Baby Bear

[LittleJerry92]

What speech impediment? Isn’t he from Boston?

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

 

[BEAR 2]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

Seriously, though, I see what you’re getting at. It doesn’t bother me because a lot of kids talk that way when they’re young. Not sure where they get it from but 2 of my cousins and now my nephew kinda does that R and W thing. He just sounds like a kid.

 

[D'Snowth]

What speech impediment? Isn’t he from Boston?

 

[BEAR 2]

Yeah, certain Muppet characters like Baby Bear and Telly to a lesser extent are being seen less and less these days. There was a big shakeup a couple of years ago with Sesame Workshop overhauling its staff - many of their new staff members having come from Viacom - and part of their agenda was to reduce the number of characters appearing on the show to what they called a "Core Six," as most other preschool shows tend to have a small number of main characters of just three or more. Said "Core Six" consists of Big Bird, Oscar, Elmo, Abby, Grover, and Cookie Monster: that doesn't guarantee that all of these characters will be seen on the show in every episode, but that they are the six characters who you are most likely to see in any given episode. Of course, that also doesn't mean that other characters have completely gotten the boot either: matter of fact, Count, Ernie and Bert, and Rosita still appear quite frequently as well, and other characters such as Baby Bear, Telly, Prairie Dawn, and Zoe are still around, they're just being seen less and less.

The human cast, meanwhile, has officially been pruned down to Alan, Chris, and the newest addition Nina. Sonia Manzano officially retired a few years ago, and all the others are no longer on the series proper, but are still involved with other Sesame projects outside of the show.

As for Baby Bear, I really like what David Rudman has been doing with the character since Season 30 onward: prior to that, I found Baby Bear to be a rather annoying character: always whining and complaining about Goldilocks, always having tantrums whenever Goldilocks would show up, it was almost like an obsession with him - not to mention, like Kevin Clash's early Elmo, early Baby Bear had that gritty voice that could be quite irritating. But since Season 30, Baby Bear has become quite an interesting and fun character: he and Telly make a good pair, both have their moments of childlike qualities that test their friendship, but Baby Bear usually also tends to be the voice of reason between the two. I also enjoy the occasional little one-liners that Baby Bear will zing, such as the time Telly accidentally hurt him and tries to distance themselves as much as he can to avoid doing it again, to which Baby Bear tells him he would like to go back to playing together in close proximity, "at least within the same zipcode."

I love Baby Bear’s little one-liners too. He seems to have quite a vocabulary, which is hilarious. In some ways, he kinda reminds me of Linus—a bit of a know-it-all with a speech impediment. Only B.B. is more comical.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Snowth, come down to New England so we can make some good ol clam chowdah.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

And have some lobstah and beeyah.

 

[mbmfrog]

In the season following 30, it helped out Baby Bear as a character. When they also paired him up with Telly, it helped out both characters and became better secondary character to the overall Sesame Street family.

So Yeah, I enjoy episodes when Baby Bear is the focus.

 

[Oscarfan]

Baby Bear was pretty much defined at first by his relationship to his fairy tale and Goldilocks bother him. The more they took him out of that context, the better and funnier he became.

I can get why they demoted him to semi-regular; if the characters they're pushing now are the most marketable, Baby Bear is just a bear, nothing really distinct design-wise about him in order to sell merch.

 

[D'Snowth]

The fairy tale context always made Baby Bear's existence (as well as his family, for that matter) within the Sesame universe a little . . . unconventional for me to believe? I can't really think of any other way to put it, but I mean, all of the other Muppet characters are original to their universe, but Baby Bear is an already-existing character (and I suppose fairy tale characters are public domain).

Then again, I supposed it's not entirely unbelievable, considering the street has played host to a number of spastic fairy tale characters over the years - but somehow, Baby Bear was the only one who seemed to work as part of the regular Muppet family.

 

[LittleJerry92]

How much are y'all honestly willing to bet Baby Bear would have originally been a pumpkin orange AM bear had he debuted much earlier in the show?