Cartoon Community (CN) has all the time tapped its archives for content material. Just lately, although, that effort has been far more purposeful. The community has created spin-offslaunched shorter-run reboots, and restructured its lineup strategically to leverage its in depth catalog as an lively dwelling assortment reasonably than merely a repository of reveals.
The return of We Naked Bears seems even much less coincidental than in earlier years, but it surely appears to be extra of a silent experiment. Whereas formally simply one other programming improvement for CN, it may be seen as a further alternative to evaluate the market viability of a contemporary sequence that CN has invested appreciable assets into growing and nurturing.
‘We Naked Bears’ Has a Easy Premise With Stunning Emotional Attain
At its core, We Naked Bears is disarmingly simple. The sequence follows three adoptive bear brothers — Grizz (Eric Edelstein), Panda (Bobby Moynihan), and Ice Bear (Demetrius Martin) — as they try to dwell amongst people within the San Francisco Bay Space. They need associates, jobs, and to really feel like they belong — most of the time, they fail spectacularly.
What units the present aside is its tone: episodes unfold like small slices of recent life with awkward social encounters, cash stress, on-line validation spirals, and the concern of being left behind. The bears’ resolution hardly ever triumphs over the world round them; as an alternative, it’s one another. That emotional throughline — discovered household as a survival mechanism — turned the present’s anchor.
When Cartoon Community launched We Naked Bears in 2015, it was on the heels of different profitable sequence like Journey Time and Steven Universe. The sequence additionally follows the identical episodic, shorter-run format whereas leaning into emotional journeys (vs narrative journeys). Throughout its run, the sequence captured the essence of mid-2010s nervousness concerning the web, job-seeking, and stress to be preferred on social media. Panda’s obsession with social media and validation is much more related at the moment than when it was created. It additionally explored matters comparable to viral movies, relationship apps, and the impression of algorithmic fame—these ideas which were additional amplified by an growing reliance on social media.
Someway, We Naked Bears captured the identical fixation with modern concepts as the remainder of the 2010s; nonetheless, not like most reveals on the time, it by no means felt cynical. The present’s comedic fashion was all the time comfortable in its execution; its storyline unfolded at a slower tempo than most of its friends; and the colour palette was intentionally muted in the direction of the comfortable finish of the colour spectrum.
We Naked Bears ran for 4 seasons, with a complete of 140 episodes, and maintained stable scores amongst youthful viewers and an growing grownup viewers. Many individuals praised the sequence for its coronary heart and humor, and for not speaking right down to its viewers; the viewers’ loyalty was evident. On account of that viewer loyalty, the franchise expanded with We Naked Bears: The Film in 2020, which additionally served as a stable send-off for the characters and didn’t depart the story open-ended; the film gave the characters closure, a rarity for animated tv. The model additionally created the prequel sequence to We Naked Bearsknown as We Child Bearswhich depicted the three characters as child bears with all types of outlandish multiverse adventures, creating the flexibility for the three child bears to proceed with the following technology of followers because the followers of the unique sequence and characters turned followers of the cult traditional.
What This Return Might Imply for Cartoon Community
The choice to deliver We Naked Bears again into heavy rotation isn’t taking place in a vacuum. Earlier than Cartoon Community decides whether or not to make new episodes of a present, they check viewers curiosity via reruns (Journey Time, Common Present, Gumball), which frequently profit from a revival.
For And Chong‘s upcoming Pixar film, Hoppershe additionally finds himself in an fascinating spot, since this film will reintroduce his artistic fashion to a wider viewers. Whereas indirectly linked, the timing suggests confidence within the creator’s model — and within the endurance of his most recognizable work. On the very least, the community is acknowledging what followers by no means forgot: We Naked Bears nonetheless works.
We Naked Bears stays refreshingly accessible, with episodes that may be watched in any order, a few of that are practically wordless and others that experiment with totally different animation kinds or genres. All of them circle again to kindness, which can be its biggest energy. Whether or not Cartoon Community is just filling time slots or quietly gauging curiosity in one thing extra, the message is evident: it is a present price revisiting.