Adventures of the Gummi Bears

Do you remember being a kid and realizing things were too childish for you? Like, not stuff for babies. Stuff for kids. Especially if it was stuff your friends liked, and you thought, “Nah, I’m good.” That was how I felt about The Adventures of the Gummi Bears. I know my younger sister liked it. She watched it pretty regularly. I knew kids at school who liked it. But somehow it just never clicked for me, and I had to figure out what that meant about me and about everyone else.

The Gummi Bears are a group of small, anthropomorphic bears who live in a place called Gummi Glen in a vaguely medieval vaguely England. Their leader is Zummi Gummi (Paul Winchell and then Jim Cummings), a goofy wannabe sorcerer. There is also Grammi Gummi (June Foray), Gruffi Gummi (Bill Scott and then Corey Burton after Scott’s death), Tummi Gummi (Lorenzo Music), Sunni Gummi (Katie Leigh), and Cubbi Gummi (Noelle North). They have been hiding for centuries—if not these specific bears, than Gummi Bears in general. Over the course of the series, they reveal themselves to Cavin (Christian Jacobs, Brett Johnson, David Faustino, Jason Marsden, and R. J. Williams over various seasons), Princess Calla (Noelle North), Duke Igthorn (Michael Rye), Lady Bane (Tress MacNeille), various others, and eventually an entire kingdom.

The secret of the Gummi Bears is gummiberry juice, which lets the bears bounce like rubber balls and gives humans immense strength once a day for a plot-relevant length of time. Duke Igthorn thinks this will enable him to take over the kingdom of Dunwyn. Somehow. So he’s actively a threat to the Gummi Bears. There are a few other plots and shenanigans that happen over the course of the series, but most of them are relatively low-stakes. This is, after all, a show intended for elementary school-aged kids.

The problem is that this is one of those shows where everyone gets one personality trait and we stick with it. Tummi is fat, because would it even be an ‘80s show without someone whose personality is being fat? Gruffi is, of course, a surly jerk. Sunni is kind of a ditz. Cubbi is heedless and impulsive. Grammi is domineering. Zummi is borderline incompetent. Honestly, you start wondering how these characters have stayed hidden all these years, and not just because people are constantly all but tripping over them.

There’s a deeper lore to the Gummi Bears, most of whom moved to a distant continent when the humans started invading their territory. But honestly I couldn’t get through enough of the series to figure it out, and I certainly didn’t care. The human characters are either ciphers or caricatures. The bears are one-note and frequently just annoying. I didn’t like this show as a child, and I certainly didn’t like it better as an adult.

The one later episode I went out of my way to watch is season four’s “The Magnificent Seven Gummis.” It featured Gusto Gummi (Rob Paulsen), though I don’t know how he got introduced. The story involves a Totally Not Chinese Prince coming to Dunwyn in search of Gummi Bears because his kingdom is being threatened by a dragon and legend has it only the Gummi Bears can stop it. If you know anything about Chinese folklore, you’re already kind of taken aback. I will say that there are only minor details like that which raise an eyebrow, but it’s still not exactly racially sensitive.

This show was Michael Eisner’s idea, apparently after his son asked for gummy bears. Princess Calla is named after Brandon Tartikoff’s daughter. That’s the kind of ‘80s corporate synergy we’re looking at for this show. I won’t say it makes the show feel completely cynical, but it makes it feel a bit cynical. I won’t claim to have known and understood that at age eight, when the show debuted. Heck, I won’t even claim I would’ve understood it if I’d known. But I knew what I didn’t like.