Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!

Nothing about this weird addition to the Hanna-Barbera canon made sense. The bears had an invisible motorbike, which they hopped on seemingly at will. As a child, I found this confusing and weird, and not very funny at all. The inside of the bears' cave was spartan and 'realistic', until buttons were pressed and it turned into an ultra-modern pad with a fridge, a TV and lavish beds. This wasn't funny either, just a bit of contrived 'hi-tech' business that now seems so embarrassingly dated, as passe as jet-pack travel and monorails. One set piece I remember was one of the bears holding a switched-on vacuum cleaner in the air, explaining "this is my solution to the pollution", before one of the keepers jammed the nozzle on his nose. But his nose didn't stretch, it turned into a spear-shaped appendage which he then used to pick up rubbish. WHAT?! The bottom line is, this series was a ragbag of surreal ideas and low-brow comedy that didn't gel, let alone make one single scrap of sense. Nobody's finest hour.

I remember watching The Hair Bear Bunch on Saturday mornings in the early 70s and to me it was one of the funniest cartoons at that time. It reminded me a little of Sgt. Bilko as Hair, the leader concocted schemes so that he, Square and Bubi tried to escape from the Wonderland Zoo. Frequently trying to foil the bear's plans was zoo keeper Mr. Peevely and his sidekick Botch.

The show was part of CBS' outstanding Saturday morning lineup but it only lasted one season before being exiled to Sunday morning reruns. One aspect that stood out was the voice work of Bill Callaway, Paul Winchell, Joe E. (Ooh Ooh!) Ross, John Stephenson and Hanna-Barbera stalwart Daws Butler. Let's split.

In September 1971, two shows went head-to-head with each other--CBS' "Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch," and ABC's "The Jackson Five." (In Saturday morning terminology, that's a "clash of the titans"!) ABC's "J5" was the apparent ratings winner, as "Hair bear" didn't survive past the first season while "J5" got to make a few more episodes the following year.

Some neat, inventive storylines here, from the likes of Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, who later formed their own successful studio. The three principals were voiced by Daws Butler (reusing his Hokey Wolf voice) as Hair Bear; Bill Callaway as Square Bear; and Paul Winchell (reusing his Jerry Mahoney voice) as the diminutive Bubi Bear. They always tried escaping the watchfulness of head zookeeper Peevely (John Stephenson) and his dumb assistant Botch (Joe E. Ross, using his ooh-ooh! Voice!) Worth watching for just the interplay of the above-mentioned voice actors. A cast of cooperative (to the bears) zoo animals are the able supporting cast. Ultimately, it was hard to give a damn about Peevely as he was such a sourpuss.

And in mentioning modern times, one could just about count the title characters as TV's First Gay Threesome! (Of course, this is me with my subversive fantasizing.)

The Hair Bears were hippies / beat nicks and swingers (as much as a kids cartoon character can swing) They would have gotten along very well with Shaggy Norville, Austin Powers, and The Beach Boys. If the bears where the hipsters, then the zookeepers were the establishment, and the bears did a fine job of taking on "the man". As a kid of the late 60's / early 70's (with very square parents) I remember this as very funny at the time. In 1971 their "batachlor pad" cave was cool, and to me, The Hair Bears sneaking out of the park to go on some groovy adventure was a lot like us sneaking out of the house or cutting school. I don't know if 30 + years later the jokes, hair and clothing will have aged well or not. You might have had to have been there. Then again it might get that much funnier.

When I was younger, I only actually saw one episode of Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch. It was about three bears, Hair, Square and the little one, with lots of hair, trying to escape from a zoo to have freedom in the National Forest. Mr. Peevley and Botch were the two zoo keepers stopping them from doing this. Mr. Peevley obviously wasn't watching, but Botch, the fat stupid one let them out and they escaped pretty easily. When the bears explore the National Forest they find a ranch house which they enter to try and get food. After eating they find out the ranch is being used by Bank Robbers. When Mr. Peevley and Botch catch up with the bears they are all tied up by the crooks until they decide what to do. They manage to escape and at the end the crooks are captured and the Super Intendant gives the reward to the bears. Quite a good cartoon episode!