History Literature / TheBerenstainBears

* ActingForTwo: An in-universe example in the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'', where some of the circus performers are also regular employees. For example, the circus boss Captain Billy is also the ringmaster, his enforcer Otto is Primo the [[WorldsStrongestMan World’s Strongest Bear]], and their head clown is the janitor (which turns into a plot point late in the book).

* AxesAtSchool: ''No Guns Allowed'' features a serious discussion about cubs bringing guns to school. Too-Tall scares the kids in the climax by bringing a water pistol to squirt Ferdy. Lizzie calls her dad, and everyone is worried Too-Tall wanted to actually kill Ferdy. Even though Ferdy uses their rubberband gun on Too-Tall, making him lose their feud by default, Brother and Sister are still shaken.

* AbsenteeActor:
** In the 2002 series, Mama was missing from "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Papa was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Brother was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", and Sister was missing from "On the Job".
** In the 1985 series, the only episode where Mama and Papa Bear don't appear is "Save the Farm", which was also the SeriesFinale.
** The book ''Escape of the Bogg Brothers'' has both Mama and Papa absent. The four Bear Detectives -- Brother, Sister, Cousin Fred and Lizzie Bruin -- are featured on their own against the titular criminals.

** 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!"

* AdultFear:
** ''Lost in Cyberspace'' has Teacher Bob talk about the same thing: how random strangers on the Internet will take advantage of your personal information to lure you into a trap and kidnap you. Lizzie is shaken despite pointing out her dad is chief of police. She also finds other criminals by accident in a poetry chatroom and runs to school in a panic after realizing the poems are code for extortionist plans.
** ''No Guns Allowed'' features a serious discussion about cubs bringing guns to school. Too-Tall scares the kids in the climax by bringing a water pistol to squirt Ferdy. Lizzie calls her dad, and everyone is worried Too-Tall wanted to actually kill Ferdy. Even though Ferdy uses their rubberband gun on Too-Tall, making him lose their feud by default, Brother and Sister are still shaken.

* DoItYourselfThemeTune: The 1980s cartoon has its theme song sung by the Bear family and a few of the supporting characters.

** The 1983 special '' The Berenstain Bears Littlest Leaguer'' aka ''Play Ball''.

* BigGuy: Too-Tall.

* CatchPhrase: "I don't know if I can stand the excitement." The 1980s cartoon version of Brother often said this in SarcasmMode.

* BanisterSlide: In the 1980s episode "The Berenstain Bears and the Trojan Pumpkin" (later adapted into the Bear Scouts book ''And the Humongous Pumpkin''), 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.

* UndercoverCopReveal: The climax of the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug Free Zone'' has the cubs learning that one of their chief suspects, whom they'd assumed was a crook on the basis of his looks alone (such as his going around in a trenchcoat), is actually a detective from a nearby city brought in to help track down the source of the drugs in their town.

* BedBaron: The first (in)FamousAncestor in Squire Grizzly and Bonnie's family tree was a ruthless bandit known alternately as "Bad" Bart and "The Maniac of Mountain Highway." When his ghost seemingly shows up during a ScoobyDooHoax, he gets a posthumous third moniker: The Maniac of Grizzly Mansion.

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

There were also several {{Animated Adaptation}}s over time: ''Christmas Tree'', ''Meet Bigpaw'', ''Easter Surprise'', ''Valentine Special'' and ''Littlest Leaguer'' (also called ''Play Ball''), all of which aired on Creator/{{NBC}}. A TV series (''The Berenstain Bears Show'') aired on Creator/{{CBS}} between 1985 and 1986, and a second began in 2003 on Creator/{{PBSKids}}. The 1980s cartoon was an InternationalCoproduction between the American and Australian Creator/HannaBarbera units and Aussie's Southern Star (originally a subsidiary of H-B AU prior to the end of TheEighties, later folded into Endemol); the PBS series was produced by Canada's Creator/{{Nelvana}}. Nelvana also previously held the rights to the older CBS series after Southern Star was folded into Endemol.

The entirety of the 2003 series is available (outside the US & Canada) on Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUIixndCOJ8waZQoavUVxMSWIDX4Cpm3B 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 [=DVD=]s and continues to exclusively distribute the series in the US as of today.

** In the 2003 series, Mama was missing from "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Papa was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Brother was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", and Sister was missing from "On the Job".

* AdaptationalNameChange: Mr. Smock, Mizz [=McGrizz=] and Bertha Broom have been re-named Mr. Drewberry, Widder Jones and Betsy respectively in the 2003 TV series.

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The 2003 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.

* BumblingDad: Papa Bear, though he is the voice of reason in ''Messy Room''. The 2003 series somewhat tones this down and makes him wiser and more helpful, while still acting goofy once in a while.

* CharacterDevelopment: In the 2003 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".

** One of the books had an anti-TV Aesop. It was adapted into an episode of the 2003 TV series. Three guesses as to why ''that's'' hard to take seriously.

* ContinuityReboot[=/=]AlternateContinuity: The 2003 series is of a different canon from both the books and especially the 1985 series.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Downplayed with the 1985 animated series. Compared to the original 1970s animated shorts and the 2003 series, this series actually had antagonists in the form of the weasels and even had more yelling and arguing among the Bear Family, which rarely happened in both the 1970s animated shorts and the 2003 series.

* DenserAndWackier: In contrast to the more down-to-Earth 2003 cartoon, the 80s animated adaptation is far more cartoony than the original books were.
* TheDentistEpisode: 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. [[LaserGuidedKarma 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 2003 AnimatedAdaptation.

* EvilLaugh: In "The Bad Dream" from the 2003 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.
* ExactWords: In the 2003 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.

** An episode in the 2003 show has [[Music/BritneySpears Britney Bear]] and [[Music/BackstreetBoys The Backstreet Bears]].

* FleetingDemographicRule: Interestingly averted for the 2003 TV series. Despite there being more than enough space between it and the 1985 series for a grown up demographic, the 2003 series avoids adapting any books that had already been done in the prior series.

** The 1991 book ''Don't Pollute (Anymore)'', along with its animated adaptation in the 2003 TV series.

* HiccupHijinks: The 2003 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.

** Happens to Sister Bear and her friend Lizzie in the 2003 episode "The Big Blooper" with the word "furball" after they watch a video owned by Lizzie's brother -- [[ShowWithinAShow ''Trouble At Big Bear High.'']] In the book it's based on, the same plot occurs but Sister just uses SymbolSwearing.
** In the Finnish dub of the 2003 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.
* IrisOut: Actually ''not'' the standard method for ending episodes of the 2003 series, but it is used at the end of "The Hiccup Cure" with Papa Bear after [[HereWeGoAgain 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.

* LighterAndSofter: The 2003 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 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 2003 series her tone is only mildly stern following Sister and all the other girls trashing Lizzie's house in "The Slumber Party".

* OpeningNarration: The 2003 series has a character reciting the opening rhyme (in voiceover) from the book the episode is based on.

** In ''The Haunted Lighthouse'' (a chapter book that was also adapted into an episode of the 2003 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.

** In the "Too Much TV" episode of the 2003 series, Sister points out that the TV is playing the movie [[Film/HoneyIShrunkTheKids "Honey, I Shrunk The Cubs"]].

* ShowWithinAShow: In "The Bad Dream" from the 2003 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.

** "The Prize Pumpkin" in the 2003 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.

** And the theme song in 2003, where Papa Bear is riding a unicycle, but runs into the screen.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: 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 2003 cartoon a few times.
** Same thing with Honey Bear, the baby. She is never seen or mentioned in the 2003 cartoon, despite being born in the books.

* AdultFear: Surprisingly enough the fears are there even with a SugarBowl world:
** Brother and Sister worry about getting shots at the doctor. Dr. Grizzly demonstrates that needles aren't so bad and they only hurt a little. Meanwhile, Papa is in denial that he's sick despite his constant sneezing; he's dismayed to find out he has a fever and a bad cold.
** In-universe in ''And the Bad Dream'', where in the film "The Magic Toe-Shoes" that Sister sees, a ballerina loves dancing but keeps wobbling on her feet. She laments that she's never going to be able to pursue her dream career. Her instructor fortunately has a solution and restores her confidence.
** ''Learn About Strangers'' features Papa Bear reading the news to Sister about a cub being kidnapped, and a suspect being questioned. That, plus the fairy tale he reads her, leaves her awake at night thinking about how talking to a stranger can lead to a child vanishing into thin air, maybe even being eaten. Sister the next day is a walking ball of nerves until Mama intervenes.
** ''Computer Trouble'' has Sister create a social media account on Pawbook (Bear Country’s version of Facebook), only for a classroom bully to find her and post a hurtful message on her newsfeed.

* SkirtOverSlacks: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Queenie wears a very, very short mini-skirt to school twice. The second time, it's over a pair of jeans that are mostly holes.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: In ''And the Sinister Smoke Ring'', when the kids see Miss Glitch and her group harassing Farmer Ben for growing tobacco, they are torn. On one hand they don't like smoking but also they like Farmer Ben. Officer Bruin drives up and admits that both parties have legitimate points; Miss Glitch has the right to protest, just not on Farmer Ben's property. Meanwhile Farmer Ben may be growing tobacco which is used to make cigarettes but it is a cash crop. When neither party backs down, Office Bruin threatens to arrest them for brawling and trespassing. That breaks up the party.

** In the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'', however, it turns out [[spoiler:he didn't know his ringmaster friend would scam Dr. Grizzly out of funds for a hospital charity and gets angry when she tearfully explains to him. No one should steal from hospitals. He goes to confront the circus and nearly gets killed]].

* SummerCampy: The Big Chapter Book ''At Camp Crush'' sees Brother, Sister and their friends attending a summer camp run by their school's vice-principal Mervyn "Bullhorn" Grizzmeyer. The place is in desperate need of fixing up, and the campers themselves have to spend the first few days doing the work themselves, and there's a number of anonymous pranks that end up being the work of Too-Tall Grizzly and his gang (who weren't actually attending when they pulled them, they just got bored hanging around home without their "friends" and decided to go have some fun with them), but it's the "no contact between boys and girls" rule (due to Mr. Grizzmeyer's belief that they'll wind up getting a lot of silly crushes on one another and giving the camp a bad name) that really ticks off a lot of the campers. In spite of all this, they wind up having a lot of fun in the end and are looking forward to coming back; the big musical show at the annual inter-camp meet, where they proceed to show off their issues with the camp and yet how much they've wound up liking it, proves their point to Grizzmeyer and leads him to admitting he made some mistakes (including the "separate camps for boys and girls" rule) and will do better next year.

** Another notable difference is that the first couple of books were inhabited by different anthropomorphic (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 EasterSpecial).

** Once they get over the initial shock, this is Mama and Papa's reaction to the "Trouble with Grownups" play in the PBS version; in the picture book Mama Bear laughs with tears in her eyes in the audience while Papa stares in bewilderment. With the idea that turnabout is fair play when Mama and Papa dress up as the cubs.
** Also, this is how the entire family reacts in the picture book of "Too Much Vacation" when they review their vacation photos, with appropriate captions.

* AdaptationalHeroism: 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 SiblingsInCrime who go out of their way to cause trouble.

* AdultsDressedAsChildren: 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 ActuallyPrettyFunny and everyone bursts out in giggles.

** In "The Magic Toe-Shoes" that Sister sees, a ballerina loves dancing but keeps wobbling on her feet. She laments that she's never going to be able to pursue her dream career. Her instructor fortunately has a solution and restores her confidence.
** "Learn About Strangers" features Papa Bear reading the news to Sister about a cub being kidnapped, and a suspect being questioned. That, plus the fairy tale he reads her, leaves her awake at night thinking about how talking to a stranger can lead to a child vanishing into thin air, maybe even being eaten. Sister the next day is a walking ball of nerves until Mama intervenes.
** “Computer Trouble” has Sister create a social media account on Pawbook (Bear Country’s version of Facebook), only for a classroom bully to find her and post a hurtful message on her newsfeed.

** In "Get In A Fight" Papa Bear tells them that fights happen all the time and they come and go like the weather. He uses the stormclouds clearing outside to illustrate. Since Brother and Sister can't even remember why they started fighting in the first place, they agree to make up.

* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: 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.

* AdaptationExpansion: One of the Big Chapter Books, ''Accept No Substitutes'', is an expanded version of ''And The Substitute Teacher''.

** "Lost in Cyberspace" has Teacher Bob talk about the same thing: how random strangers on the Internet will take advantage of your personal information to lure you into a trap and kidnap you. Lizzie is shaken despite pointing out her dad is chief of police. She also finds other criminals by accident in a poetry chatroom and runs to school in a panic after realizing the poems are code for extortionist plans.
** "No Guns Allowed" features a serious discussion about cubs bringing guns to school. Too-Tall scares the kids in the climax by bringing a water pistol to squirt Ferdy. Lizzie calls her dad, and everyone is worried Too-Tall wanted to actually kill Ferdy. Even though Ferdy uses their rubberband gun on Too-Tall, making him lose their feud by default, Brother and Sister are still shaken.

* BanisterSlide: In the 1980s episode "The Berenstain Bears and the Trojan Pumpkin" (later adapted into the Bear Scouts book "And the Humongous Pumpkin"), 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.
* TheBet: In the "Bear Scouts" book ''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.

* BigDamnHeroes: Ralph Ripoff of all bears in the "Bear Scouts" book ''Ghost Versus Ghost''. He came into the woods, intending to scare 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 ScoobyDooHoax 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.
* BothSidesHaveAPoint: In "The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sinister Smoke Ring", when the kids see Miss Glitch and her group harassing Farmer Ben for growing tobacco, they are torn. On one hand they don't like smoking but also they like Farmer Ben. Officer Bruin drives up and admits that both parties have legitimate points; Miss Glitch has the right to protest, just not on Farmer Ben's property. Meanwhile Farmer Ben may be growing tobacco which is used to make cigarettes but it is a cash crop. When neither party backs down, Office Bruin threatens to arrest them for brawling and trespassing. That breaks up the party.
* BreakingTheGlassCeiling: In "The Female Fullback", Bertha Broom becomes the first girl to be on the school's football team.

* DontYouDarePityMe: Harry [=McGill=] doesn't like anybody showing sympathy over him being paraplegic. It gets {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in his debut book "The Wheelchair Commando", where his hostile attitude towards the other cubs because of it (not helped by Queenie believing DisabledMeansHelpless) makes it hard for those who genuinely want to befriend him to talk to him. It reaches its peak when he accuses Brother of defending him from Too-Tall's Gang simply to make himself look good, only to be promptly told by both Brother himself and several bystanders that Brother is famous throughout the school for protecting bullied cubs in general. Afterwards, he has a JerkassRealization, apologizes to Brother, and opens up to him and Freddy, which helps improve his interactions with the other students and helps the other cubs to get to know him more.

** In the first Big Chapter Book, ''and the Drug-Free Zone'', he's furious when he finds a stash of drugs that have been planted in his houseboat, and immediately brings them to the police station for disposal.

* GreenAesop: The 1985 animated series has "The Coughing Catfish" (later adapted into one of the Bear Scouts books), dealing with water pollution (the catfish coughs due to the water being all dirty and polluted).

* PoliceAreUseless: Averted in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone'', the cubs try to investigate who is selling drugs nearby in the town. An undercover cop, rather than appreciate their detective work, rightly tells them that it was very dangerous of them to do so and they could have been killed. They should have come to the police immediately with what they had rather than endanger themselves.

* RebuffTheAmateur: A variant in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone''. The Bear Detectives help expose the source of the drugs that have recently turned up in Bear Country, and while the police thank them for their help in cracking the case (and providing further evidence of the dealers' identities), they also sternly tell off the cubs for getting involved because of how dangerous drug dealers can be, and for jumping to conclusions based on first impressions.

** In the "Bear Scouts" book ''Ghost Versus Ghost'', there's ''three'' of them. 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 villains of the book ([[spoiler: the Bogg Brothers]]) dress as a ghost to try and scare them all away from their illegal logging operation.

* UndercoverCopReveal: The climax of the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone'' has the cubs learning that one of their chief suspects, whom they'd assumed was a crook on the basis of his looks alone (such as his going around in a trenchcoat), is actually a detective from a nearby city brought in to help track down the source of the drugs in their town.

!!Tropes present:

* AbusiveParents: Tuffy's [[FreudianExcuse reason why she became a bully]] in ''The Berenstain Bears and the Bully''.
* ActingForTwo: An in-universe example in the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'', where some of the circus performers are also regular employees. For example, the circus boss Captain Billy is also the ringmaster, his enforcer Otto is Primo the [[WorldsStrongestMan World’s Strongest Bear]], and their head clown is the janitor (which turns into a plot point late in the book).

** One of the Big Chapter Books, ''Accept No Substitutes'', is an expanded version of ''And The Substitute Teacher''.

** "Lost in Cyberspace" has Teacher Bob talk about the same thing: how random strangers on the Internet will take advantage of your personal information to lure you into a trap and kidnap you. Lizzie is shaken despite pointing out her dad is chief of police. She also finds other criminals by accident in a poetry chatroom and runs to school in a panic after realizing the poems are code for extortionist plans.
** "No Guns Allowed" features a serious discussion about cubs bringing guns to school. Too-Tall scares the kids in the climax by bringing a water pistol to squirt Ferdy. Lizzie calls her dad, and everyone is worried Too-Tall wanted to actually kill Ferdy. Even though Ferdy uses their rubberband gun on Too-Tall, making him lose their feud by default, Brother and Sister are still shaken.

** Some of the Big Chapter ones are particularly hamfisted in doing so (such as ''No Guns Allowed'', where Too-Tall gets busted for using a ''squirt'' gun and the police confiscate it). RealityIsUnrealistic: Under super-strict zero-tolerance (read zero-thinking) rules, kids ''can'' and ''have'' been suspended or even expelled simply for bringing squirt guns to schools, even if it was only by mistake. In certain cases, kids have even faced ''prosecution'' for this.

* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: In the PBS version of "New Neighbors", one of the reasons is that the mother of the house of the new neighbors 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.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The weasels in the ''Bear Scouts'' books and the cartoon are absolutely always evil, with no exceptions.
* AmbiguousSyntax: 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?
* AndImTheQueenOfSheba: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Ghost of the Auto Graveyard'', Brother again denies that Bonnie Brown is his girlfriend. Sister, not believing him, retorts with "And I'm Mayor Horace J. Honeypot."

* AntiSchoolUniformsPlot: ''The Berenstain Bears and the Dress Code'' pits cubs against adults after some particularly crazy fashion trends prompt the school to take decisive action. After the situation escalates to the students threatening a strike (and teaching the intended audience a fair deal about political activism in the process), the school finally concedes when it is revealed in a public debate that [[spoiler:the dress code's most ardent supporters sported fashions just as crazy in their own youths, if not even crazier]].

* AppropriatedAppellation: Too-Tall originally comes up with the nickname "Wheels" for the wheelchair-bound Harry [=McGill=] to mock him, [[InsultBackfire but Harry adopts the nickname and asks everyone to call him that.]]

* BadMoodRetreat: In the Big Chapter Books, Brother often retreats to his Thinking Place, a log in the woods, to think and try to solve whatever problem he's dealing with when he's unhappy. Its effectiveness varies, but he usually manages to either come up with a solution or have someone else show up to talk to him and work things out.

* BalletEpisode: The Big Chapter Book ''Gotta Dance!'' has Brother Bear, needing to learn how to dance in time for an upcoming school dance, joining Sister's ballet class after having initially thought it was too girly.
* BanisterSlide: In the 1980s episode "The Berenstain Bears and the Trojan Pumpkin", 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.

* TheBet: In the "Bear Scouts" book ''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.

* BigBrotherInstinct:
** 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.
** This instinct has since expanded to most of the school, with Brother being actively famous for defending bullying victims. This is actually a plot point in Harry [=McGill=]'s debut book ''And the Wheelchair Commando'', where Harry finding out about this (and realizing that Brother acts this way towards ''everyone'' rather than just those he feels sorry for) is what starts to turn him around and help him become friends with non-disabled cubs.
* BigDamnHeroes: Ralph Ripoff of all bears in the "Bear Scouts" book ''Ghost Versus Ghost''. He came into the woods, intending to scare 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 ScoobyDooHoax 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.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: When the kids see Miss Glitch and her group harassing Farmer Ben for growing tobacco, they are torn. On one hand they don't like smoking but also they like Farmer Ben. Officer Bruin drives up and admits that both parties have legitimate points; Miss Glitch has the right to protest, just not on Farmer Ben's property. Meanwhile Farmer Ben may be growing tobacco which is used to make cigarettes but it is a cash crop. When neither party backs down, Office Bruin threatens to arrest them for brawling and trespassing. That breaks up the party.

* BreakingTheGlassCeiling: In "The Female Fullback", Bertha Broom becomes the first girl to be on the school's football team.

* CanonImmigrant: [[HonestJohnsDealership Raffish Ralph]] (later renamed [[MeaningfulName Ralph Ripoff]]) and Weasel [=McGreed=] from the 1980s cartoon.

* CheatersNeverProsper:
** ''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.
** The Big Chapter Book ''At Camp Crush'' has the cubs attending Camp Grizzmeyer and taking part in the Inter-Camp Games at the end of the summer. The trope comes into play when it's time for the basketball game -- back home, Too-Tall is rarely punished for his usual style of playing dirty, but here, it gets the team penalized, as he's fouled out in all but one game, and the team finishes third overall as a result.

** The Big Chapter Books are chock-full of these. Events that took place in previous books get referred to in later books.

** The chapter books handle more mature topics than the picture books and cartoon episodes, ranging from drugs to students bringing guns to school.

* DecidedByOneVote: Subverted in the Big Chapter Book ''and the Female Fullback''; the B-plot is Brother Bear running against Queenie [=McBear=] for school president. Queenie is quick to include the upheaval from Bertha Broom trying out for the boys football team in her campaign, turning the election into a boys vs girls affair, but there are an equal amount of boys and girls in the student body. Queenie is confident she'll win and at the end it's revealed why; Too-Tall Grizzly has a crush on her, and she was counting on his vote! However, the votes are still tied because Bertha, who doesn't care about women's lib, voted for Brother. In the end, Brother concedes to Queenie because he has too many responsibilities anyway.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: Too-Tall becomes friends with Harry [=McGill=], a HandicappedBadass he was taunting, after the latter beat him in wheelchair basketball. Harry also thanks him for giving him a cool nickname, "Wheels".

* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** 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 FreakOut 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.
** In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Miss Glitch sending Queenie home for wearing a miniskirt, even though she was also wearing a full-body leotard with it. Principal Honeycomb (who wasn't aware of what happened) gets a phone call from Queenie's mother, who tells him off because Miss Glitch isn't Queenie's teacher. In addition, the miniskirt and full-body leotard was an outfit that Queenie's mother wore as a cub, and thus should be school appropriate. This ends up instigating a fashion war between the students, who are all pissed off at Miss Glitch for what she did, and a good portion of the teachers when Mr. Honeycomb has to leave on a business trip.
** In the Big Chapter Book ''And the School Scandal Sheet'', Queenie spots Teacher Bob having dinner with a teenaged girl and assumes they're on a date, so she takes a picture of them (unbeknownest to both of them) and sneaks it in the gossip page of the underground newspaper the Newspaper Club is publishing to protest against Miss Glitch's ironclad control of the newspaper. Unfortunately, the teen turns out to be [[RelativeError Teacher Bob's niece]] who's visiting him to look at colleges in the area, something Brother, the editor of the underground newspaper, knew for a fact as Mama had her over for tea a couple of days prior. Brother angrily informs Queenie that had she not gone behind his back to put the photo in, he would have killed the story on the spot and they wouldn't have pissed off Teacher Bob and so many of the teachers (who also know the teen is his niece). Not only is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Queenie horrified that she accidentally had her teacher accused of unprofessional behavior]], it ultimately led to the writers of the secondary newspaper getting exposed because Brother felt so guilty he confessed everything to Sister, which led to the school authorities finding out when Sister decides to tell Mama because she's worried about what would happen if the school authorities didn't find out who the writers were sooner.

* DisneyDeath: The climax of the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'' sees Ralph Ripoff supposedly killed by the books' villains, who knock him out, tie him up and throw him in the river. Luckily, he turns out just fine, having awoken and, using his old escape artist techniques, slipped out of his ropes before he ran out of breath.

* DontYouDarePityMe: Harry [=McGill=] doesn't like anybody showing sympathy over him being paraplegic. It gets {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in his debut book "The Wheelchair Commando", where his hostile attitude towards the other cubs because of it (not helped by Queenie believing DisabledMeansHelpless) makes it hard for those who genuinely want to befriend him to talk to him. It reaches its peak when he accuses Brother of defending him from Too-Tall's Gang simply to make himself look good, only to be promptly told by both Brother himself and several bystanders that Brother is famous throughout the school for protecting bullied cubs in general. Afterwards, he has a JerkassRealization, apologizes to Brother, and opens up to him and Freddy, which helps improve his interactions with the other students and helps the other cubs to get to know him more.

* DressCode: The Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'' revolves around one; the plot starts when the annual run of new spring fashions (or "rad clothes") starts getting out of hand at Bear Country School, in part out of rebellion after SternTeacher Miss Glitch orders Queenie [=McBear=] to go home and change due to disapproving her choice of clothing (a very short miniskirt) despite only being on hall duty and ''not'' being Queenie's teacher, and not even sending her to the principal's office first. Vice-Principal Grizzmeyer, who becomes acting principal while Principal Honeycomb is out of town on school-related business, fully supports Miss Glitch because he also disapproves of the rad clothes, and institutes a dress code specifically aimed at banning them, along with roping other adults outside the school into the movement against them. When the cubs turn to LoopholeAbuse to get past the rules, he keeps updating it to try and close the loopholes, until it boils down to "Any cub who shows up in clothes ''I'' don't approve of will be sent home, no exceptions". The cubs respond by threatening to refuse to come to school unless he backs down. Finally, some other adults persuade both sides to agree to debate, which the cubs win handily via revealing that the three lead adults in the anti-rad movement [[IWasQuiteAFashionVictim were no better in their youth]]. After the anti-rad group concedes, Principal Honeycomb reveals he's returned early and declares an end to the dress code, along with instituting casual Fridays, which satisfies the students and leads them to tone down the clothes of their own free will.
* DuelToTheDeath: In the Big Chapter Book ''and the Giddy Grandma'', Gran tells Sister the story of how, when she was younger, she used to perform a one-bear-band vaudeville act. She also recounts how Gramps (who also worked there, but not as a performer) and a clown named Roscoe both courted her, which culminated in Gramps slapping Roscoe and challenging him to a duel (which was, of course, illegal). Roscoe, as the challenged, had the right to choose the weapon... and chose pies, with someone promptly going to a nearby bakery and coming back with two banana cream pies for them to use. Despite losing the duel, Gramps came out on top in the long run, as he was physically unharmed (though his pride was somewhat wounded), and Gran decided he was the bear she wanted to marry.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Ralph Ripoff is established as a con man who constantly engages in [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]]. In the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'', however, it turns out [[spoiler:he didn't know his ringmaster friend would scam Dr. Grizzly out of funds for a hospital charity and gets angry when she tearfully explains to him. No one should steal from hospitals. He goes to confront the circus and nearly gets killed]]. In the ''Bear Scouts'' book ''Ghost Versus Ghost'', he also comes to the Scouts' rescue when they're threatened by a group of more dangerous crooks, whom he fights off with his cane until the cops arrive.

* EvilTwin: The lead villain of [[spoiler: the Big Chapter Book ''In Maniac Mansion'']] turns out to be one of these. [[spoiler:Squire Grizzly trusts his butler Greeves implicitly. The climax, however, reveals that Greeves has a twin brother named Arthur, who's been impersonating Greeves so he and his cohorts can make duplicates of the Squire's antique furniture, switch them out, and sell the originals for a lot of money.]]

* FeudingFamilies: The Big Chapter Book ''and the New Girl in Town'' features the sudden revival of an old feud between the Grizzlys and the Bears, based on the in-universe equivalent of the American Civil War. Highlights include Brother being violently chased out of Squire Grizzly's manor and the cubs at school getting into so many brawls that the teachers can't focus on anything else, including potentially injured cubs who just got in the way (like Sister's friend Lizzy who, as a Bruin, probably isn't counted on either side but clearly got knocked head over heels for being there, to her obvious fright and confusion). Fortunately, when the school stages a performance of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', with Brother Bear and Squire Grizzly's niece Bonnie in the lead roles as a pair of star-crossed lovers from two other feuding families, everyone gets the hint and things go back to normal.

* FunWithAcronyms: ''The Berenstain Bears and the Dress Code'' has two: B.O.R.E.[[note]]Bears for Order and Respect in Education[[/note]] and F.R.E.E.S.[[note]]Freedom and Rights for Each and Every Student[[/note]]

* GivenNameReveal: 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 of his.

** The 1985 animated series has "The Coughing Catfish" (later adapted into one of the Bear Scouts books), dealing with water pollution (the catfish coughs due to the water being all dirty and polluted).

* HandicappedBadass: Harry [=McGill=], a wheelchair-bound computer genius, skilled chess player, and former wheelchair basketball player introduced in ''The Berenstain Bears and the Wheelchair Commando''.

* HeldBackInSchool: According to the Big Chapter Book ''...and the Bermuda Triangle'', Too-Tall has been held back twice, which is why he's in Teacher Bob's class instead of Miss Glitch's.

* HypnoFool: In the Big Chapter Book ''At the Teen Rock Café'', Ralph Ripoff offers to do a hypnotist's act as part of the opening of the titular café. While practicing with willing volunteers, he accidentally puts Lizzie Bruin into a trance as well, allowing her to remember events from earlier. These recovered memories allow the other cubs to, with the help of the police, take down a shoplifting ring that's been causing a lot of trouble at the mall.
* {{Hypocrite}}: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Miss Glitch turns up at the Bear family's house to drum up support for a scheduled meeting about the dress code. Brother happens to be present and asks about the band concert that was previously scheduled at that time. When Miss Glitch brushes off his concerns by claiming the meeting is more important and the concert will be rescheduled, Brother storms up to his room in a fit of temper. The narration tells us Brother and the rest of the band want the concert (a school-sponsored event) to be over soon so they can move on; the hypocrisy of the teachers disrupting school events for their own desires (which they had claimed the cubs' fashion choices had been doing) so angers Brother that he goes from being a mildly annoyed but overall neutral party to [[LetsGetDangerous a ringleader of the kids' side of the debate who is ultimately indirectly responsible for their win]].
* HypocriteHasAPoint:
** 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. [[ParentalHypocrisy 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 [[SpoiledBrat Spoiled Brats]] and help him curb their behavior.
** In ''The Berenstain Bears and the School Scandal Sheet'', the cubs who are working on the titular scandal sheet are clearly breaking the rules and doing things that upset and even harm the school staff but said school staff basically ignored any and all of their desires when it came to writing for the school newspaper with such actions as forcing one of Brother's agemates to review books for first-graders and write a poem with a word that's nearly impossible to rhyme and ignoring Ferdy's suggestions for the science section. The cubs only went with the unauthorized newspaper because they felt ignored, something the adults admit was wrong of them.

* IHaveBrothers: In her debut book ''The Berenstain Bears and the Female Fullback'', Bertha Broom explains that she learned football from her older brothers. Unfortunately, it takes a ''lot'' more than that before Mr. Grizzmeyer will even consider letting her on the team.

* InsufferableGenius: Ferdie Factual, in his debut episode, [[CharacterDevelopment at first]].

* IWasQuiteAFashionVictim: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', this is how the kids thwart the school's new dress code -- during the debate, they display a slide show of the adults wearing absurd '60s and '70s clothing.

** Deconstructed at the end of ''The Drug Free Zone''. The Bear Detectives expose drug dealing in Bear Country; while the police thank them for their help, they also berate the cubs for getting involved. The cubs get warned that messing with drug dealers can be dangerous and is [[CallBack not like finding a missing pumpkin]].

* LeaveNoWitnesses: In the Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'', Ralph Ripoff is nearly killed when he tries to find evidence that Bear Country Hospital's been scammed out of the money it's earned from a fundraiser. This is apparently not the first time the culprits have done this, as one comments that "There's something about getting rid of a witness that gives me an appetite." Luckily for Ralph, he survives the experience.

* LoopholeAbuse: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', the vice principal becomes acting principal and establishes a school dress code, and the students hate ''both'' the new principal ''and'' the dress code. So they study the rules and on the very first day, decide to piss off the acting principal by doing ''just'' this, and intentionally declaring that they are not breaking any rules. "The rules say there are no ''blue'' jeans with holes allowed... Mine are ''green''", "I didn't cut these shorts, I ''ripped'' them" and "It's not a Batbear Cape, it's a Superbear Cape." This prompts the acting principal to blow his top and put in an ObviousRulePatch mid-day after this happens several times.

* MamaBear:
** Well, that's her name, anyway...
** In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Queenie's mother is upset when her daughter is sent home from school for wearing a miniskirt, since Queenie was inspired by the outfits her mother wore as a cub. She calls the principal and asks why Miss Glitch, who isn't even Queenie's teacher (but claims authority by virtue of being the one on hall duty), was allowed to do such a thing.

* MoreHypnotizableThanHeThinks: In the Big Chapter Book ''At the Teen Rock Café'', Ralph Ripoff offers to do a hypnotist's act as part of the opening of the titular café. While he's practicing with willing volunteers, Ferdy Factual claims he can't be hypnotized, but is easily put into a trance, after which Ralph has him act like the bear he most admires. This gets some laughs when he starts acting like ''himself''. Subverted with Too-Tall Grizzly, who also claims he can't be hypnotized, but appears to fall under Ralph's control easily; it soon turns out he's faking it in order to scare one of his gang who'd laughed at him earlier (Ralph, for his part, figured out Too-Tall was faking as soon as he started talking while still in his "trance", but played along).

* NonResidentialResidence: In the Big Chapter Book ''...and the Giddy Grandma'', after Gran starts practicing her incredibly noisy "One-Bear Band" act (playing several instruments at once, while on roller skates) in the attic, Gramps moves out of his house and into his tool shed for a few days.
* NotInThisForYourRevolution: In the Big Chapter Book ''and the Showdown At Chainsaw Gap'', Brother finds that Two-Ton Grizzly is joining the protestors who are trying to stop Birder's Woods, home of the endangered (and until recently, thought-to-be ''extinct'') Yellow Popinjay, from being cut down. Brother is surprised because he didn't think Two-Ton (despite being a reasonable adult) cared about an endangered bird; Queenie admits that he doesn't, but he ''does'' like living and working in the wide open areas outside Beartown, and isn't happy about a new housing development -- which would be built with the wood gained from cutting down the trees -- being put up next to "his space".

* NotSoExtinct: Benign example in the Big Chapter Book ''and the Showdown At Chainsaw Gap''. During a field trip to the Bearsonian Institution's Hall of Birds, Teacher Bob's class gets to see the "Hall of Shame", home to exhibits on bird species that have gone extinct such as the dodo, the passenger pigeon, and the yellow popinjay. Except during the visit, thanks to Bertha Broom, it's discovered (to Professor Actual Factual's shock) that the yellow popinjay isn't extinct after all -- Bertha spotted and videotaped one while in Birder's Woods the past weekend.

* OhCrap: In ''The Bermuda Triangle'' chapter book Cool Carl King is described as with a frozen expression of terror in the last chapter as Ms. Glitch describes how the cheating ring (which Carl was responsible for) has been uncovered and the steps that have been take to thwart it.

* OperationJealousy: In ''Gotta Dance!'', Bonnie Brown spreads the rumor that she invited Too-Tall Grizzly to the upcoming dance in the hopes that it will get Brother Bear jealous enough that he'd learn how to dance. That way, she could ask him instead.

* ParentalFashionVeto: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Sister Bear starts wearing "rad clothes" (in her case, jeans with holes in the knees), the new spring fashions, but only at school (she stops at Babs Bruno's house and changes into and out of them on the way to and from school) because Papa, who doesn't approve of them, wouldn't allow her to do so otherwise.
* ParentalHypocrisy: A mild version in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code''. The kids adopt obnoxious new fashions, and due to an escalating power struggle between the acting principal who keeps making new rules and the kids using LoopholeAbuse, it looks like the school will be going to uniforms... until the cubs find a way to win by revealing some old sixties and seventies fashions worn by the adults leading the charge for the dress code. This is especially noticeable with Miss Glitch; the reason why the dress wars got started in the first place is because she overstepped her authority and sent Queenie home for wearing a miniskirt, despite the fact that Queenie wasn't her student and she didn't talk to Principal Honeycomb about it. One of the pictures shown of her as a teen is her wearing a miniskirt that's ''extremely'' short.

* PoliceAreUseless: Averted in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone'', the cubs try to investigate who is selling drugs nearby in the town. An undercover cop, rather than appreciate their detective work, rightly tells them that it was very dangerous of them to do so and they could have been killed. They should have come to the police immediately with what they had rather than endanger themselves.

* ReadTheFinePrint: The Big Chapter Book ''In the Freaky Funhouse'' has the villains committing contract fraud, by tricking their victim into signing four copies. The first one donates eighty percent of the money they collect to the hospital, while the circus gets twenty percent, minus expenses. The other three copies, which she didn't read after signing the first one, had it the other way around. The culprits, fortunately, are caught when the first contract is located and used as evidence of fraud.
* RealMenWearPink: In ''The Berenstain Bears Gotta Dance!'', Brother ends up taking ballet. He uses what he learned from it to his advantage to dump Too-Tall Grizzly into a dumpster.

* RebuffTheAmateur: A variant in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone''. The Bear Detectives help expose the source of the drugs that have recently turned up in Bear Country, and while the police thank them for their help in cracking the case (and providing further evidence of the dealers' identities), they also sternly tell off the cubs for getting involved because of how dangerous drug dealers can be, and for jumping to conclusions based on first impressions.

* RelativeError: The Big Chapter Book ''And the School Scandal Sheet'' has classmate Queenie [=McBear=] put an unapproved article in a secondary (and unauthorized) school newspaper about Teacher Bob being seen having dinner with a pretty teenager, causing a fuss and an inquiry for unprofessional behavior. Queenie's editor-in-chief Brother Bear angrily informs her that had she not gone over his head (which ultimately led to them being exposed as the writers of the secondary newspaper), he would have killed the story on the spot -- he knew full well that the girl in Queenie's photo was Bob's teenage niece, who was in town to visit him and check out colleges in the area.
-->'''LetsPlay/{{Arglefumph}}:''' ''That'' doesn't seem like appropriate material [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids to put in a kids' book...]]
* ReplacedWithReplica: In the Big Chapter Book ''In Maniac Mansion'', a gang of thieves slips into Grizzly Manor, steals pieces from Lady Grizzly's collection of antique furniture, creates exact copies, and places the copies where the originals were set up originally so nobody would notice the theft. They're discovered when Squire Grizzly sits in one of the fakes and breaks it (he's been putting on a little weight lately), and Papa Bear realizes the switch as soon as he has a chance to give it a good look.
* ResetButton: The sixteenth Big Chapter Book, ''And the Showdown at Chainsaw Gap'', sees Two-Ton Grizzly and his family moving out of their... ''unique'' house, made from the bodies of about four trucks combined into one building (and apparently with seat belts on the furniture), into a regular one at the end. Five books later, in ''And the Ghost of the Auto Graveyard'', they've gone back to the old house, seat belts and all, with the justification that after so long there, they couldn't get used to living in a normal one.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines:
** The Big Chapter Book ''No Guns Allowed'', in response to Columbine and other school shootings.
** The Bear Scouts book ''And the Sinister Smoke Ring'', which featured anti-smoking protesters, Brother briefly joining Too-Tall's gang and a moose mascot that might as well just be called "Joe Camel".
* TheRunaway: Referenced in the Big Chapter Book ''In the Freaky Funhouse'', when the cubs are stuck in the back of the funhouse truck as it's driving off, and Cousin Fred remarks he'd once dreamed of running away with the circus. "But I never dreamed [[RussianReversal the circus would run away with]] ''me''!"

** In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Galloping Ghost'', the Bogg Brothers, a family of criminal brothers, pull one of these at Ms. Mamie's Horseriding Academy by sabotaging the place in a bid to get it shut down so Ms. Mamie can't make her mortgage payment. When Brother Bear, Sister Bear, and their friends form a group to raise money for Ms. Mamie, one of the Bogg Brothers dresses up as the ghost of Billy Beechtree in a last ditch effort to scare them away, but he and his brothers get caught. The ending reveals that they were hired by a real estate development company so they could take over the academy, tear it down, and build a shopping mall.

** In the Big Chapter Book ''In Maniac Mansion'', a pack of thieves disguise themselves as the ghosts of Bad Bart Grizzly and his men (who, according to family legend, are supposed to be haunting Grizzly Mansion) in order to fool anyone who saw them in the act of carrying out their crimes.
** In the "Bear Scouts" book ''Ghost Versus Ghost'', there's ''three'' of them. 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 villains of the book ([[spoiler: the Bogg Brothers]]) dress as a ghost to try and scare them all away from their illegal logging operation.
* SecondPlaceIsForLosers: Zigzagged in the Big Chapter book ''And the Ghost of the Auto Graveyard''. There's an auto show going on, and local tycoon Squire Grizzly has entered his four best cars (all extremely rare and well-maintained) in order to ensure that he wins all three trophies for first, second and third. At the end of the book, Papa Bear's roadster (the last car made by a well-known car company before it went out of business) manages to win third. Papa is happy with winning third given how stiff the competition was, while the Squire is envious about not winning all three trophies for the best cars in the country.

* SeriesContinuityError: In ''The Galloping Ghost'' the Bogg Brothers are named Billy, Bert, and Bart, but in ''The Ripoff Queen,'' they are identified as Billy, Bert, [[SuddenNameChange and Bobby.]] The former book also calls Billy the youngest brother, while the latter book identifies him as the eldest.
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: In the Big Chapter Books, Brother Bear is repeatedly teased over his relationship with recurring character Bonnie Brown, the niece of Squire Grizzly. He just as repeatedly insists that despite the ShipTease, she isn't his girlfriend -- "She's my best friend, which is so much better than a girlfriend." Sister and his other friends don't buy it.

* SiblingsInCrime: The Bogg brothers -- Bert, Bart and Billy Bogg -- who do all sorts of crimes together in the ''Big Chapter'' and ''Bear Scouts'' books, from shooting endangered species, deliberately polluting the river, selling drugs (and trying to frame Ralph Ripoff for the same), shoplifting and reselling of the stolen items, and sabotage. (The Living Lights book "Love Their Neighbors", based on the story of the Good Samaritan, has a rather different portrayal of the trio.)

* SkirtOverSlacks: In the Big Chapter Book ''And the Dress Code'', Queenie wears a very, very short mini-skirt to school twice. The second time, it's over a pair of jeans that are mostly holes.

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Harry [=McGill=]. Surprisingly, also Too-Tall Grizzly, despite his poor grades and his reputation as a bully, and he's thrilled when he finds out Harry's good at it too, because even the other members of the school chess team aren't skilled enough to pose a real challenge to him.

* SplitScreenPhoneCall: used near the middle of the 1980s cartoon episode "The Not So Buried Treasure" when Mama Bear is talking to Gran on the phone.

* {{Spoonerism}}: Mayor Horace J. Honeypot is prone to these, including once starting a speech with "Sellow fitizens!" in Big Chapter Book #16 (''And the Showdown at Chainsaw Gap'').

* TheStoolPigeon: A Concerned Claire version in In ''The School Scandal Sheet''. The cubs of the school newspaper club are frustrated with Miss Glitch's iron-clad control over what they can write, so they rebel with an underground paper. However it gets taken too far when Queenie [=McBear=] goes behind everyone's back and puts in an unapproved story about Teacher Bob being seen having dinner with a pretty teenager ([[RelativeError who was actually his niece visiting him to look at colleges in the area]]), causing a fuss throughout town. Another article about how everybody hates Miss Glitch also caused her to leave school for the day in tears. Brother feels so guilty about it that he confesses everything to Sister. She decides to tell Mama because she thinks she could help solve the problem, who in turn informs the school authorities. This turns out to be the right action, because it helped clear Teacher Bob's name. It also allowed for the real student newspaper to reform to allow for a bit more writer freedom, and the cubs involved in the underground paper were able to learn a tough-but-fair lesson about reporter responsibility and getting the facts straight.
* SummerCampy: The Big Chapter Book ''At Camp Crush'' sees Brother, Sister and their friends attending a summer camp run by their school's vice-principal Mervyn "Bullhorn" Grizzmeyer. The place is in desperate need of fixing up, and the campers themselves have to spend the first few days doing the work themselves, and there's a number of anonymous pranks that end up being the work of Too-Tall Grizzly and his gang (who weren't actually attending when they pulled them, they just got bored hanging around home without their "friends" and decided to go have some fun with them), but it's the "no contact between boys and girls" rule (due to Mr. Grizzmeyer's belief that they'll wind up getting a lot of silly crushes on one another and giving the camp a bad name) that really ticks off a lot of the campers. In spite of all this, they wind up having a lot of fun in the end and are looking forward to coming back; the big musical show at the annual inter-camp meet, where they proceed to show off their issues with the camp and yet how much they've wound up liking it, proves their point to Grizzmeyer and leads him to admitting he made some mistakes (including the "separate camps for boys and girls" rule) and will do better next year.

* TeasingTheSubstituteTeacher: In the Big Chapter Book ''Accept No Substitutes'', Too-Tall and his gang have a habit of bugging substitute teachers. When they find that Ms. Barr is going to be around for a full week (and is supposed to be a real pushover), they decide to go a step further and ''break'' her, and even rope Brother, Cousin Fred and Barry Bruin (the former two of whom try to keep things from going too far) into helping. It backfires when they find out they've been [[BullyingADragon harassing a skilled martial artist]] who could, if she wanted, break ''them''.
* {{Technobabble}}: Used in the Big Chapter Book ''Media Madness'', when an expert is called in to help Teacher Bob with setting up the TV equipment and seeing if their electrical setup is suited for it, and uses a language that Teacher Bob doesn't understand in the least. Fortunately, Ferdy and Trudy understand him perfectly well, so Teacher Bob lets them handle this end of things.
-->'''Expert''': "Yer frammis grammis isn't gonna fit your ruckus gruckus. And furthermore, yer rollagonk is outa whack with yer zantac."
-->'''Ferdy''': "I take your point, sir. But I would suggest that you bypass the frammis grammis and plug it directly into the zantac."
-->'''Expert''': "Good thinking, son."
* TemptingFate: Zigzagged in ''The Sci-fi Pizza'' where Ralph Ripoff invites in five pickpocket associates to pick the pockets at a fair and feels that with the size of the crowd and only two police officers 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).

* TrickedIntoSigning: The Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'' has the villains commit contract fraud by giving Dr. Gert Grizzly four copies of a contract to sign; however, the first one, which is the only one she read, is a fake which falsely claims that eighty percent of the money they're raising will go to the hospital and twenty percent goes to the circus. The trope applies into the other three copies, which have things the other way around, and which Gert doesn't realize until late in the book. Happily, the fraud is ultimately exposed and the hospital gets its money.

* UndercoverCopReveal: The climax of the Big Chapter Book ''And the Drug-Free Zone'' has the cubs learning that one of their chief suspects, whom they'd assumed was a crook on the basis of his looks alone (such as his going around in a trenchcoat), is actually a detective from a nearby city brought in to help track down the source of the drugs in their town.
* UnmanlySecret: In ''Ghosts of the Auto Graveyard'', burly junkyard owner Two-Ton Grizzly is terrified of anyone knowing that he's [[spoiler:afraid of the dark, and that his wife and daughter do most of the night work at the junkyard.]]
* VerySpecialEpisode: Many of the Big Chapter Books, which deal with subjects such as theft and even drug dealing.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Raffish Ralph (also known as Ralph Ripoff in the ''Bear Scouts'' books), the ConArtist can be seen as this, much to the chagrin of the cubs.
* VoiceOfTheResistance: In ''And the School Scandal Sheet'', the school's journalism club creates an underground newspaper in protest of Miss Glitch's iron-handed control over what is printed in the normal school newspaper. Things quickly go too far, however, when Queenie prints a libelous story about a certain teacher's "indiscretion", when he was actually out to dinner with his niece.

* WhiteSheep: In the Big Chapter Book ''In Maniac Mansion'', Squire Grizzly's family is revealed to have originated from a long line of wicked bears, up until Farnsworth Grizzly swindled his way into a mansion and title. His son, Squire Grizzly's grandfather, then turned out to be this trope, turning his back on crime and becoming an honest banker, which made Farnsworth furious to the point of pronouncing a curse on the manor -- that the family's founder, famed highway robber Bad Bart Grizzly, was turning over in his grave at it and would return to haunt the manor as a result.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: According to the Big Chapter Book ''And the Ghost of the Auto Graveyard'', Two-Ton Grizzly (one of the biggest, toughest bears in Bear Country) is afraid of the dark. He covers for it by claiming he has bad night vision, but Too-Tall admits the truth to Brother and Sister when they wrongly suspect that Two-Ton may be involved in a stolen car ring.
* WickedWeasel: In the ''Bear Scouts'' series, an underground society of AlwaysChaoticEvil weasels led by Weasel [=McGreed=] serve as recurring villains.
** Averted in one book, where a weasel (a non-anthropomorphic one) is treated as part of Bear Country's local wildlife.

* WrittenInAbsence: The whole plot of the Big Chapter Book ''Accept No Substitutes'' is kicked off by one of these when the titular substitute teacher, Ms. Barr, takes over Teacher Bob's class for a week while he's away on his honeymoon.
* WritingIndentationClue: Used in the Big Chapter Book ''And the Bermuda Triangle'', revealing that Bermuda had copied down what appears to be a phone number. It's actually the number to the in-school modem, letting someone log into the school's private network and steal information from his teacher's files.

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: The ThemeSong of the 1985 series includes segments from John Philip Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" march.

* AWeightyAesop: ''Too Much Junk Food'' is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin -- all the Bears save Mama end up eating too much junk food, and it takes a visit to the doctor to ScareEmStraight.

* TemptingFate: Zigzagged in ''The Sci-fi Pizza'' where Ralph Ripoff invites in five pickpocket associates to pick the pockets at a fair and feels that with the size of the crowd ad only two police officers 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).