Western Animation / Goldie & Bear

"Life is one big happy ending..."

Once upon a story / In a forest far away / Goldilocks met up with Bear and they began to play! / Now they're friends forever since she broke his little chair / It's a very merry fairytale... it's Goldie & Bear!

Goldie & Bear is an All-CGI Cartoon series aired on Disney Junior beginning in 2015. The series was actually first introduced on the network's mobile app before making the leap to television. The series is a twist on the traditional fairy tale of Golidlocks and the Three Bears, the idea being that after Goldie broke Bear's favorite chair, they made up and became best friends. Together, they explore and play in Fairytale Forest, interacting with a hodge-podge of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters, including The Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, Jack and the giant, Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, the little old lady who lived in a shoe and her children, Thumbelina and many others beside. There's one song per episode and the two usually end up getting into some kind of adventure or trouble, but everything works out happily in the end.

A second season began airing in September 2017. The first season of the show has been made available on Netflix. In Mid-July 2018, it was suddenly announced that the series had been cancelled after two seasons. The reason why remains a mystery.

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Goldie & Bear features examples of the following:

• Actor Allusion: In the Albanian dub, Red Riding Hood is voiced by Jessica Kasemi, who had previously played a Red Riding Hood character in Super Why!.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: This cartoon features The Big Bad Wolf (real name Aloysius) as a recurring antagonist. Though he's a mischievous Big Eater rather than a vicious predator, and is even shown to be a genuinely decent person, err, wolf, deep down.
• All Animals Are Dogs: In "The Egg," the baby dragon, "Skippy," that hatches from the egg which Goldie & Bear discover barks, wags his tail, plays fetch, and otherwise generally behaves like a dog.
• All Trolls Are Different: The troll is a cranky toddler equivalent who throws a tantrum and blocks the bridge because he was woken up from his nap. Fortunately, Bear's Mama Bear is a master troll tamer and knows that the troll can be dealt with by using a firm tone, giving him a blankie and teddy bear, and redirecting him back below the bridge to curl up to finish his nap. Alternatively, giving him a balloon will also work, if you extract a promise from him to go back and finish the nap in exchange for it.
• As You Know: It's actually subverted. The episode "When Goldie Met Bear" has Goldie's father tell the titular duo a story about the time they weren't friends, and how they became friends, something you'd think they already know. The end of the episode reveals that they do remember it, and they just like hearing the story.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Little Coach Horner" for Little Jack Horner, "Fairy Godmother Gets Grounded" for Fairy Godmother, "Gnome Family Reunion" for Gnomey, "Pigs Without Twigs" for Twigs, "Mother Goose On The Loose" for Mother Goose, "Viva Don Huevo!" for Humpty, and "Red Moves Away" for Red.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In "Bunny Trouble," Goldie and Bear forget about the instructions for feeding the titular bunny, Lenny, and he ends up getting a bowlful of his magical food from Gnome when he's only supposed to have half a cupful. He grows to enormous size and begins hopping throughout Fairytale Forest wreaking havoc. They eventually find some magical food to shrink him down, but by then, he and Giant have made friends and Giant wants to keep him as he is for his own pet. It's agreed they can stay together, without Lenny being shrunk. Also, in the Episode "Big Bear", Bear grows to giant size when he ate one of Jack's magic beans.
• Attending Your Own Funeral: In "Abraca-Cabbage," Goldie experiences essentially a sort-of G-rated version of this. While performing a magic show, one of her tricks was to turn herself into a cabbage. As she was supposedly turning herself back, a bird stole her magic hat, so she ran off to chase after it, leaving Bear to believe that she had become stuck as a cabbage and couldn't change back. At the end of the story, she wanders in on the eulogy that her friends are having for her, now that she's apparently doomed to spend the rest of her life as an inanimate cabbage. After listening to some touching words from Big Bad, she pretends that Bear's shouted "Abra-cabbage!" has brought her back, before revealing the truth.
• Halloween Episode: "Trick Or Treat Trouble" also the series finale.
• Balloonacy: In "Giant Among Us," Goldie and Bear try this as a means of getting the Giant back up to his home when the beanstalk is accidentally broken by magic. It fails when the 4 and 20 blackbirds pop the balloons.
• Baths Are Fun: In "Think or Swim," it's a really hot day in Fairytale Forest, and Goldie, Bear and Humpty Dumpty all want to go swimming, but are shocked by the long line for the pool. They end up at the Giant's house, where they discover his large bathtub and decide to fill it up, against Humpty's advice. They end up creating a giant bubble bath and sing a song called "Fun in the Tub" as they're doing it.
• A Bear Named Bear: Bear, Goldie's best friend, of course. However, also see Last-Name Basis below.
• The Big Bad Wolf: This Lighter and Softer version of the Big Bad Wolf is voiced by Jim Cummings, just like the Big Bad Wolf in other more recent Disney productions. While he's trouble at times to both the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, as well as the protagonists Goldie & Bear, he has a number of redeeming qualities as well.
• Big Eater: The Big Bad Wolf - when he is actually is a nuisance on the show, it's usually because he's trying to steal food.
• Blanket Fort: In "Thumbelina's Wild Ride," Thumbelina builds one with Goldie and Bear when babysitting them. It's actually pretty posh.
• Casting Gag: One episode had the Big Bad Wolf's brother Good Wolf come to visit, and teach him good manners. Said brother is voiced by Tom Kenny. Big Bad is voiced by Jim Cummings. Why does that sound familiar?
• Christmas Episode: "Winter Chime Day" has everyone celebrating the titular holiday for the coming of winter
• Embarrassing First Name: Big Bad's real name is "Aloysius," but he warns the title characters to never tell anyone when they find out. They promise him that to them, he'll always be "Big Bad."
• Expository Theme Tune and Title Theme Tune: It tells us about how Goldie and Bear met up and includes their names (the title of the show) several times.
• Fan Boy/Fangirl: Bear and Goldie are this respectively to Prince Charming. He doesn't really care and is willing to put up with it so long as it gets him a day of fun away from his boring princely duties.
• Feud Episode: "Pig Trouble," with the three little pigs. Twigs gets upset at Brix for borrowing her wheelbarrow and leaving out in the rain and Brix correspondingly gets mad at her fuming at him. Then Baley gets mad when their fighting accidentally ruins his roast beef.
• Fairy Tale Free-for-All: Fairytale Forest is home to all sorts of classic fairy tale characters, whom Goldie and Bear interact with.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: The main characters adventure in "Fairytale Forest," a hodgepodge featuring a lot of major traditional fairy tale characters. However, The Big Bad Wolf is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who mainly just has a big appetite, The Three Little Pigs are given names and work together as builders, and the Giant at the top of the beanstalk is friendly. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...
• Free-Range Children: Goldie, Bear and the others pretty much have the run of Fairytale Forest on their own. Their parents are apparently entirely unconcerned about there being any real danger within it that could trouble unsupervised children.
• Fun with Homophones: In "Think or Swim," Humpty Dumpty shouts "high," trying to warn Goldie and Bear that they're filling the Giant's bathtub too high. Unfortunately, they think he's just saying "Hi."
• Four-Fingered Hands: Inverted. The human characters and Humpty are depicted with five fingers, but all the other animals are depicted with four.
• Gender Flip: Twigs, who's part of the Three Little Pigs, is a girl. The three pigs are traditionally all brothers, though there are a few other recent exceptions.
• Good Feels Good: This is the reason why Big Bad's brother, Phil, who used to be even worse than Big Bad, became good. He was planning to fill up the wishing well with sand, but ended up rescuing a family of mice that was trapped in the well and found to his surprise that it felt good. So he just kept being good.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Goldie has blond hair and is incredibly sweet, so she fits this trope like a glove.else
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Bear
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain & Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Big Bad Wolf, a.k.a. "Big Bad." Sure, he's regularly a pest to both the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. However, he schemes are rarely effective and when they do work, he's often regretful. He's also shown several redeeming qualities, including being willing to try niceness and being apologetic and helpful after realizing that he's acted like a jerk.
• Last-Name Basis: Bear's real first name is actually Jack. Bear is his last name. When he was little, he came to be known as "Baby Bear" and eventually the name stuck as just "Bear."
• Missing Mom: In "When Goldie Met Bear", Goldie's mother was mentioned several times in the flashback but never made a physical appearance until the next episode.
• Name and Name: It's Goldie & Bear, a spin on the classic fairy tale of Goldilocks.
• Noodle Incident: The events of the original tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears are treated as a noodle incident within the series, with it only being mentioned that Goldie broke Bear's favorite chair. The premiere story is all about her trying to repair it in order to surprise him with it as a birthday present. At least until the end of the first season - see Origins Episode below.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are several Jacks on the show. There's Jack of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, Jack of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill, little Jack Horner, Jack B. Nimble (he claims the "B." stands for "Best") and Bear, whose first name is actually Jack. In "The Clubhouse That Jack Built," Jack B. Nimble starts a club in which only Jacks are allowed. However, the other Jacks soon start to miss their friends and quit the club.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Golidlocks generally goes by "Goldie" and, as mentioned above, The Big Bad Wolf goes by "Big Bad" and has the real first name of Aloysius.
• Origins Episode: The season finale of the first season introduces Goldie's father Mr. Locks and flashes back to the time when Goldie and Bear were not the best of friends because of the notorious "porridge incident."
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "A Charming Day Off," Prince Charming tries this and fails with a pair of glasses and a bad fake mustache. Goldie and Bear recognize him immediately, rightly call it a bad disguise, and insist he get a better disguise before the King's Men see him. They end up disguising him as a bush.
• Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Goldie wears a full outfit and bear wears a shirt and nothing else
• Pet Baby Wild Animal: In "The Egg," Bear wants to keep the dragon which hatches from the egg that he and Goldie found and it's not surprising, given its general behavior. (See All Animals Are Dogs above.) Eventually, Goldie convinces him that returning the dragon to his mother is for the best and they're rewarded with a dragon ride from the mother.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Goldie and Bear have a close, sibling like bond.
• Punny Name: The Big Bad Wolf is generally known as Big Bad because he's, well, the "Big Bad." Well, to the degree that he's actually bad, anyway.
• The Quiet Game: In "The Tooth About Jack and Jill," Goldie proposes this to Jack and Jill, who are sleeping over at Bear's with her and Bear, so that she can explain something very important, about the need for everyone to get to sleep that night so that the Tooth Fairy can come for Bear's tooth. It's basically ignored as they pepper her with questions about the Tooth Fairy.
  Bear: They're never gonna go to sleep!
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: After pulling the sword out of the stone and being crowned king, Bear soon learns that being king means he's supposed to make decisions that help everyone solve their problems. He soon ends up with two long lines: one of supplicants waiting for advice and one with folks unhappy with the decisions he's already made. Fortunately for him, it turns out that the stone with the sword in it was broken such that anyone could easily pull out the sword. He was never supposed to be king.
• Safety Worst: When the King's Men arrive in Fairytale Forest, they deem everything they spot dangerous and make a huge list of rules that prevent everyone from doing pretty much everything, including no reading, no swimming in the water, no sitting on walls, etc. Finally, Goldie gets so fed up with it that she decides to do a bit of Loophole Abuse by figuring out a way to have everyone swim in the sky because there was no rule specifically saying that they couldn't do that. After ending up having to be rescued while trying to keep the Three Little Pigs from doing something supposedly unsafe, they come to realize they went overboard and amend the rules to say that the residents of Fairytale Forest can do all of the things that were banned before, so long as they make sure to be careful.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud
  • Big Bad says "Guh-rowl" at least once. It can be seen/heard in the opening of this music video.
  • In "Pig Trouble," Baley, one of the three little pigs, declares "slam really loud" after he's unable to achieve this effect closing the door on his straw house. This becomes a Running Gag throughout the episode.
• Shout-Out:
  • In one episode, there's a mouse named Brian who thinks he has bad luck. Sound familiar?
• Third-Person Person: Big Bad sometimes does this.
  Big Bad: Oooh! Big Bad's got a big, bad idea!
• This Is My Side: In "Pig Trouble," the Big Bad Wolf blows down the pigs' straw and stick houses, in the hope that if they're all forced to be together in the brick house, they'll make up and stop arguing. Instead, they just split the interior of the brick house three ways.
• You Can Talk?: In "A Fish Tale," after Bear catches the huge fish Big Bart, he celebrates by shouting that he caught him, to which Big Bart replies something like "Yeah, you caught me." Bear is immediately surprised that the fish can talk, since all of the small fish up to that point had been non-anthro.
• You Mean "Xmas": Instead of Christmas, the characters celebrate "Winter Chime Day."

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