Review: 'BFFs' continues the renaissance of the 'Care Bears'

Posted Monday, March 6, 2017 at 5:48 PM Central

by John Couture

Let's be honest for a minute. You know The Care Bears secretly look upon the resurgence of My Little Pony and scoff.

"Bronies?!? What about our Bears and Cubs?"

OK, maybe that escalated a little quickly, but I was always bewildered why My Little Pony achieved such a revered spot in pop culture, while The Care Bears took a back seat.

Well, recently the people behind The Care Bears have started to update the series in hopes of connecting with both younger people and older fans nostalgic for their old favorites. While they still don't have anything on the Bronies, The Care Bears & Cousins series has successfully updated the franchise and allowed them to branch out a bit.

While my son took a fond liking to Mickey & The Roadster Racers, my daughter was the one who really enjoyed Care Bears & Cousins: BFFs. My wife grew up with the original series and still has many of her stuffed friends from that time. Recently, she took it upon herself to introduce our daughter to The Care Bears and she took to them quite quickly.

So, when I came home with this DVD offering to review, she was only too happy to help me critique the show. She particularly enjoyed the new characters of the cousins and how they seemed to flow seamlessly with the older, returning bears of the original series. She also got a kick out of the updated storylines.

As a parent, I appreciated the simple lessons that the episodes dispensed to their audiences such as sharing and the importance of keeping promises. We tend to overlook just how powerful of an influence these programs can have on our children, but I'm happy knowing that instead of watching mindless content, they are actually learning something, even if they don't realize it.

Care Bears & Cousins: BFFs is now available on DVD and while there isn't much in the way of supplemental content, the disc does contain all six episodes from "season two." Much like Mickey & The Roadster Racers, it gave my wife and me 90 minutes to ourselves that we greatly enjoyed.