The Care Bears Movie Revisited

“The Care Bears Movie” (1985)
Starring Georgia Engel, Mickey Rooney, Jackie Burroughs, Sunny Besen Thrasher
Directed by Arna Selznick
Screenplay by Peter Sauder
Rated G

As someone who generally thinks Beta Ray Bill and Thunderstrike are cooler than Thor and War Machine better than Iron Man, it should come as no surprise that I preferred the Care Bear Cousins to the actual Care Bears.

What may come as a surprise is that I'm writing about the Care Bears or their Cousins at all. Had I done a little research, I could have posted this on March 29, the 40^th anniversary of the release of “The Care Bears Movie.” But the timing is less precise than that: I just finally got one of my kids to watch it.

Despite having a pretty strong batting average when recommending movies to my children – “Sister Act,” the works of M. Night Shyamalan, “Star Wars” – they are skeptical whenever I suggest one. Granted, “Care Bears” wasn't so much a “You're going to love this” as “Hey, want to check this out with me?” I remember seeing the movie in the theater, in part because 5-year-old me was much more excited by the variety represented by the Cousins than a bunch of different colored bears. Some images remained in my head, like the cloud boat, but what endured the most was that creepy face in the book and a snippet of one song.

More than the visuals, I recalled the audio because I had the soundtrack album, that I think told a lot of the story, on vinyl. Kids, that's one of those collectible albums that get released to convince people to buy music on physical media since we don't really do that anymore. But back then, it's just how we obtained and listened to music.

The song that stayed with me was apparently entitled “Look Out! He's After You!” I remember the seemingly frantic repetition of the phrase “What can you do if there's only two of you?” at the end... and that's about it. But I know portions creeped me out back then, and I was curious to see how it looked now.

So when my youngest recently, and seemingly out of nowhere, developed a fascination with the Care Bears, I asked, again, if she would watch the movie with me. And she said yes.

I had forgotten the movie is narrated by Mr. Cherrywood, a kindly foster parent voiced by Rooney. His introduction is followed by a schmaltzy song written and performed by Carole King about the wonders of Care-A-Lot, the cloud city* from which the Care Bears monitor Earth and drop in to help kids who are having trouble expressing their feelings or somesuch. Secret Bear and Friend Bear are dispatched to befriend Kim and Jason, siblings whose parents abandoned them. They say thanks but no thanks; they don't need friends or other people to let them down.

Meanwhile, Tenderheart Bear is assigned to Nicholas, a magician's assistant who wants to have friends but doesn't. While rummaging through a trunk his boss bought in hopes of finding some magic show props, Nicholas discovers a book that creepily tells him it can help him make friends with real magic.

The Spirit (the only name it gets, voiced by Burroughs) gets Nicholas to cast a sleeping spell on his boss, then flubs his tricks on stage so a crowd of kids turns on him. Then she gets him to teach them a lesson by removing their feelings or something to the point where they start pulling hair, throwing stuff and taking swings at each other.

Tenderheart realizes he needs reinforcements, but by the time he gets back to Care-A-Lot, the spell has spread, causing a cloud-quake as people across the world stop caring. Sure, this seems obvious now, but remember, in the '80s, we were just learning how interconnected the emotional ecosystem really was.

Not only are the Care Bears concerned, but so are Kim and Jason, who accidentally got beamed up to Care-A-Lot when a couple toddler bears pressed buttons on the Rainbow Rescue Beam device Grumpy and Good Luck Bear were testing out. One quick musical number and they're convinced friends are a good thing. Wish Bear even told them they were about to get adopted, but with the Care-O-Meter threatening to drop to zero, the kids decide they need to help their new pals out.

Because there are no OSHA or child labor laws in Care-A-Lot, the bears think this is a fine idea, even giving Jason the key to lock the evil book back up. They send the humans along with Secret and Friend Bear to Earth via the old RRB to get cracking, but another cloud-quake has them lost in space.

They land in the Forest of Feelings, a colorful realm populated by anthropomorphic denizens who aren't bears, but have two things in common: the word “heart” in their names and big, blank spaces on their white, fuzzy tummies. Meanwhile, the bears back in Care-A-Lot decide to follow the river in that cloud boat I mentioned because they don't know where it goes and that's about their only option.

Back on Earth, Nicholas is having second thoughts about his newfound power, especially when the Spirit wants him to capture Kim and Jason, the only two kids in town not affected by his spell. This seems to be a bit of an overreaction, especially if the spell's spreading across the world, but she's pretty insistent.

The lost quartet in the Forest of Feelings get guidance from Brave Heart Lion and Playful Heart Monkey, while the crew in the cloud boat meet Cozy Heart Penguin, are attacked by the spell Nicholas cast and saved from a whirlpool by Lotsa Heart Elephant. The spell next possesses a tree and attempts to snatch the kids, with Swift Heart Rabbit coming to the rescue.

Eventually the two parties meet up, the non-bears round up some more assistance in an effort to sell even more toys and stuffed animals, and they all head to Earth – apparently via the river, which comes out of the Tunnel of Love, which has been grafftied to “Tunnel of Hate” in the increasingly careless world, at the circus where Nicholas and his boss, Fettucini, were performing.

As Nicholas gathers the final ingredients for the spell that will eliminate all caring, he finally crosses paths with the pint-sized feeling flingers and his targets, Kim and Jason. Then, we get the song I remembered, which isn't as tense 40 years later, but I remembered the vibe just the same.

The Spirit's magic proves too much for the bears' Voltron move, the Care Bear Stare, where they just shoot feelings right out of their belly emblems. The as-yet-unnamed-and-unemblemed Care Bear Cousins join in by “calling,” which is them making their animal noises. If there's an aspect of this movie that will connect to children across generations, it's the idea that in order to save the day, you just need to make a lot of noise.

But it's Kim and Jason's sincere offer a friendship to Nicholas that lets him break from the Spirit. When she blasts the key as Jason delivers it to lock the book, Secret Bear just produces another one from his heart/lock belly emblem. Somehow, it's a perfect resolution. I'm not even mad that I don't understand how their powers work.

Kim and Jason get adopted, Care-A-Lot gets rebuilt, the Care Bear cousins get their belly emblems, and Mr. Cherrywood and his wife put their foster kids to bed. He laments the fact that they always fall asleep before he gets to the end of the story – revealing that he is Nicholas. I had forgotten that, but it answers a question I had at the beginning of the movie. Why would he choose this story for a bedtime tale? It's long, complicated and darker than I would expect. Hey, it's personal.

I've had some fun with this, sure, but I wouldn't have appreciated it if some adult complained about the internal logic of this movie when I was 5, and I'm not going to be that guy now. Sure, they were selling toys, but so were the bards who crafted “Masters of the Universe.” The movie is sweet and fun for kids. My youngest is outside what I would consider the target demographic but not too far, and she said she wished she had watched it when I suggested it earlier.

Swift Heart remains my favorite Care Bear or Cousin, largely because he feels like the closest to a superhero. Dude is a speedster, and that's saying something when watching the slower, hand-drawn animation after we've gotten so used to computer-generated worlds.

And hey, the Spirit in the book remains a far creepier bad guy than I would have expected for the Care Bears, then or now.

* - No, not on Bespin.