We Bare Bears: Chloe Rewatch

August 25, 2015 1:00 AM - Season 1, Episode 4

An intruder in the cave turns out to be a young (as in, twelve) college student who asks to study them for a class, and who becomes the bears' friend. But when she forgets her laptop, the bears decide to spruce her presentation up a bit....
posted by JHarris (4 comments total)

• Chloe is a wonderful addition to the bears' world, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her. BTW here's a bit of voice actor shock for you: she's played by Charlyne Yi, who also performs Ruby on Steven Universe!
• The cave is pretty messy. I guess Ice Bear hadn't gotten around to cleaning up yet.
• "This furniture... looks hand-made!" She just snaps off a twig, but Panda notices right on entering. It's a glimpse into how the bears furnished the cave. Could we be getting a bit of backstory here?
• A little girl invades the domain of three bears and eats some of their porridge. HMMMMM....
• It makes sense to me that the first human to be shown really connecting with the bears is kind of unusual herself, a child prodigy.
• The manga on the table is Pretty Z, a Sailor Moon clone and evidently Panda's. Chloe notes she's already read that one. Overall Panda seems to be the one most conversant with Asian cultures, which is a nice touch. (Although Ice Bear uttered a Japanese arigato in the previous episode, and is studying martial arts.)
• Chloe is Korean (Park is a Korean name), but evidently has no problems with Chinese culture, as evidenced later by her and the bears' outing in Chinatown. (On review: Wikipedia notes that some Chinatowns are in fact pan-Asian.)
• Grizzly and Panda are coming in the door as Chloe explores, and they're carrying grocery bags. So, they shop for groceries! Isn't it weird that here we have a direct sign that the bears shop for food, while on Steven Universe we've seen no hints that the Crystal Gems ever go grocery shopping? (There is a comic cover, however, showing Steven and the Gems at a grocery store.)
• Ice Bear, with his axe, was hiding in the refrigerator. In a later we see him standing in the bathtub, dump in some ice cubes, then turn the water on.
• After being shocked a bit by Ice Bear's emergence, when the bears turn on the light after tying her up (not very well; she shakes the extension cord off in seconds) she's completely gotten over her fear. Did she already suspect these aren't particularly dangerous bears overall?
• "I don't know what surly means, but I'm gonna pretend it means radical, so thank you!"
• Ice Bear's blackboard reads (in cursive): "Ice Bear's Specials - spinach quiche - goat cheese omelette - jam on things" Guesses which food goes to which bear?
• Chloe Park is a student at "California University." A quick search suggests may either be the University of California, California State University, or (least likely) California University of Pennsylvania.
• The object of the bears' affection is honey wasabi gummis, which is appropriate on three different levels.
• The search engine Panda uses is Googs. What he enters is "What 2 do if have too many abs"
• Apparently Ice Bear's martial arts sensei is a lizard wearing a headband.
• At the restaurant the guys quickly revert into Bear Mode and raid the food cart.
• The bears appear to be experienced train passengers, they're stacked up right next to the handhold.
• "Large and Needy Beasts of the North" Does Chloe ever have the bears' number down.
• In the presentation on stage, having a big watermark on the clip of the cheering people is a nice touch.
• "Bears have more than eight abs! With new abs being discovered every day!"
• ERROR: -GOB3L.Y3R.201.2 WHATEVER YOU DID YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT PLEASE REPLACE COMPUTER
• I don't know about you, but I find Chloe getting dressed down by her professor to be very difficult to watch. It is completely not played for laughs at all, with no incidental music. The silence of the room is deafening.
• "Your honor please, we have a confession to make!" Are those words that Grizzly has had to shout before?

So, summary? Maybe it's a little unrealistic that the bears were able to save Chloe's presentation so completely (we have reason to believe, from the error messages that scrolled before the BSOD, it was her final paper for the semester), but hey, it's a kids' show. And really, if you're studying animals, it's pretty awesome to be able to get it right from the horse's mouth. So to speak. I'm giving it a B.
posted by JHarris at 1:05 AM on August 25, 2015

Thanks for posting about this series, JHarris. It's really a charming show.

I've watched up to this episode now, and like you mention for the previous episodes, I'm also curious about their handling of money. Do they maybe have jobs? I can almost see Ice Bear having a job and making enough money for them to live off. Or rather enough money for them to live off it it wasn't for them getting tickets and being taken to court on a regular basis (presumably). Also, how do wild animals get taken to court?

There were some great laughs for me this episode:
Ice Bear coming out of the fridge
"Large and Needy Beasts of the North"
Comic Sans in the bears' edited presentation. Actually, all of the bears' presentation

About it being her final paper for the semester, it could just have been the final version of her paper. If you work in an office with other people you see things like document_v4_final_def_final, etc.
posted by bjrn at 3:40 AM on August 30, 2015

Thanks for the comment! It's such a sweet-natured show. I hope to be doing more posts on it soon. (Not that that should stop anyone else who wants to post about it!)
posted by JHarris at 5:15 AM on August 30, 2015

I hope we get to see Chloe again at some point.

One more thing. There's a girl at the beginning of the intro (who also was one of the students asking questions) wearing a hijab, and I think this was the first time I've seen anyone wearing a hijab in an American animated series. I thought it was nice (even though she had no actual lines) that she was just one of the students and not defined by ethnicity or religion.
posted by bjrn at 12:59 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]