Panathinaikos Bear is a flash-animated web series created by David Firth in 2004. It is a spin-off of his web series Fat Pie, where the titular character debuted in the third episode. Despite being released around the same time as some of his most notable works, including Salad Fingers, Burnt Face Man, and Jerry Jackson, and running for a sizable number of episodes compared to them, the series is one of his more obscure works. It follows the exploits of a bear named Pana and his best friend, a demon named Meep.
Panathinaikos Bear contains examples of:
- A-Team Firing: In celebration of calming Meep down from his dilemma of mislabeling his mortgage papers, Pana fires a gun into the air with no intention to shoot anybody, and nobody in the room gets hit by a bullet.
- Break the Haughty: Competitive Callum, described by Meep as mentally stuck in the 1960s, challenges Pana and Meep to any sport they can think of, and they choose lawn bowls, which turns out to be something he doesn’t know how to play very well.
- Butt-Monkey: Kurdt Kestrel is frequently portrayed as a target of abuse, usually by kicking.
- Credits Gag: The credits of the first episode humorously state that it was written by Hubert Cumberdale, a character from one of the creator's other web series, Salad Fingers.
- Indentured Servitude: After reasoning with the mob of Petes, Pana and Meep sentence them all to a week of hard labor in their favor.
- Shapeshifting: Kurdt Kestrel quickly transforms into a teletext pear upon being kicked by Meep.
- Word-Salad Humor: Arguably Firth's most surreal and non-sequitur series.
