The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas

The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas (1973)

*** (out of 4)

This animated short starts off in a bear community where the honey factory is about to close down so that everyone can hibernate. This doesn't sit well with one bear because he wants to know what happens on Christmas morning so he sets out to find it. After a somewhat slow start I was worried this one here was going to be a dub but it actually turned out to be quite good and I'd say the ending was highly memorable as well. I'm not going to spoil the twist at the end but I thought it was quite touching and it certainly managed to end the film on a high note. I also really enjoyed the section of the film taking a look at a bear's life inside the factory. I thought the honey plant featured some pretty good animation with a lot of imagination. I found the bear characters to be mostly memorable and especially the lead one who wants to go against his kind, refuse sleep and try to find out about Santa. I'm sure kids will enjoy the cute looking bear and the adventure he goes on.

This is one of my favorite Christmas TV specials by the animation team that did the "Pink Panther" cartoons. I vaguely remember watching this special on the channel Teletoon in its early days, and it never crossed my mind to tape it. But thank God, I recently discovered YouTube, which I watched through my smart TV.

The special is about a bear named Theodore Edward Bear (or Ted. E. Bear) who has wanted to know what Christmas is since he was young. Every year he tried to stay awake to see Christmas, since bears sleep through the winter and never see Christmas. So one year, despite naysayers who laugh at him and getting fired from his job at the Organic Honey Works plant, Ted sets out to the big city (in the human world) to find Christmas. Will he succeed? Well, you will have to watch and see what happens. You know, in 1983, there was another Ted E. Bear TV special for Halloween called "The Great Bear Scare." Of course, I didn't know it existed until I watched it online, and after that, I thought, "I love this special way better."

I really consider this and other Christmas specials criminally underrated and never seen on TV anymore! I mean that the next generation of kids, including my young nephew, should watch these for their Christmas holidays. So anyway, I love every bit of this special, and I really wish it was on a DVD and not on those crappy M. O. D. Discs.

It seems that Christmas specials about bears trying to stay awake until Christmas are a dime a dozen. I can't count how many different specials I've seen using this scenario. However, this is one of the good stories. We, the viewers, follow Ted E. Bear on his journey to find Christmas through various hardships and trials. What he finds in the end is not what one might first expect given the way the show starts but is just as good if not better.

I think the simple art work is great. It is simple and yet satisfying. Thumbs up to Tom Smothers, Barbara Feldon, Arte Johnson and the other actors who provided the voices.

This strange piece of 70s ephemera from a long-lost 70s Christmas is really fascinating. It's a beautifully designed little animation crammed with strange rococo props and fussy backgrounds but it's a shame that narratively it's a tale of two fairly illogical halves that don't seem to match up. You've got this whole... almost proto-Pixar "world of bears" which is fascinatingly high concept and full of bear airports and honey factories and the like. It's all very weird but as it spills over into our reality it loses momentum and becomes a rather atypical Christmas heartstring-tugger that seems at odds with what came before. A big fan of the beautifully dated pink-eyed delivery of the Smothers brother.

This cartoon, directed by Pink Panther regular Hawley Pratt, features a bear who manages to stay awake for Santa, despite what the title may lead you to believe.

Theodore E. Bear (get it?) works in a honey factory (wait...doesn't it come from bee farms?) and decides he doesn't want to hibernate for winter. He is laughed at and mocked but is determined to find out what Xmas really is.

The animation is similar to the minimalistic schemes found in Pink Panther but there is plenty of dialogue and a decent amount of characterization. Not quite a classic, but pleasant festive viewing.