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

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.

This was a compilation of about 18 different successful shows of the previous decades, all shuffled together and redistributed as a revamp of the previously loved Yogi & Boo-Boo. There was Hair Bear who was the bad influence in a fro, Square Bear who was the goody-two-shoes Southern Baptist, and Bubi who basically was Yogi's sidekick in virtually every way. Oo!Oo! Botch, and Mr. Peeveley the Zoo manager. After bedtime, the bears would sneak out into the world to see what they could get into and then try to get back into their habitat by the time the sun came up and Mr. Peeveley would be back on the grounds. All in all it was pretty cute, and I have fond memories of watching it as a child. I can't say today that the stereotypes would be entertaining, or that the premise of sneaking out at night is a good thing to teach a kid. So much for the memories. Cheers!

It rates a 7.6/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Ah, yes the 70s! Afros, nehru jackets and that cool jive talkin' in the air. And Yogi Bear is getting to be stale. Why not an update? A bear with an afro, two dumb sidekicks and a zoo keeper with an even dumber assistant. It's McHale's zoo with the groove on, almost. Hair Bear is the top bruin in the zoo, he escapes to party outside and is mightily afraid of the forest (a threat by the keeper to make his bunch stop all that loitering). It could have been fun, considering kids get their those of pop culture from cartoons. But the animation style offers nothing new and the stories were picked up off from Flintstone plot rejects. The animators should have watched Sesame Street and learn from it.

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!

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.