Much like most other children’s tv shows, they can be overlooked by many adults because of their perfectly logical lack of anything for anyone above the ages of about 5 – 7. As with most situations like this, there is also a fun exception where a show may not offer much in terms of physical quality, but may have an added bonus that works for people of an older demographic, with the one of topic today being the Canadian educational children’s animated series, Little Bear. Based on a book series written by Else Holmelund, Little Bear was a smaller laid back tv show about an anthropomorphised world where titular character Little Bear and his friends experience a bunch of simple bit sweetishly fun adventures. Though it was very eventless and much quieter and chill than other tv shows, it made up for it with nice animation, likeable characters, wonderful music, imaginative visuals and an all-around charming atmosphere. A movie, made in 2001 called The Little Bear Movie was a direct to video DVD length film that came out a few years before the show stopped running in syndication and, therefore came out at a pretty appropriate time. Starting off pretty standardly, Little Bear (voiced by Kristin Fairlie) is camping out with his father when he comes across a wild bear named Cub (voiced by Kyle Fairlie). The two make friends pretty quickly and Cub is even introduced to the ways of civilised living like eating cooked food, sleeping in a bed and playing without getting hurt. While Little Bear and his friends; Duck (voiced by Tracy Ryan), Owl (voiced by Amos Crawley), Hen (voiced by Elizabeth Hanna) and Cat (voiced by Andrew Sabiston) are relatively happy with Cub, he reveals he’s been separated from his family and has been lost since they met. Feeling bad, they decide to help him find his parent’s and get him back to his home. The movie effectively captures everything that kids and even some adults could get into this show for, and even if it doesn’t entirely work as a movie, it works as an extra long tv episode of said show.

Since the show is incredibly slow paced and a lot more focused on being visually pleasing and atmospheric than creating actual plots, this kind of set-up doesn’t so easily translate into a movie. While there are elements that could flow over pretty easily like the art style, characters and even environment and thankfully since the show is pretty simple to understand, anything resembling a narrative can be thrown into an above average length and it can count as a film. Because of this, the plot is relatively straightforward and pretty paper thin for kids movies; finding a missing parent is pretty familiar water to tread and even showing someone a new environment isn’t given much time put into it in this kind of film so that’s not elaborated on much. With this idea, scenes can sometimes feel like they go too long on rather meaningless points, but thankfully since this movie’s tone and pacing is so sweet and charming to be in, it never feels like it’s boring or annoying, its very much like playing with your toys as a kid again. It has a very Winnie the Pooh vibe to it; in that the stories being told are presented and play out in such a kid fashion, but it has this quiet peacefulness that is very adult in how it goes about handling its simplicity. That mixed with how even though the dialogue is incredibly cheery and simple, it never feels like anyone is being talked down to and it has aspect that work for both adults and kids because of it. With that said, the film really doesn’t work as a film; it’s really just an extra-long episode with some moments stretched out a bit to make up the length.

Calling back to that Winnie the Pooh comparison, the same argument can be said for its characters. These characters aren’t anything that special or different for a kid show, even their names are just the animals they are. But by giving them enough personality to stand as actual characters and the already mentioned nice pace and atmosphere, they come off as incredibly sweet, charming and distinct. They do stand out among themselves and each offers something different from the other even if the offering in question isn’t anything above playing a game. All of them are incredibly positive and just fun to be around through every moment, the energy they exude is very child-like but in the familiar way that people can connect with and reminiscence acting like themselves. The added addition of the wild bear was an interesting thought, showing the separation of being raised like an actual animal as opposed to living like a human. While the movie never addresses this, an adult could see it as representing the separation between civilised and uncivilised people and how the differences aren’t as massive as believed. The movie thankfully doesn’t even need a bad guy or a massive threat to go up against; it’s strictly the problem placed as the movie’s main focus and that’s all people need in the story. The voice acting from everyone is pretty good each giving them distinct voices with pretty good timing and comedic delivery. Having the two bears voiced by siblings helped the two work off each other pretty well throughout the movie.

The show’s animation and therefore the film’s animation has a lot of great merits to it; it’s incredibly colorful and has such presence and detail in its construction; you can feel the seasons in every colorful image and item in every frame. It has faded aspect to it that they never look fully engrossed in the same space as the characters, but it helps them stand out that much more. The environments are about as prominent in the scene as the characters are. Since the show was heavy on quiet moments focusing on letting the environment and atmosphere tell a story, it makes sense to give them a nice appealing style much like a picture book. The character designs themselves are honestly pretty basic and don’t offer much in terms of expression or detail out of an ordinary cartoon, they look perfectly fine but nothing special. The music from the show was surprisingly nice as well; with Austrian composer Franz Schubert providing the main theme for the show along with composer Arnold Black providing the wind and string instrumentals. It was heavily engrossing and remarkably simple and memorable. This movie has a similar element but not as heavily noticeable. They offer something different in the form of Shawn Colvin, a female songwriter and musician from America, who provides two original songs for the film; neither are that striking and even have an element that is a bit too simplistic, but the opening theme Great Big World has a very nice soothing rhythm and a calming sweet melody.

The Little Bear TV show is better than people give it credit for and this movie exceeds in doing the exact same thing, providing something much better than people would honestly expect from it. As an actual movie, it’s nothing amazing and probably wouldn’t work with a lot of the same criteria, but with great visuals, likeable characters, charming atmosphere and a stabilising tone, it’s perfectly watchable by kids and even by adults. If someone was looking for a pseudo-Winnie the Pooh, this show would offer up something pretty similar and this movie would be a nice sampler for what you would get from it. Nothing spectacular, but delightfully wholesome and respectable, The Little Bear movie is little on weight, but heavy on charm.