Hey guys Justin aka Nitsuj here, and season greetings to everyone out there. Welcome to another December where I take a look back at my childhood and do quick reviews of shows from my childhood. This year we’re going way back to my childhood to my Disney days. During my very young years I was a huge fan of Disney and remember watching just about every Disney movie that came out in the 90s. But the one thing I loved more than the movies was the Disneytoons. When I was a kid Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney were the main channels I watched as a kid. While Cartoon Network had creative shows with simple stories and Nickelodeon had simple shows with creative stories Disney was sort of the middle ground as they had a mixture of both. It was sort of like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega when they came out with the first full 3-D world game for their systems. Each one did something different and it paid off in the end (personally I think Sony had the best idea but the fully open world in Super Mario 64 was a brilliant idea as well). So, throughout the month of December I’m taking a look at all the Disneytoons and not just the ones from the Disney Afternoon show I’m also including ABC’s One Saturday morning, shows that appeared on the Disney Channel, and any other shows I remember watching from Disney. Welcome everyone to the month I like to call Disneytoon-cember.
Let’s begin by looking at one of the first Disneytoons Gummi Bears. It’s hard to believe one of the greatest snacks in the world got its own show and it was actually a rather good show at the time. The show centered around a young squire boy named Cavin who dreams of one day becoming a knight. One day he comes across and befriends the gummi bears who nobody believed existed. Using a medallion given to him by his grandfather he’s able to open the book the Great Book of Gummi which contains all of their wisdom. His kingdom is under attack by the evil Duke Sigmund and his armies of ogres who want to find the gummi bears and steal their secret weapon gummiberry juice a juice that grants whoever drinks it super strength for a short amount of time. Sigmund wants to use that drink, mass produce it, and take over Cavin’s kingdom however Sigmund is always foiled by the bears because of his own faults and the faults of his ogres. That’s pretty much the show right there, it’s just the bears and Cavin fighting against Sigmund and his ogres. There were more villains such as the barbaric gummies and Lady Bane an evil witch who also has a gummi medallion. There were also more allies and friends such as Princess Calla, Cavin’s grandpa Gawin, Princess Marie, Sir Tuxord, and many more.
Now I was pretty young when I first watched this show but I do remember watching reruns of this show and yeah in my honest opinion this was a good show to watch at the time and was better than it really needed to be. This show could have easily been just a phoned-in marketing campaign for the snack but no they really go all out here to give us an entertaining show to watch. It featured a lot of good characters, good stories, a clever and creative setup, and featured some pretty good action scenes and humor. I also did like how a few of the bears were voiced by other characters I watched growing. Like one bear had the same voice as Tigger and another one had the same voice as Garfield the Cat. It was weird but funny to hear their voices come out of the bears. The show was a silly idea but an idea that paid off in the end giving a very good show from our childhoods that people still love to this day and it’s surprising that the show didn’t go on longer when it was so popular. Now if you’ll excuse I’m in the mood for some gummi bears.