Care Bears- The Gift of Caring

The Gift of Caring

I've tried doing a few more reviews of movies but gave up because they dealt with subject matter too serious for the tone of this blog. I need something light to write about.

Sure, why not?

This episode is called "The Gift of Caring." It starts with two Care Bears driving a cloud car. They spout some clumsy exposition and we learn that they live in Care-A-Lot. That's actually one of the better puns on Camelot in kids' cartoons. At least it has a meaning besides sounding like Camelot.

The pink bear is named Cheerbear and the blue bear is named Grumpy. That name is so 1937. Cheerbear says that the "Care-o-meter" is too low, so they go down to Earth to end poverty,  create world peace, and cure cancer.

Sorry, I got that plot point wrong. They just go to help this girl in a wheelchair instead. Apparently, the Bears can look at a dip in a single meter that measures caring in the entire world and narrow it down to one girl. Also, everything in the world was at an acceptable caring level but this one girl made the collective caring cross the threshold. I've had similar issues with The Twilight Zone episodes "The Howling Man" and "I Am The Night-Color Me Black." Comparing the morality of The Twilight Zone and Care Bears is making me upset.

When that dial goes too low, it means the Care Bears have to
help a privileged white girl.

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The girl in the wheelchair helpfully tells the audience that promised her friends at the hospital each a care basket but she doesn't think she will finish making them on time. I love it when characters talk to themselves in exposition whenever the camera cuts to them. The girl laments "Why did I ever make a promise I couldn't keep?" Cheerbear and Grumpy walk into the room and Cheerbear says "Because you wanted to show someone you cared." Yeah, that's a great lesson for the kids. "It's okay to make promises you can't or won't keep because that means you care." I guess Care Bears really inspired    insert politician here  .

Even she is bored with this episode

The girls is oddly undisturbed by the Care Bears. If I cared (ha, ha), I could research the intricate magical rules in the Care Bears universe. instead, I have to question the next plot development. the Care Bears says they can send the baskets to the "Hall of Hearts" in care-a-lot. My theory is that "Hall of Hearts" is a euphemism for "sweatshop" and that this is a commentary on the role of people with disabilities in the labor force of a modern capitalist economy.

We cut to the villain's headquarters. We know it is the villain's headquarters, because there is some nuanced imagery:

I'm pretty good at catching small hints in movies, so I caught on that this was the villain right away:

It may not seem obvious, but watching the scene in context makes a big difference. Also, if you have studied linguistics, you might notice something clever in the etymology of the character's name: "Uncle Noheart."

Uncle Noheart promises his niece his most prized possession, a rotten apple, if she does a mean act of uncaring. The niece has another clever name: Shrieky.

This isn't  a huge deal, but it's kind of ableist to imply that rotten apples are inherently "evil". Just saying.

I also just want to point out how confusing the word "caring" is. Usually this show uses it to mean "show compassion", but sometimes they use it to mean "give a damn." So Care Bears is kind of hard to follow.

Here is a good  example. Shrieky looks in a magic mirror (really? Ripping off Snow White three times? Yes, I'm including the apple,) and sees Cheerbear pushing Carol down a hill. She says she is going  to do something to sabotage them to show she doesn't care. Well, if you want to show you don't care about something, maybe you shouldn't magically spy on the thing in question and then go out of your way to sabotage it.

Also, Cheerbear snuck into a hospital and escorted a random girl outside. I sure hope that girl doesn't need any medications on a regular schedule or anything. Also, you probably should get her back before a nurse  comes to check on her. For a Care Bear, Cheerbear sure doesn't give a damn.

Carol and Cheerbear go to a sweatshop factory and start working. Cheerbear says "We can do anything if we try, try, try!"

A week later, Carol will wake up in the middle of the night and say "I should have said 'you mean like walking?'"

Shrieky and her pet, Beastly, look in though a heart shaped window. The Care Bears don't really care about security. There's a running gag where Beastly makes a suggestion and Shrieky repeats it as if it were her idea. I, uh, refuse to judge the quality of humor in Care Bears.

Beastly decides to create a diversion while Shrieky destroys the baskets. Beastly breaks his cover when he sees a basket of cookies and grabs it. Cheerbear tells Beastly  to put down the basket. Beastly refuses and Cheerbear fires a laser at him.

When did Care Bears get so violent? 

The most disturbing thing is her look of malice as she fires the laser:

I would think a place called Care-A-Lot wouldn't attempt to vaporize a petty burglar. Just saying.

Shrieky uses her mirror to destroy the baskets. She gloats and then escapes with Beastly.

This plot may seem dumb today, but if you look at the historical context, it aired right in the middle of the Basket Civil Rights Movement of 1987. So this episode is pretty progressive for being, um, Care Bears.

Cheerbear and Carol go back to the factory and see all the baskets destroyed. They decide to start repairing the baskets.

Shrieky goes back to her lair and looks in her magic mirror to find that Cheerbear and Carol have repaired the baskets. She decides to go back and destroy them again. This 11 minute episode has a lot of padding.

Remember that part where the bad guys snuck in through the window and sabotaged everything? Well, Cheerbear and Carol did not, because Beastly  just sneaks in through the window while they are asleep. You didn't think to board up that window? Maybe hire a few guards?

This is what happens when you let Care Bears unionize.

Beastly accidentally wakes up Carol and Cheerbear. Remember kids, it's okay to be careless if the bad guys are more careless. 

Beastly grabs the company car and drives it away. Cheerbear laments that they will never catch him. Carol asks where the other Care Bears are and Cheerbear learns that sometimes you need to ask for help. You know, the same moral Cheerbear told Carol in the first thirty seconds of this episode. Good job, Care Bears writers .

Cheerbear presses a button that alerts all the  Care Bears. Then there is a riveting chase scene. Maybe Beastly would get away if the steering wheel wasn't heart-shaped

Beastly crashes, but Shrieky gets away in a floating helicopter-ship...vehicle. The baskets all fall over the edge of a cloud.

Carol says it is all her fault for making a promise she couldn't keep. Cheerbear says she should have asked the other Care Bears for help. I agree that it is their fault, but mostly for the lack of security and leaving keys in the van: 

Cheerbears says "Now it's too late."

Grumpy breaks character and says "It's never too late to ask help from a friend,"  Well, that's kind of true, but sometimes it it too late to actually receive help. You can ask all you want, though.

Carol and Cheerbear repeat the moral verbatim in case we forgot it. Then the Care Bears work together to make the baskets

Remember when I said that this episode is a commentary on the role of people with disabilities in the labor force of a modern capitalist economy? I retract that statement. This is really, really stupid. Where are they getting the supplies? Do they just have a warehouse of materials to use whenever a kid doesn't want to work? Carol had supplies at the hospital, which she took to Care-a-Lot, but I doubt she had enough to compensate for two sabotages. This episodes completely overlooks the "supplies" side of capitalism any mode of production. Running a business is pretty damn easy when you gave infinite supplies.

Whatever, assembly line montage.

Shrieky asks Uncle Noheart for the rotten apple core. Noheart asks whether she has earned it. Shrieky tells the mirror to show how she has been bad, but, of course, it shows the kids playing with the baskets at the hospital. I don't like to nitpick, but...

Just kidding, I like to nitpick.

The mirror isn't showing how she's been bad, it's showing the result of her actions. Shouldn't it show her sabotaging the baskets? Even if she had succeeded, all the mirror would show would be a bunch of kids...not playing with baskets.

This episode was good until it gave the Care Bears infinite supplies. It fails to provide any meaningful commentary on capitalism since it just ignores scarcity. It would be like writing a thousand page book about the virtues of capitalism and self-interest and then having one guy create infinite energy.