Reading these books as a child is basically the law, no? And when I found out about an animated series? SQUEEE! NO shame in admitting it: I love it!

One thing that has always bugged me: all the characters in Bear Country have normal names like Timmy and Cindy and whatever. But the Berenstains? What in earth was Brother Bear called before Sister was born? And the whole town refers to them as Brother and Sister! It pretty much bugs me, but I've made my peace.

I wonder when Baby will enter the picture. There was a third child in the series, wasn't there?

And what if there had been five boys in the family? Would they all have been called "Brother Bear", George-Foreman-like? My backstory is that they migrated from Amish Country.

We had all the books at my house. I think they're still up in the attic somewhere.

I remember the old school cartoon, too. I still have the Valentine's special on tape...Brother has a secret admirer, and it turns out to be the big scary hockey-playing girl. At the end they all ice skate together. Aww.

For the sake of completeness, here's Toonopedia article about them.

I don't watch this show unless I'm baby-sitting, but as far as I can tell, it's one of the better kiddie shows out there today. No product pushing, no idiotic sillyness, and this show seems to respect the intelligence of its young audience. Good stuff.

I've never seen the show, but in the books before Sister was born, Brother was called "Little Bear." The books were a major staple of my childhood. I think we still own all of the ones published before 1990.

I love these books! I think that I still have thirty or so of the books at my parents' house. Hopefully my mom hasn't gone and gotten rid of them in one of her basement cleanings, because I'd love to keep them around for my kids.

I often wondered why they were called "Brother" and "Sister" myself. Apparently Papa and Mama Bear were not original when it came to naming their children. Another burning question I've had is how the hell they live inside of that tree. If it's a big enough tree, they could live inside the trunk, but there's no way that a living room, kitchen, and dining room could fit in there. Plus, the bedrooms upstairs are within the leaves and branches up high on the tree. How does that work, especially in the winter?

I've seen the cartoon a few times. It's not bad. The one thing I thought was odd was that Mama's blue dress and hat didn't have the trademark polka dots on them, which was a little unnerving.

I absolutely adored the books as a kid. My favorite was when Brother and Sister had to decide if they wanted to go away to summer camp or not. They chose to go, and the book went into all this cool details about their summer camp activities. Good times...

I like this show more than most of the kids' stuff out there for my kids, mostly because when they are familiar with the characters, they want to READ the books!

But, the theme song bugs me, particularly, "they're a lot like humans, only more so". How is a bear more like a human than a human, even if they do talk and ride bikes, etc.

About the names, what were Mama and Papa called before they had children? Did they meet at some "Horribly Named Children" convention and just decide that it would sound better if Mama married Papa Bear as opposed to one of the Zappas? I even remember wondering about their names when I was a little.

I never liked all the books, because in the ones where the kids did anything wrong or had a bad habit, Papa would reprimand them, and then would do the 'wrong' thing tenfold! Then Mama would yell at him, in front of their children, then when the kids finally fixed their pesky habit, they would have to keep Papa in his place because he just couldnt help slipping up.
No matter how subliminal the message may be, I dont want my daughter to read anything that tells her that Daddy is a fool.
I really limit which ones she reads. I never really watched the show so I dont know if its the same on TV.

I've never seen the show, but I keep wondering. Is this the same version that aired on Saturday mornings in 1985? Or is it a new incarnation?

I think it's sweet they're called Brother and Sister... but then again, my own brother and I call each other Big Bro and Little Sis.

Hate to be a nit-picker, but unfortunately the title of this thread is misspelled. It's "Berenstein", not "Berenstain".

I don't know if anybody on here knows this, but I read in my last week's Entertainment Weekly that co-creator Stan Berenstain died of cancer on Nov. 26. He was 82, but still... *sniff*

I loved collecting/reading the books as a child. Same thing with Clifford. I think my favorite ones were "Too Much Birthday" and "Too Much Junk Food." Aww, memories... makes me want to dig through my old boxes to fetch them out.

Ok, I'll take the heat, b/c I HATE THIS SHOW WITH THE PASSION OF A FIERY SUN.

We haven't had cable for years, so we're stuck with PBS kids, and I HATE IT. The Berenstain Bears, Maya and Miguel, Emmy and Max of DragonTales, and Caillou are the most unpleasant and most ill-behaved children EVER. PBS's philosophy seems to be to show kids at their worst, and then say "don't do this". Ugh.

I don't mind the "Brother" and "Sister" so much; it's how incredibly rude these kids are, at least for the first half of an episode.

I had to look that up and it is spelled correctly. Below is the link the the Berenstain Bears web page, and when you go to it a little window pops up with a little note about the creator's passing and his name is spelled the same way.


Berenstain bears website

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