A movie that'll make the whole family care-a-lot.

What happens when the world stops caring?


A movie that'll make the whole family care-a-lot.
What happens when the world stops caring?


A movie that'll make the whole family care-a-lot.
What happens when the world stops caring?



In a film designed to bring smiles to the post-toddler set on up to perhaps their seven-year-old siblings, this animated story by Arna Selznick (only the third woman in cinematic history to direct a full-length animated feature) is about the popular Care Bears. These loving creatures inhabit a realm in the clouds called Care-A-Lot, and their purpose in life is to get the humans down below to share their good feelings with each other. They watch over human children with large telescopes and help those children who need help. The Care Bears have their work cut out for them, because Nicolas, a lonely magician's assistant, is about to fall under the evil influence of a bad spirit who lives in an ancient magic book -- it seems Nicolas will do just about anything for friends. Aside from Nicolas, Kim (Cree Summer) and Jason (Sunny Besen Thracher) are in trouble because they are starting not to trust people after suffering many disappointments. Mickey Rooney is the voice of Mr. Cherrywood, the owner of an orphanage. ~


The Care Bears Movie is a 1985 animated fantasy film, the second feature production from the Toronto animation studio Nelvana. One of the first films based directly on a toy line, it introduced the Care Bears characters and their companions, the Care Bear Cousins.[nb 2] In the film, orphanage owners tell a story about the Care Bears, who live in a cloud-filled land called Care-a-lot. Travelling across Earth, the Bears help two lonely children named Kim and Jason find new parents, and also save a young magician's apprentice named Nicholas from an evil spirit's influence. Deep within a place called the Forest of Feelings, Kim, Jason, and their friends soon meet another group of creatures, the Care Bear Cousins.
American Greetings Corporation, the owners of the Care Bears characters, began development of a feature film in 1981. Later on, the card company chose Toronto's Nelvana to produce it, granted them rights to the Care Bears characters, and financed the film along with cereal manufacturer General Mills and television syndicator LBS Communications. Nelvana's founders were on hand as producers, while fellow employee Arna Selznick directed. Production lasted eight months, cost no less than US$2 million, and took place in Canada, Taiwan, and South Korea. The voice cast included Mickey Rooney, Georgia Engel, Jackie Burroughs and Cree Summer. Two pop music stars, Carole King and John Sebastian, contributed several songs.
Although major U.S. studios passed on the project, newly established independent distributor The Samuel Goldwyn Company acquired it and soon spent a record US$24 million promoting it. The film premiered on March 24, 1985, in Washington, D.C. and entered wide release in around 1,000 North American theatres five days later.[nb 3] Another Nelvana work, Strawberry Shortcake Meets the Berrykins, played alongside the feature in theatres. The Care Bears Movie received mixed reviews from the outset; critics raised concern over its potential as a full-length advertisement for the title characters, among many other aspects. It went on to earn US$23 million domestically; as Canada's highest-grossing film during 1985 (with C$1.845 million), it won a Golden Reel Award. Nelvana's surprise hit also played in Europe, Australia, and Latin America. With over US$34 million in worldwide sales, it set a box-office record for Canadian and non-Disney animation, and has remained one of U.S. distributor Goldwyn's largest releases.
The movie's success saved Nelvana from closing, helped revive films aimed at children in the U.S. market, and has been cited as inspiring a spate of toy-based animated and live-action features. Nelvana produced two sequels in the next two years, A New Generation (1986) and Adventure in Wonderland (1987); neither surpassed the original financially or critically. The Care Bears franchise continues, and has included television series and specials, videos, and films. Box office was 20,00000


The Care Bears Movie premiered in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 1985, as part of a Special Olympics benefit;[5] Georgia Engel, the voice of Love-a-lot Bear, attended this event.[80] The film opened on March 29, 1985, in the United States and Canada,[18][81] as Nelvana's first widely released feature.[44] It became surprisingly successful at the North American box office,[82] playing primarily at matinees and early evening showings.[17][78][82][83] At the time, the North American film industry was bereft of children's and family fare;[8][78][84] with The Care Bears Movie, Hirsh said, "There's such a large audience for a film that appeals primarily to 6-year-olds."[82] He remarked later on, "What we've done [at Nelvana] is tailor the film to a pre-literate audience, the very young. It's interesting to see the audience. The kids are fixated on the screen. [It's] awesome to them."[78] Clive A. Smith observed that some children came to showings with their Bears; long lineups held back its audience in several cities.[14] Among those attending the matinee screenings was John Waters, a filmmaker known for Pink Flamingos and Polyester.[85] The film made an appearance at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, Texas, during its release.[86]
When shown in theatres, the feature was immediately followed by Nelvana's TV special, Strawberry Shortcake Meets the Berrykins.[87] It was directed by Laura Shepherd and produced by Nelvana's founders along with Lenora Hume.[88] The story involves Strawberry Shortcake and a tiny group of creatures called the Berrykins as they work to clear their home of Strawberryland of the "world's favourite perfume", a pungent odour which was unleashed from a purple cloud.[88] LBS Communications syndicated it on U.S. television around the time of The Care Bears Movie's theatrical tenure; a video release from Family Home Entertainment soon followed.[89][90]
The Care Bears Movie ranked fourth at the North American box office on its first two weekends, grossing US$3.7 million and US$3.2 million respectively.[91][92][nb 1] It was screened in 1,003 venues during its first four weeks.[93][94] After three months, it grossed about US$23 million in the United States,[18][81][nb 10] and placed 40th among 1985's major films;[96] it brought in US$9,435,000 in rentals for the Goldwyn company.[97] In Canada, the film was released by Astral Films[3] and Criterion Pictures Corporation,[4] and made C$1,845,000 by the end of 1985.[98][99] It was the year's highest-grossing release in that market, followed by Disney's One Magic Christmas and a Quebec production called Le Matou.[98]
Several months after The Care Bears Movie, Walt Disney Pictures released its animated feature The Black Cauldron. Costing US$25 million, it was the most expensive animated film of its time,[100] but grossed nearly as much as Nelvana's production (US$21.3 million).[101] As a result, The Care Bears Movie's performance alarmed animators at the Disney Studios;[7] Don Bluth, a former recruit, dismissed the "public taste" factor that it demonstrated.[102] Another animator, Ron Clements, later reflected on this: "Everyone was kind of scared about the future of Disney animation. It wasn't a good time. It was really a terrible time."[103] This sentiment was echoed in Waking Sleeping Beauty, Disney's 2010 documentary on the revival of its animation unit.[104] While comparing The Black Cauldron with The Care Bears Movie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution singled out the "putrid pastels" of Nelvana's production and commented that they "don't even deserve to be mentioned in the same review."[105] Months afterward, a re-issue of Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians surpassed both The Care Bears Movie and The Black Cauldron, with over US$30 million in sales.[106][107]
Sometime after the film's release, Children's Video Library (a division of Vestron Video) picked up the video rights to The Care Bears Movie for US$1.8 million.[108] It was released in the United States on July 10, 1985, in VHS and Betamax formats.[109] On August 10, 1985, it debuted in 26th place on Billboard's Top Videocassette Rentals chart.[110] It ranked fourth on the first edition of the magazine's Top Kid Video chart (on October 5).[111] It was tracked by Video Insider's children's chart (on August 30, 1985), as one of five toy-related titles on tape (along with two compilations of Hasbro's Transformers series; another with Hallmark Cards' Rainbow Brite; and the last with Strawberry Shortcake).[1] By 1988, Vestron's edition sold over 140,000 copies.[112] In 1990 Video Treasures reissued it on videocassette;[113] on October 10, 1995, Hallmark Home Entertainment published another VHS edition as part of a six-title package from Goldwyn and Britain's Rank Organisation.[114]
On September 5, 2000, MGM Home Entertainment re-released the film on video as part of its Family Entertainment Collection;[115][nb 11] the DVD edition premiered on August 6, 2002, and was packaged with the 1978 British family film The Water Babies.[118] In 2003 the film was inducted into the MGM Kids line.[119] In honour of the Care Bears' 25th anniversary, another DVD edition of the film was released on March 20, 2007, with restored picture quality; it contained the franchise's second Atkinson Film-Arts special, The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine, as an extra.[120] American Greetings launched an official anniversary website and a Dodge Grand Caravan giveaway as part of the proceedings.[121] By 2007, home video sales of The Care Bears Movie totalled over five million units.[122]
The Care Bears Movie was scheduled to premiere on the U.S. premium television network, Disney Channel, in June 1986,[123] but did so one month in advance.[124] In September 1987, the film made its terrestrial broadcast premiere on the ABC network's Saturday morning schedule.[125] It also aired on American Movie Classics in July 1991,[126] and on Showtime[127] and The Movie Channel[128] in the 2000s. The film aired on Starz Entertainment's Encore channel in September 2007, as part of its "Big '80s" Labour Day marathon, chronicling various releases from that decade.[129] It was among the first films shown on Canada's Moviepix channel in October 1994


The Care Bears Movie received mixed reviews. During its original release, The Care Bears Movie had varying degrees of success with critics.[170] The New York Times' Richard Grenier wrote, "[The film] recalls vintage Walt Disney, both in substance and in the style of hand animation."[171] Rick Lyman of Knight Ridder News Services said in his review: "Any movie—even an animated one—that has characters with names such as Funshine Bear, Love-a-lot Bear, and Lotsa Heart Elephant is obviously going to rank quite high on the cute meter. And this one sends the needle right off the chart. You've never seen such cuteness."[172] Adele Freedman also gave it a positive review, commenting: "[It] has a lot going for it if you can tolerate the Bears."[24] Edward Jones of Virginia's The Free Lance-Star praised it, but stated that "More comedy would have helped broaden [its] appeal to older youngsters."[173] The Deseret News of Utah gave it three stars out of four (a "Good" grade) with this comment: "Sticky sweet, but a nice message."[174]
Michael Blowen began his review of the film by stating that "[it] satisfies the primary obligation of a bedtime story—before it's half over the children will be fast asleep." He added that "this sugar-coated trifle could only satisfy the most ardent Care Bears fan", and that "the characters themselves lack definition".[70] The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said, "Who except a callous scrooge would carp about the fact that The Care Bears Movie espouses a psychopop philosophy of 'sharing our feelings' that seems drawn straight from the pages on one of those insufferable self-motivation tomes? No one, that's who."[168] In the words of The Washington Post reviewer Paul Attanasio, "The best cartoons recognize the dark side of kids, their penchant for violence, their fearful fantasies. [This movie] just patronizes them. It even has a child chortling, 'Aren't parents great!' Well, they are and they aren't, and kids know that."[175]
The animation in the film received mixed reviews as well. Adele Freedman praised the style and backgrounds, and called the special effects "stunning".[24] Likewise, John Stanley wrote that "The style is cartoonish and cute" in his 1988 film guide, Revenge of the Creature Features.[176] While complimenting it as "a harmless film diversion", Stephen Hunter said that "the movie has the lustrous, glossy look of the very best in children's book illustrations". "On the other hand," he added, "the producers obviously couldn't afford an expensive [multiplane] camera, the staple of the Disney product, and so the scenes have a depressing flatness to them. And the backgrounds, so brilliantly developed in Disney, tend to be blurry and hastily done."[69] Jim Moorhead of Florida's The Evening Independent said, "[Nelvana's] animation is not the best. Far from it. Everything's in pastels, fine details are largely missing, mouth movements are minimal and the motions of the figures are scarcely better than some of those awful Saturday morning cartoons on TV."[177] The staff at Variety magazine stated that the "style ... tends towards a primer reading level."[178] Halliwell's Film Guide called it "sluggishly animated and narrated".[179] As with the Atlanta Journal Constitution,[105] The New York Times' Janet Maslin found that the quality paled in comparison to Disney features (in this case, 1940's Pinocchio).[180]
The Los Angeles Times' Charles Solomon (in his 1989 book Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation),[84] and Michael Janusonis of Rhode Island's Providence Journal,[181] faulted the plot. The Evening Independent's Moorhead and Jim Davidson of the Pittsburgh Press noticed at least two parallel storylines in the film, one of which involved the magician Nicholas.[177][182] The National Coalition on Television Violence counted at least 20 acts of violence throughout the picture.[183]
Critics questioned its purpose as a feature-length advertisement for Care Bears merchandise;[184] among them were Charles Solomon,[84] Paul Attanasio,[175] The Morning Call of Pennsylvania,[185] and Bill Cosford of The Miami Herald.[186] The Boca Raton News' Skip Sheffield commented, "I couldn't help being bothered by the blatant commercialism of this whole venture."[187] The British magazine Films and Filming remarked: "The purpose of the film is presumably to sell more toys as it unashamedly pushes the message that without at least one Care Bear around life can be very lonely."[188] Stoffman observed, "one of the youngest target audiences of any animated movie",[154] as did the Halliwell's staff;[179] film critic Leonard Maltin (in his Movie Guide);[189] and Henry Herx (in his Family Guide to Movies on Video).[190]
The 1986 International Film Guide called it "an elementary piece of animation lacking colour and character, with not much humour, quite lacking in charm, and indifferently scored".[191] Maltin gave it two stars out of four in his Movie Guide;[189] similarly, the Gale Group publication, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever, gave it two bones out of four in its 1997 edition.[192][nb 17] According to Derek Owen of Time Out's Film Guide, "Adults forced to accompany three-year-olds to the movie would have had a little moment of satisfaction when the time came to shovel the Care Bears toys out of the house into landfill sites."[194]
The mixed reception carried on in the years ahead: in her 1995 book Inside Kidvid, Loretta MacAlpine said of the film and its subsequent follow-ups, "If you can hack the sugarcoated attitudes of this group of cuddly bears, more power to you! There's nothing insidious about the Care Bears, but their overbearing sweetness may not appeal to all viewers." She cautioned parents of the merchandising aspect behind the tapes.[195] Dave Gathman of Illinois' Courier-News wrote in 1998, "One Care Bears Movie ... can give all G-rated entertainment a bad name."[196] In 2003 the Erie Times-News acknowledged its financial success, but commented on its "lack of a creative title".[197] Animation expert Jerry Beck wrote in his 2005 book, The Animated Movie Guide, "It's a simple, serviceable adventure with several standout sequences. ... There's no doubt about it, this is a children's film aimed at the under-seven crowd. But it's one of the better animated children's films produced during this period."[16]

Release Date: March 29, 1985


Distrib: Samuel Goldwyn Co.

Release Date: $22,934,622 2013: $52,006,700