From left to right: Muzi, Zhi Peng, Xiao Mi, Ray, and Ellie.
Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi (我们的朋友熊小米), also known as Our Friend Remy Bear in other regions, is a Chinese animated children's television series which was created by Xiong Xiaomi (Beijing) Culture Communication Co., Ltd. It aired as a segment on the children's show Zhi Hui Shu ("Tree of Wisdom"). The series began airing circa 2013 and ran for 52 episodes.
The show revolves around the adventures of Xiao Mi the bear and his animal friends, Zhi Peng the penguin, Ray the lion, Muzi the moose, and Ellie the elephant.
A few years after the original show ended its run, Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi got a revival series called A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi (小小画家熊小米), where Xiao Mi now gets help from the Magic Brush to draw certain animals and other objects to help he and his friends resolve that episode's conflict. The revival series is intended to teach children how to draw said objects.
The original show is available in both Chinese and English on Miao Mi
, a website meant to teach children the Chinese language which hosts several Chinese cartoons to help children practice learning the language.
Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi provides examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: One episode is about Xiao Mi and Zhi Peng finding a tadpole in a puddle. Said tadpole is quite obviously a CGI model.
- Alien Episode: One episode is about Xiao Mi and friends meeting a pair of aliens named General Miru and Leping who landed on Earth by accident.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: In the episode "Goodbye, Zhi Peng", Xiao Mi and the gang paint Zhi Peng's penguin friends in various bright colors such as yellow, purple, and light blue.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The Magic Brush from A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi is a pencil with a winged head on it.
- Art Initiates Life: In A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi, the Magic Brush gives Xiao Mi magic crayons to draw animals, which come to life once they're drawn.
- Balloonacy:
- In her Birthday Episode, Muzi is given so many balloons that she ends up being unable to touch the ground.
- In another episode, Xiao Mi and his friends try to get a fallen star back into the sky. How do they go about doing this? By tying a lot of balloons to it so that it'll float back up.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: None of the characters wear shoes.
- Barely-Changed Dub Name: The name Remy was likely chosen for Xiao Mi's official English name because the last syllables of both rhyme (Xiao Mi, Remy).
- Beary Friendly: Xiao Mi the bear cub is quite friendly and is more than willing to help in whatever situation. He helps Ray the lion to get over his inability to roar properly, for one.
- Birthday Episode: Two of them; one is about Ray's birthday while the other is about Muzi's birthday.
- Black Bead Eyes: All of the characters have small black dots for eyes.
- Blush Sticker: The blushes on the characters' faces are solid circles with no shading whatsoever.
- The Bus Came Back: Zhi Peng returns for A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi after having left at the end of the original series. This is probably because, despite having left in the first season's penultimate episode, he makes an appearance in the following episode and celebrates New Year's with his friends.
- Chekhov's Gun: Ellie saves a bee which is unable to get out of a puddle of water right before being given so many balloons that she starts floating too high up in the sky for the others to reach. Ellie would have had a much more difficult time getting back down had she not saved that bee, which comes back to pop the balloons and bring her back to the ground.
- Christmas Episode: The Christmas episode is about Santa Claus looking for a reindeer to pull his sleigh. He decides to offer the job to one of Xiao Mi's friends, a red-nosed reindeer named Xiao Lu.
- The Dentist Episode: One of the episodes is about Booker the alligator eating too many lollipops and having to visit the dentist because of it.
- Derivative Differentiation: The second season has an educational element Peppa Pig didn't have - teaching viewers how to draw animals.
- Don't Wake the Sleeper: In the first episode of A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi, the gang is trying not to wake a walrus who is sleeping on an iceberg they're standing on. Unfortunately, Ellie sneezes, waking up the walrus and causing him to panic when he sees Xiao Mi and his friends - and also causing the iceberg to drift away from the gang's boat, leaving them stranded.
- Floating Limbs: In A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi, the Magic Brush has wings/hands that are not connected to his body (or head, in this case, as he's just a head with a pencil hat and the aforementioned wings/hands).
- Flying Face: The Magic Brush is a disembodied flying head with small wing-looking hands.
- Freeze Sneeze: In the first episode of A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi, Xiao Mi and his friends are stranded on an iceberg and Ellie sneezes from how cold it is. Unfortunately, her sneeze wakes up a walrus that was sleeping on the iceberg, causing it to hop around wildly.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Most of the characters wear nothing but a shirt.
- Holiday Episode: In the final episode of the original season, the characters celebrate Chinese New Year's, and Grandpa Tree has a surprise in store for them. Said surprise happens to be that Zhi Peng, who left in the previous episode, has come back to celebrate the holiday with them.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: In the first episode of A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi, the gang is on an iceberg in the South Pole and trying not to wake up a sleeping walrus. Xiao Mi's dog Beanie jumps on the top of the walrus and barks, putting him at the risk of waking up the walrus, but he jumps down... and then Ellie sneezes from how cold it is, causing the walrus to wake up and jump around wildly.
- Market-Based Title: The logo in the show's intro translates the title as Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi while other countries give the English translation as Our Friend Remy Bear.
- Mixed Animal Species Team: The main characters are a bear (Xiao Mi), a penguin (Zhi Peng), a lion (Ray), an elephant (Ellie), and a moose (Muzi).
- The Mockbuster: Going off the art style, plus the fact that Xiao Mi lives in a house on a grassy hill, this show seems to be cashing in on the success of Peppa Pig.
- New Season, New Name: A while after the end of the original season Our Friend Xiong Xiao Mi, it got another season titled A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. The entire plot of one of the episodes is that Muzi finds it hard to use the bathroom and starts feeling uncomfortable from it, and Xiao Mi and the others help her to go to the bathroom.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Magic Brush from A Little Artist Xiong Xiao Mi is actually a pencil.
- Picnic Episode: Episode 26, "Catching Fish", is about Xiao Mi and Zhi Peng going on a picnic next to a lake. Xiao Mi notices some little fishes in the lake and tries to catch some of them with his hands, to no avail. Then his pail blows into the lake, and when Xiao Mi goes to grab it he's happy to see there's a couple of fish in it.
- Put on a Bus: Zhi Peng decides to stay with his penguin friends in the South Pole in the penultimate episode, "Goodbye, Zhi Peng", and as such does not appear in the series finale which follows it. Or does he? He comes back to celebrate Chinese New Year's with the others.
- Santa Claus: Santa appears in the Christmas Episode looking for a reindeer to help pull his sleigh.
- Snowlems: Of the "friendly" variety. Xiao Mi and the gang at one point make friends with a snowgirl named Baby Snowy.
- Species Surname: The official English episode descriptions from Miao Mi refer to Zhi Peng as "Mr. Penguin".
- Through a Face Full of Fur: Several of the characters are animals with fur, and yet they're constantly shown with visible face blushes.
- Toothy Bird: Zhi Peng the penguin has teeth.
- Two Girls to a Team: The group of main characters has two girls, Muzi and Ellie.
- World of Funny Animals: All of the characters are anthropomorphic animals. Well, okay, not all of them, but the majority of characters are anthropomorphic animals, and the only humans that ever appear are Santa Claus and, if you count them as a kind of human, fairies.
