Adventures of the Gummi Bears: Volume 1 Seasons 1–3 (review)
The gummi! It burns! It burns! My eyes may never recover from its inadvertent exposure to this most hideous example of “programming” for children from the 1980s. It’s horrifically crass: it was “inspired by” the candy of the same name, as if there were something profound and mysterious lurking in sugar-bomb jellies and that this wasn’t designed with malicious aforethought to sell junk food to kids. It’s stultifyingly insipid: it’s all enchanted forests and fairy-tale critters with, dear god, superpowers and rainbow-colored watering down of mythological tropes. It’s 47 episodes -- feel the pain -- of poor, sketchy, cheap animation and magical dragons and magical “gummiberry” juice and magical flutes and the magical village of -- *sob* -- Gummadoon and magical magic, all without a single drop of anything approaching storytelling magic but with large dollops of, unsurprisingly, saccharine syrup. There are no extras in the set, for which we can be thankful: overexposure may induce diabetic coma.
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comments
posted by Paul Wartenberg (November 22, 2006 10:20 AM)
Oh, I share your pain. Cure is simple: go watch Gargoyles, especially seasons 1 and 2. That should make you feel better...
posted by JoshDM (November 22, 2006 10:49 AM)
I remember loving this show as a kid. So you're saying it didn't age well? Tell us how you really feel.
posted by Psinorhc (November 22, 2006 11:24 AM)
I found a sketchy VHS copy of the entire five season series a while ago, and recalling with fondness the show I would watch first on Saturday mornings, acquired a copy. Granted the video quality was not so good, but yeah, even crystal clear picture wouldn't quite make up for the rest of it.
Except for the theme. That is just an excedingly awesome song.
posted by Harley (November 23, 2006 12:29 AM)
I remember watching that show as a little girl and being perplexed by the Gummi juice. "It makes them bounce on their butts?" I'd say, "Why?"
Thank goodness there were bigger and better things for me to move on to - like Gargoyles, Darkwing, and Muppet Babies.