The Hair Bear Bunch

Hello and welcome to Animated, where I explore animation history, classic cartoons, and children’s television, as well as the artists who shaped the worlds we grew up in. Animated is a public newsletter, so please feel free to share and subscribe.

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The Background

This week I am taking a trip back to the 1970s with The Hair Bear Bunch. The Hair Bear Bunch was created by Ruby and Joe Spears (these two helped develop Scooby-Doo) and was based on zoo animal comedy with counterculture influences.

Produced by the famous Hanna -Barbera studios during the height of Saturday morning animation. The Hair Bear Bunch premiered on CBS in September 1971 and ran until January of 1972. Inspired by the success of earlier Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Yogi Bear, Top Cat, and Wally Gator. Although not as commercially successful as its predecessors, the show still did well and added to the studio’s more unusual animal cartoons.

The Episodes

With only 16 episodes made, each episode followed three bear cousins who all lived in Wonderland Zoo and their never-ending attempts to outsmart the zoo management. There was a mix of get-rich-quick schemes and comedy as each week the bears searched for different adventures outside their enclosures.

It was interesting, too, how the bears started to wear fashion influenced by the counterculture of the 1970s, which is another reflection of the cartoon mirroring society changes, which I wrote about here. The show was quite imaginative too, with the gang using various gadgets such as an invisible motorbike and a hidden luxury den.

Behind the Scenes

Developed with the title ‘The Yo-Yo Bears’, the project changed names several times before it was released. The show leaned heavily on character interaction and recurring jokes, which was popular at the time in animation, balancing animal comedy with a sitcom-style of storytelling.

This meant that, as ever, the characters and their voice actors needed to work well, and it was renowned voice actors such as Daws Butler and Paul Winchell who brought this to life.

The characters were Hair Bear, the fast-talking leader and planner in the group, alongside Bubi Bear, the calmer, sensible member of the trio, and Square Bear, their laid-back and very dim-witted cousin. Together, the bears frequently find themselves at odds with Mr Peevly and Lionel Botch, the zoo officials determined to keep them under control.

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Wrapping it all up

The Hair Bear Bunch stood out as a uniquely 1970s Hanna-Barbera production. It combined classic animal antics with contemporary cultural influences well and had memorable characters that people still remember. For me, the show demonstrated Hanna-Barbera’s willingness to experiment, offering a fresh twist on the studio’s established formula and seeing where it went. Although its run was relatively brief, the cartoon has made its small mark with fans, with later home releases and apparel still bearing the Hair Bear Bunch.

I hope that you enjoyed this dip into the wild 1970s cartoon world, and if you want to read more from the 1970s canon, you could always read this one on Atom Ant.