idgonemad.net/The Death of Grumpy Bear
Damn you all, Carebears.
The CareBears have been collectively on my shitlist for the past few years, after they quietly killed and buried Grumpy Bear. Well, until they dusted him off for some CGI movie in 2007, but that was just another Carebear painted blue. Apparently the real Grumpy Bear cast a dark shadow on the wealth of bullshit good-for-no-good-reason goody-goodiness and had to be dealt with. Had with which to be dealt. Dealt with which had to be? Anyway, somewhere around 2003 or so, when the Carebears were being brought back, the Grumpy Bears started to disappear from shelves.
This is tantamount to Carebear emasculation, castration even; they fundamentally corrupted the group dynamic of the Carebears. Sure, he was already saturated with their glurge of sappy heart-shapes mingling with his raindrops, but apparently they later decided that even this terrible mutilation just was not enough to change Grumpy Bear into a real, gooey lovey Carebear - he would always be Grumpy Bear. They then took him out and quietly shot him in the head. Funshine Bear and Tenderheart Bear buried him in a shallow grave and that pink elephant Carebear Cousin stamped down the dirt. They left the grave unmarked, then took his toys off the shelves and hired a character actor to stand in for him in more of their boring movies.
Grumpy Bear was the most caring CareBear of you all, Carebears. Instead of being vacantly passive and implausibly cheerful over everything, he would become distraught and unhappy with the bad things. Grumpy Bear was not afraid of being sad for the woes of the world, something the rest of you Prozac junkies should have admired. He evened out the rest of you jackasses with your insufferable, overbearing cheerfulness. You needed him.
God bless Grumpy Bear; may he rest in peace.
BONUS:The Grumpy Freak Show
(Note: I have only ever seen one Carebear movie and am not particularly interested in them. They rather hit the nail on the head in trying to be accessible to young children while instilling a basic moral compass for them to learn in a very vanilla, boredom-injected manner. I just think Grumpy Bear is cute and it sucks that I didn't get one. >:[ They cost like $80 now on eBay.)
idgonemad.net
This was a special gallery show and silent auction to benefit Harvest for Hunger, held in 2006. This is one of those things I would have love-love-loved to be involved in, had I heard about it in time. People - please tell me about things!
(I am, of course, unaffiliated with the owner of the Flickr gallery or its images.)
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