Teddy bears taken to the next level of cute, with pastel colors and symbols on their chest (known as "tummy symbols" or more recently "belly badges"). They live up in the cloud-city of Care-A-Lot and frequently visit Earth to help out kids who are feeling down. The Bears have names relating to their specialty - Good Luck Bear, Friend Bear, and so forth. Later, "Care Bear Cousins" representing other animals were introduced (Brave Heart Lion, Cozy Heart Penguin, etc.); they live in the Forest of Feelings about halfway between Earth and Care-A-Lot.Originating on greeting cards in 1981, these little guys and gals were a hit right out of the gate when Kenner launched a toy line two years later. They had a lot of animated screentime for the rest of the decade: two specials, a TV series, and three theatrical films over 1985-87: The Care Bears Movie, Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation, and The Care Bears Adventure In Wonderland. A fourth film, Care Bears Nutcracker Suite (1988), was aired as a TV special when the third flopped. The franchise died back through the 90's after a very brief and unsuccessful redesign — Compare My Little Pony. Now they're back with a handful of new direct-to-DVD movies.In most of the films and cartoons, they are pitted against various "heartless" villains who want to make the world safe for evil, often by removing people's ability to care for others... or to feel emotions at all. The baddies ranged from the Mad Scientist Professor Coldheart in the specials and the DIC TV episodes to the Evil Spirit of the first movie to the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain crew of the later Nelvana TV episodes (evil wizard No Heart, his niece Shreeky, and henchman Beastly). When the chips are down, that's when the Care Bear Stare comes into play.They're one of the most spoofed of The Eighties toy lines because of their overly sugary reputation - which is not wholly deserved when one takes some of their villainsand plotlines into account. On the other hand, they're still quite popular. At the turn of the millennium, the characters were relaunched with a toy revival and two direct-to-video animated films. In 2007, a redesigned line of the toys arrived along with another DTV film and a Saturday morning series on CBS, Care Bears - Adventures in Care-A-Lot.Adventures in Care-A-Lot is out of production, but the character line launched with the Oopsy Does It continued with films such as Giving Festival Movie and Care Bears to the Rescue Movie. It has been announced that The Hub will be presenting a new CGI Care Bears series titled Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot. Based on promos now airing on The Hub, the new series will carry the general look of the recent CGI films, and will introduce some new human characters.Films include:
Be Careful What You Wish For: A major theme of the CGI Big Wish Movie. Wish Bear, upset that nobody likes her wishes, wishes for some bears to come to Care-a-Lot who like wishing just as much as she does. She gets her wish, but the new neighbors turn out to like wishing so much that they take away Twinkers, her wishing star, from her.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The Cloud Keeper, Professor Coldheart and Frostbite. This is due to DiC losing the rights to the TV series and Nelvana not being able to own DiC's original characters.
Crying Wolf: Crying swamp monster, actually. Then there was a "real" swamp monster who happened to be Beastly in disguise, and the real real monster wasn't bad.
Demoted to Extra: Grumpy's fate during the '00s revival. He pretty much VANISHED from all merchandising from the show (despite being the most iconic of the group) in favor of Bedtime Bear, another blue colored Care Bear.
Eventually, the decision was eventually reversed in Adventures in Care-a-Lot.
Many characters got this treatment in the Nelvana series.
Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbows are everywhere. They're not just for decoration, they're used as traveling devices, energy and hell, even weapons. Especially with Cheer Bear.
Evil Is Hammy: Most of the villains. Probably the most notable example is the Vizier from the Nutcracker special, who is fond of SHOUTING OUT EVERY LINE! Which are then commonly followed up with a "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
If you don't think the Evil Spirit counts, perhaps you need a LESSON on what Hammy is. A LESSON you really need. A LESSON FOR YOU!!!
For the Evulz: Pretty much the only reason almost any villain does anything. Except for Adventures in Care-a-Lot's Grizzle, who simply hates the Care Bears and wishes to take over, or at least be rid of, Care-a-Lot.
Another exception is the Wizard of Wonderland from the third movie Care Bears Adventure In Wonderland. His motive is political power (he wants to become the new king of Wonderland).
Getting Smilies Painted On Your Soul: The Care Bear Stare had this effect in the DiC, to somewhat disturbing results. It was toned back into an all purpose weapon against evil in the Nelvana series before returning to its roots in Adventures In Care-A-Lot.
Good Feels Good: Initially played straight with Beastly's Heel Face Turn, then subverted. He runs back to Shreeky at the end of the episode because he can't stand the taste of diabetes being a Care Bear brings.
Green Lantern Ring: The Care Bear Stare can generate energy constructs, generate light, fabricate items, act as a prosaic energy blast, brainwash people into caring, free people from brainwashing, damage intangible entities, and shove objects around telekinetically, among other things.
Love Redeems: Or caring redeems, but Dark Heart became Cristy's friend in the second movie, and he felt so bad about nearly killing her, that it drove the evil out of him.
Make a Wish: In one episode, Grumpy gets an eight-leaf clover that can grant him three wishes.
Also averted. He uses his first wish to make a bully "go away." On a show farther along the cynicism side of the scale, the bully might have been wished out of existence.
Make Me Wanna Shout: In the TV series, Shreeky's, well, shrieks, can be heard from a mile away and injure people. In one instance, a Care Bear attempts to record her scream, and the tape recorderexplodes.
Merchandise Driven: The first two films introduced new or revamped characters in conjunction with their toy line debuts: the Cousins in the first, and the whole gang's baby selves in the second.
There are plush toys for bears from Adventures in Care-a-Lot that had maybe two lines on the show at most, if they even got to speak at all.
Nobody Poops: Well, of course, but Adventure in Wonderland actually goes so far as to show us the inside of Grumpy Bear's bathroom, which has everything you would expect except for a toilet. No wonder he's so cranky.
Even in the second movie's "I Care For You" song, all the diapers they changed seemed perfectly clean.
Padding: The first sequel had a musical number at the end that was pretty much just there to make sure it fulfilled the bare minimum for screentime. The song itself was over six minutes long and over half of it consisted of endlessly-repeated chorus (obstensibly to cover the end credits).
Paper-Thin Disguise: When Mr. Beastly wanted to flimflam the Care Bears, he would resort to this. It worked every time, even when it was only a pair of Groucho Glasses.
Portrait Painting Peephole: Frostbite does this to spy on the Care Bears in the "Freeze Machine" special.
The Power of Rock: That one too. (As an aside, have you noticed that these "Power Of" Tropes seem to be the Holy Trinity for 80's cartoons?)
Grams Bear plays an electric guitar in one episode.
Princesses Rule: Princess Starglo, who is the "mother of all stars", yet is not a queen.
Quirky Miniboss Squad: Professor Coldheart, Frostbite, and Auntie Freeze. Then later, Shreeky and Beastly, who also serve as a two-person Terrible Trio.
Real Dreams Are Weirder: In the Adventures in Care-a-Lot TV series, all the Care Bears share a dreamspace where they tend to have rather mundane dreams (where they do the same things they tend to do in their waking lives), so it was rather refreshing to see the bears having more dream-like dreams in the Share Bear Shines movie.
Recycled IN SPACE!: One of the oddest examples this side of "Fonzie and the Happy Days Gang". The final season of the original "Care Bears Family" cartoon featured two spinoffs. One was a Recycled IN SPACE Star Trek parody. The other was a Recycled In PrehistoriaClan of the Cave Bear parody. This, friends, is what a Dork Age looks like and the cartoon was canceled soon after.
Ridiculympics: One episode involves the Care-A-Lot Games, consisting of such events as the piggyback race, limbo, the egg spoon race, and paddle ball. Much hilarity ensues when Mr. Beastly tries to cheat at every single event he participates in (his screwup with the paddle ball stops just short of destroying the entire stadium).
That Makes Me Feel Angry: Somewhat justified because the Care Bears are all about getting people to "share their feelings." It's heavily Flanderized in Adventures In Care-A-Lot, though, where the Bears (particularly Share) constantly inform each other just what emotion they're feeling at the time.
Villain Song: In the first TV special: "Allow me to introduce myself!/They call me Professor Coldheart..."
And from the Adventures in Care-a-Lot movie Oopsy Does It, "Grizzle's Bad."
"When I'm the King of Wonderland" in the Wonderland movie.
Wasn't That Fun?: In one segment from the "Giving Festival" movie, Oopsy and Wingnut help Trueheart get over her fear of rollercoasters. Part of their method involves riding the ferris wheel first, but they accidentally set the wheel to super fast, sending the wheel spinning at at a terrifying pace. Once they get it stopped, Trueheart seems to be in shock, until she says, "That. Was. AWESOME!" Later, after Trueheart gets over her fear of the Funderbolt, she completely embodies this trope, insisting on continuing to ride after the others have been tired out from riding twenty times.
Zombie Apocalypse: Adventures in Care-a-Lot has one when a Love Potion goes wrong, turning the other Care Bears into creepy "love zombies" bent on apparently hugging Oopsy to death.
that The Hub will be presenting a new CGI Care Bears series titled Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot. Based on promos now airing on The Hub, the new series will carry the general look of the recent CGI films, and will introduce some new human characters.Films include:
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