Care Bears' Dark Side (Pt. 1)

Alright, my previous article was not a very big hit. That was just something I felt like doing in honor of it being my 20th article. If you're expecting me to do that again, then you're wrong. Anyway, let's get on to business. This is a REAL article.

I was a huge Care Bears fan in the 80's, but if you've read my previous Care Bears article, you may already know that. The Care Bears movies from the 80's hold some of my fondest childhood memories. Well, there is one exception.

"The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland" sucks. I mean this movie is bad. How bad? Well, it's undeniably the worst of the Care Bears trilogy, but I also find it to be one of the worst movies of the decade. Now, from a kid's perspective, it may be enjoyable. When this movie came out, I was such a big Care Bears fan that I just accepted it, but looking back at it now, I just gotta come clean and tell you that this movie is garbage. Now, if you like this movie, I don't have a problem with that, because this is all just my opinion. If you read my other Care Bears article, you may already know that I hate this movie, so why am I reviewing it again? Well, I felt that I didn't go into enough detail in my previous review, so I thought I'd go through it a little better and point out this movie's flaws.

For one thing, it's the plot. The first two movies are about the Care Bears helping out a couple of kids and making sure everyone shares their feelings with others, and they're trying to stop some villain causing chaos and hatred all over the world. This movie, however, is nothing like that. In this movie, the White Rabbit (who seems to be the uncle of Swift Heart Rabbit) has come to Care-a-Lot and asked some of the Care Bears to help him find the princess of Wonderland. They find this girl named Alice and end up going to Wonderland to save the princess and stop an evil wizard. Making a movie about the Care Bears in Wonderland? Sure, that makes sense. It makes about as much sense as putting Josie and the Pussycats in outer space.

Another problem with this movie is the voice acting. In the first two movies, Tender Heart Bear was voiced by Billie Mae Richards, but in this movie, Jim Henshaw does his voice. I mean, what the heck? Those voices don't even sound remotely close to each other. Don't try to fool me. I think I can recognize Billie Mae Richards' voice. I watch "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" annually. This Tender Heart sounds more like he has a sore throat or something. Tender Heart should go to bed.

Another thing that disappoints me is the use of characters. In the first two movies, every single Care Bear and Care Bear Cousin was used, but in this movie, the cast was only narrowed down to a fraction of the cast. The only Care Bears involved in this adventure are Tender Heart, Grumpy and Good Luck Bear. The only Care Cousins involved were Brave Heart Lion, Lotsa Heart Elephant and Swift Heart Rabbit. The fact that Playful Heart Monkey wasn't involved really pissed me off, because he was my favorite character.

A lot of the stuff in this movie just doesn't do it for me. I mean, we've got a catepillar who acts like a traffic cop, the Queen of Hearts is friendly and not interested in chopping off people's heads, and the Cheshire Cat is a rapper. Putting a character who raps in a Wonderland-themed media will make it automatically bad. If you've seen the TV series, "Adventures in Wonderland", you'll know what I'm talking about.

The last real major flaw I want to point out is the songs. Unlike the previous two movies, the songs in this movie are not very catchy or memorable. Also, there's too many of them. How many? Well, let's recap the songs in the previous movies starting with the first one:

There's the Care-a-Lot theme song. That's one.

Then there's the song when the Bears give Kim and Jason the tour of Care-a-Lot. That's two.

Then there's the song they do in the Forest of Feelings. That makes three.

Then we've got the Care Bear Cousin call. That's four.

Then there's the chase sequence song. Okay, so that's five.

Then finally, there's the Care Bear family song at the end. That makes a total of six songs in the first Care Bears movie. Okay, that's acceptable.

Now let's see the second one:

Well, there's the soft song at the beginning. That's one.

Then there's the "Flying Colours" song. That's two.

Then there's the song where John and Dawn are changing the cubs' diapers. That's three.

Then we got the growing up song. That's four.

Then there's the fight song. That's five.

Then there's the love song that plays during the closing credits. So once again, we've got six songs. Another acceptable effort.

Now the third one:

There's the "Rise and Shine" song (which is the only real good song in the movie). One.

The search for Alice. Two.

The Wonderland theme song. Three.

The Cheshire Cat's first rap. Four.

The Wizard's song. Five.

The Mad Hatter's song. Six.

The Cheshire Cat's second rap. Seven.

Then there's Grumpy's rap at the closing credits with the Cheshire Cat joining in. That gives us a grand total of eight songs in the movie. That's way too many!

I mean, it's not like that's a problem. Wonderland-themed movies have been known to have a lot of musical numbers. Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" had a total of 14 songs plus 8 other songs that were not used in the movie, and that's probably the most songs Disney has ever used in any of their animated classics. But the bottom line is if you're going to make a movie with such bad concept, you should cut down on the musical numbers.

Not too surprisingly, "The Care Bears' Adventure in Wonderland" lead to a financial failure after its theatrical release. And believe it or not, Nelvana was planning on making another Care Bears movie the very next year called "The Care Bears Nutcracker Suite". Did it get made? Well, yes, and it was intending to be released theatrically, but due to the financial failure of the Wonderland movie, it aired on the Disney Channel instead. Not very many kids saw it anyway, since this is late 1988 that we're talking about, and most kids were getting into a new fad that had just made the scene. (You guessed it! The Ninja Turtles.) The Nutcracker movie ended up being the series finale of the Care Bears TV series.

That's right. Caught inbetween all these movies, there was a Care Bears TV series. Tune in next time, and I'll tell you all about it.