The Care Bears' Big Wish Movie

Infobox Film
name = The Care Bears: Big Wish Movie


caption = Promotional poster
director = Larry Jacobs
Ron Pitts
producer = Cynthia Taylor
Ross Maudsley (technical)
writer = Jeff Schechter
music = Score:
Ian Thomas
Songs:
Don Breithaupt
Amos Carlen
Creighteon Doane
Daniel Leblanc
Noah Shilkin
Anthony Vanderburgh
editing = Jason Cohen
starring = "See below"
company = Nelvana Limited
distributor = DVD:
released = October 17, 2005 (TV)
October 18, 2005 (DVD)
runtime = 75 min
country = Canada
language = English
preceded_by = "" (2004)
followed_by = "" (2007)
imdb_id = 0472221Infobox movie certificates
United_States = Not Rated (DVD)
TV-G (TV premiere)

"The Care Bears: Big Wish Movie" is a direct-to-DVD CGI film from Lions Gate Home Entertainment" and Nelvana Limited, released on October 18, 2005. This movie is a follow-up to the Care Bears' previous efforts in 2004's "", featuring that film's same voice cast.

This is the fifth movie based on the Care Bears franchise, and marks the return of Harmony Bear from 1986's "", and the television series' "Great Race" episode. It is also Nelvana's last film to feature the Bears; another studio, Sabella Dern Entertainment, created the latest Care Bears movie, "Oopsy Does It".cite web|last=Ball|first=Ryan|date=2006-09-28|url=http://www.animationmagazine.net/article.php?article_id=5955|title=AG Properties Makes [sic] MIPCOM Debut|publisher=Animation Magazine|accessdate=2006-09-29]

This is the only Care Bears movie that does not feature any kind of villain and has only two non-Care Bear characters (Twinkers and Big Wish).

Plot

The movie starts with the Care Bears hearing a tale about Wish Cub (Wish Bear when she was a baby) finding her new friend, Twinkers, as she is having a picnic in the forest. The Care Bears are touched by this tale, but are bit worried when Wish Bear uses Twinkers' inherent powers to wish them all some popcorn. Cheer Bear expresses concern that it may be a frivolous use or even abuse of Twinkers' power, but Wish Bear assures everyone she's a trained professional.

The next day, Wish Bear uses the wishing power to help out some friends in need. She wishes for plenty of rainbow sap for Share Bear and for Grumpy Bear's rocket to have lots of zoom but the wishes backfire when the sap overflows and the rocket spins out of control.

A monthly meeting of the Care-a-Lot steering committee (with Champ Bear presiding) reveals a problem--the meter that measures how much caring there is in Care-a-Lot has moved towards the raincloud side. It's suggested that they have a special month of showing how much they care. Wish Bear suggests using her wishes, but is rejected since they don't always work out the way she intended.

Wish Bear is disappointed that nobody seems to like her wishes. As she laments this, she comes up with the idea of wishing for other bears who like wishing as much as she does. She makes a wish and three new bears arrive in Care-a-Lot--Me Bear, Messy Bear and Too-Loud Bear.

At first, everyone is pleased to welcome the new neighbors, but soon, things get out of control. The neighbors abuse Twinkers' power to create themselves a huge mansion and Me Bear creates an entire theme park, gift shop, and factory dedicated to herself. The wishes drain the color right out of Care-a-Lot and, and even worse Wish Bear accidentally wishes away Twinkers (and her tummy symbol) to the three.

The new neighbors finally realize that what they've done has messed up Care-a-Lot. However, their idea of wishing the problem away simply leads to more problems, such as Care-A-Lot turning into a blank white space and Messy Bear turning into Messy Cub! Finally, Twinkers loses his power from exhaustion when Me, Messy, and Too Loud Bear try to wish Twinkers back to Wish Bear. Wish Bear uses Grumpy Bear's rocket to bring him to the Big Wish in the sky. She (Big wish) restores his power, but not before Wish Bear assures her that she's learned her lesson.

Back in Care-a-Lot, Wish Bear tells everyone that they can't simply wish this problem away. So they all work together to make Care-a-Lot a beautiful place again. The three new Bears seeing the error of their ways ask if they could still live in Care-A-Lot. The rest of the Bears agree they can all live together and from there the Bears decide to go on a road trip.

List of all the wishes that backfired in the movie:
* Wish Cub wishes that she and Twinkers will be together forever, which she means as being "friends" forever. Twinkers instead sticks himself on Wish Cub's tummy, thinking she literally meant "together" forever. This does however, give Wish Cub her tummy symbol.

* Wish Bear wishes for enough popcorn for everybody and Twinkers causes all of Care-A-Lot to rain popcorn. Wish Bear meant only enough popcorn for everybody at the observatory, not "all" of Care-A-Lot.

* Wish Bear wishes for Share Bear to get plenty of rainbow sap when the sap isn't flowing well. Unfortunately, so much rainbow sap flows, Share Bear can't handle it all.

* Wish Bear wishes for Grumpy Bear's rocket to have "plenty of zoom", which causes the rocket to take off and spin out of control and crash into the forest, causing Grumpy Bear to land in the tub of Share Bear's rainbow sap.

* Wish Bear wishes for more bears in Care-A-Lot who "really, really love wishing", but the three that appear (Me, Messy, and Too Loud Bear) would cause problems later, as shown in the plot summary.

* Wish Bear and Twinkers visit the three new bears at their new house to give them a freshly baked apple pie. However, Me Bear says that she cannot eat apple due to acid reflux and so Wish Bear wishes for the pie to become a big blueberry pie. The pie ends up being made from one giant blueberry (making it literally a "big blueberry" pie).

* Because the new neighbors are unsatisfied with the small size of their new house, Wish Bear wishes for them to have a bigger house. This does indeed create a huge mansion, but it also creates several smoke stacks which cause a ton of smog and also pushes aside next door neighbor Bedtime Bear's house while he's sleeping (and it does NOT wake him up!).

* Wish Bear, after pointing out the new bears need to cut back on the wishes, states that she wishes it was as easy as saying "I wish you all had Twinkers so you could all make all the wishes you wanted...", which Twinkers again responds to literally, causing Wish Bear to lose Twinkers and her tummy symbol to the three.

* Upon gaining control of Twinkers, Too Loud Bear wishes up a very loud rainbow motorcycle, Me Bear wishes up a whole amusement park and gift shop (and its factory; which causes a ton of smog) about only herself, and Messy Bear tries to make mud pies in the kitchen having Twinkers wish up all the ingredients.

* Once the new bears realize the error of their ways, Messy wishes that "all of this was gone", which causes Care-A-Lot to turn into a blank white space.

* Next, Messy Bear wishes for everything back, "but with more color", but only the Care Bears get more color (they get much brighter).

* Then, Messy Bear wishes for less color, which changes the Care Bears back to normal colors, except for Grumpy Bear who turns black and white.

* Then, Messy Bear wishes for everything to be like it used to be, but this causes Messy Bear to turn himself into Messy Cub!

* Finally, Messy Bear tries to wish Twinkers back to Wish Bear, but is "all used up" from all the wishes.

Pop Culture References

* When the three new bears come visit Wish Bear's house, the following dialoge occurs and is based on the classic comedy routine "Who's on First?" by Abbott and Costello:
Wish Bear: Who is it?
Me Bear: It's Me Bear!
Wish Bear: Who Bear?
Me Bear: ME Bear!
Wish Bear: You Bear?
Me Bear: ME!!
Wish Bear: You??
Me Bear (frustrated): YES!!!
(Twinkers then whispers in Wish Bear's ear that "Me" is in fact Me Bear's name)

* Then, all three greet her with "Hello, hello, hello" from each one, which was a trademark Three Stooges act.

* Too Loud Bear's habit of mispronouncing names (especially Twinkers' name) and saying "Whatever" whenever someone tries to correct him is based on the short-lived 1960s sitcom "My Mother the Car", where Captain Manzini always mispronounces Crabtree's name and replies "Whatever" whenever corrected.

Differences in Movie and Book Versions

There is also a Care Bears storybook based on this movie as well, with several key differences:
*The book includes a scene where Wish Bear and the three new bears are grocery shopping; this is not included in the movie.
*When Messy Bear wishes for everything to be like it used to be in the book, it causes the bears to travel back during the age of the dinosaurs; in the movie Twinkers just turns Messy Bear into Messy Cub.

TV premiere

The movie premiered on the Disney Channel (United States) and YTV (Canada) on October 17, 2005, just one day shy of its DVD release. Disney aired it at 11:00 A.M. EST; YTV's turn came two and a half hours later. [ [http://www.tv.com/care-bears/big-wish-movie/episode/540471/summary.html "The Care Bears: Big Wish Movie"] at TV.com. Retrieved on 2006-02-15.]

Cast

*Stephanie Beard as Wish Bear
*Robert Tinkler as Grumpy Bear
*Susan Roman as Good Luck Bear
*Julie Lemieux as Funshine Bear
*Louise Vallance as Share Bear
*Linda Ballantyne as Champ Bear
*Athena Karkanis as Harmony Bear
*Angela Maiorano as Love-a-Lot Bear
*Catherine Disher as Friend Bear
*Andrew Sabiston as Tenderheart Bear
*Scott McCord as Bedtime Bear
*Stephen Ouimette as Too Loud Bear
*Tracey Hoyt as Me Bear
*Ron Rubin as Messy Bear
*Richard Binsley as Twinkers
*Sunday Muse as Cheer Bear
*Elizabeth Hanna as Big Wish

References

ee also

*List of animated feature films

External links

* [http://www.care-bears.com/CareBears/html/bigwish/index.html Official site]
*imdb title|id=0472221
*rotten-tomatoes|id=care_bears_big_wish_movie
*amg title|id=1:331339
*bcdb title|id=75449
* [http://videodetective.com/trailer-preview.asp?PublishedID=41744 Trailer at VideoDetective]
* [http://agent0042.fileburst.com/carebears.html Lyrics to songs for this movie and "Journey to Joke a lot"]