Monday, May 3, 2010

Favorite Episodes: Adventures of the Gummi Bears

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

...dashing and daring, courageous and caring. Faithful and friendly with stories to share...


I was a big fan of the whole "Disney Afternoon" concept. Coming home from school and having an hour or two of great cartoons to watch was awesome. And it gave great incentive to finish my homework in 15 minutes so I'd be done when the fun started! Similarly, I also loved Disney's "One Too" when they did this a decade later.

"Disney Afternoon" had several shows on it, and most rotated on and off (like Bonkers wasn't always there, and neither was Darkwing Duck). My two favorites were The Adventures of the Gummi Bears and Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and both were really stapled for many kids my age. In fact, even in Kindergarten my tablemates and I would talk about yesterday's Rescue Rangers or TaleSpin during snacktime.

I just thought Gummi Bears was so clever! What a fantastic world, great adaptations from our time, neat drawings...

It's a little different choosing favorites from this show. See, about half of the "half-hour" shows were actually 2 separate episodes, just 11 minutes or so each. So a favorite short versus a favorite pair becomes an issue. The difference in the number of episodes produced in a specific season also varies widely... from 8 to 20 (not considering doubles). But, I chose single storylines as favorites, if that makes sense...

Season 1: "The Secret of the Juice" (S01E09). Grammi tries to teach Sunni how to make the secret gummiberry juice, but she's not really that interested. As one might expect, Gramm gets kidnapped and the guys go off to rescue her, but they need more juice, so Sunni has to figure it out. Part 1 | Part 2

Season 2: "Up, Up, and Away" (S02E01). Cubbi wants to become a knight. A new gummi, Chummi, shows up, looking for the Great Gummis. He's disappointed they're not there, so he continues on his search. Cubbi, however, wants to go with him so he can do some knight training. He has to decide that he'd rather stay in Gummi Glen.
Part 1 (no part 2 that I could find) Part 3

Season 3: "The Knights of Gummadoon" (S03E07). Cavin and Cubbi are out walking when they decide to snoop on some voices. Everyone else comes looking for Cubbi when it gets really late. They all discover Gummadoon, which only appears once every hundred years. I love the mythology of it (which is covered at the very beginning of the episode), LoL. Oh, and Cavin is imprisoned, plus Duke Egthorn plans to capture the castle. The gummi bears are really busy. :-p The only clips online are in foreign languages, but if you just put in the title of the episode, you can find it in that version if you like.

Season 4: "Girl's Knight Out" (S04E08). King Gregor wants Calla to have a bodyguard. She doesn't think she needs one, so she dresses like a man to enter the competition taking place to see who would be the best bodyguard for her. AND, she does really well and gets to take care of herself. Watch it here.

Season 5: "Road to Ursalia" (S05E02). Gruffi accidentally burns the Great Book of Gummis, and sets out to find another one. He ends up having to help another gummi, Thornberry, save Ursalia from Lady Bane. Watch it here.

Season 6: "Rocking Chair Bear" (S06E16). Lady Bane is getting old. In order to stay eternally young, she steals some of Sunni's hair. This makes Sunni get really old rather quickly, so the gummis help her. Part 1 (middle part missing) Part 3
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