first book alone mentions the "Creative Merit Badge" (which they earn for entering a pumpkin-carving contest) and the "Sleep-out Merit Badge" (for having three sleep-outs within a month).
• Mistaken Identity: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Ice Monster, when the bears see the gigantic ice-and-snow-covered monster, they assume it's simply a rampaging beast. It's not until later that they find out it's actually Bigpaw.
• Mythology Gag: The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Stinky Milk Mystery features a plot about Farmer Ben's cows getting into the onion grass and giving onion milk as a result, which is reminiscent of subplots from both The Berenstain Bears and the New Girl in Town and The Berenstain Bears and the Haunted Hayride from the The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books series.
• Not Now, Kiddo: The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin features a variant in that it's a fellow cub doing it — Cousin Fred starts to say "There was an ancient wise bear who said-" twice, only to be interrupted by Brother both times, saying there isn't time for "ancient wise bears" right then. After the second time he's cut off, Fred decides to "show, and not tell" by grabbing a fence rail and finishing his sentence even as he puts the rail under the pumpkin — "Give me a lever and a place to stand and I can move the world!" The other cubs quickly catch on and join in with fence rails of their own, ultimately resulting in the pumpkin's destruction.
• Only Sane Man: Gramps, who's effectively the only adult to believe that the weasels are behind a lot of bad happenings and that Ralph Ripoff can't be trusted.
• On One Condition: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts Scream Their Heads Off, the Bear Scouts are told they'll inherit Widow Bearkin's old house on Spook Hill, but only if they take possession at midnight on the next new moon (and are later told that they also have to go into every room at least once, to prove the place isn't haunted, and stay in the house until dawn). If not, it'll go to the county to do with as they please. While they technically violate the terms by leaving before sunrise, the law firm still awards them the property for meeting the terms in spirit, by proving (albeit by different means than intended) that the place isn't haunted. In the end, they have the house and grounds thoroughly renovated and cleaned up, with the house turned into a Community Center for Beartown and the grounds becoming a park and playground.
• Properly Paranoid: Discussed in The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin — Ralph, who's explaining why he and the weasels should use Papa as the unwitting pawn for a scheme rather than Farmer Ben, describes Farmer Ben as "a mean, suspicious old cuss" and "the sort who counts his fingers after you shake hands with him". Given the circumstances though, Ben comes off as being justifiably suspicious.
• Recycled Plot: The Berenstain Bear Scouts Ghost Versus Ghost borrows a great deal from The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest (and "Bust a Ghost", the TV episode that it was adapted from).
• Ripped from the Headlines: The plot of The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sinister Smoke Ring is heavily inspired by the anti-smoking backlash — it features anti-smoking protesters and a moose mascot that might as well just be called "Joe Camel".
• Scarecrow Solution: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts in Giant Bat Cave, as part of their plan to protect Giant Bat Cave from developers, the cubs build a giant vampire bat, remotely controlled, to scare off the developers in question.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
  • Three of them in The Berenstain Bear Scouts Ghost Versus Ghost. First, Ralph Ripoff makes a bet with the Scouts and plans to win it by cheating, dressing up as a ghost to scare them out of the supposedly haunted woods where they're camping. Second, Professor Actual Factual figures out what Ralph is up to and decides to scare him with a ghost costume of his own. And third, the Bogg Brothers — the real villains of the book — dress as a ghost to try and scare them all away from their illegal logging operation.
  • In The Berenstain Bear Scouts Scream Their Heads Off, the Bear Scouts have to go into Widow Bearkin's old house on Spook Hill on the night of the new moon. While there, they find it's been rigged up to simulate a haunting, including a sheet made to look like a ghost, a boom box with ghostly noises and a large number of rubber rats. It turns out the place is being used as a headquarters by a band of thieves, members of the Bogg Brothers Gang, who are using the house to stash stolen loot and set up the scares to keep the cubs away long enough for them to pick up their ill-gotten gains and move them to another location. Fortunately, the Big Bear City cops managed to get there and capture the thieves while the Scouts and their Scout Leader were away informing the Beartown police of what they'd found, and are still on the site when the cubs and Jane return with Chief Bruno.
• Secret Underground Passage: Bear Country is riddled with them, which the weasels use to get between Weaselworld and the surface (and to get Ralph back and forth too), and to spy on the bears.
• Take Over the World: The weasel's goal in the series is to "Take over Bear Country", through trickery or brute force.
• Tempting Fate: Zigzagged in The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sci-Fi Pizza — Ralph Ripoff invites five pickpocket associates in to pick the pockets at a fair, feeling that with the size of the crowd and only two police officers on duty, there's little chance of them getting caught. The opening of the chapter with the fair has two of the pickpockets being arrested (although the other three apparently got away).
• Trojan Horse: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, Weasel McGreed has Ralph Ripoff give Papa a seed that grows into the titular gigantic pumpkin, which the weasels then hollow out during the night in order to insert a war machine into it, complete with cannons, for use in an attack on Bear Country. Fortunately, the Bear Scouts catch on and send the pumpkin rolling down a hill, smashing both pumpkin and the equipment inside, on the ground below before the attack can be carried out.
• Underground City: Weaselworld, the underground home of the weasel society led by Weasel McGreed.
• Unwitting Pawn: In The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Humongous Pumpkin, Papa Q. Bear is this in more ways than one. Ralph specifically chooses him to grow the giant pumpkin the weasels are planning to use as camouflage for their war machine because he's such an easy mark, and indeed, Papa never realizes that he was being used.
• Variant Cover: Uniquely in the series, The Berenstain Bears and the Sinister Smoke Ring features different editions for every state in the U.S., with the same cover art but varying background colors and a statement from the governor of each state inside, advising parents to talk with their kids about the dangers of tobacco.
• Wicked Weasel: As in the 1980s cartoon series, this series features an underground society of Always Chaotic Evil weasels led by Weasel McGreed, who seek to take over Bear Country — "Lock, stock and honeypot!"

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