Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch

"Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch!," which was made under the working title "The Yo-Yo Bears," has been one of those Hanna-Barbera shows that the casual fan liked while many others looked down on with disdain. For what it was worth, it wasn't a Scooby Doo clone, which began permeating Saturday morning TV (H-B's "The Funky Phantom" debuted on ABC the same 1971 season).



"Hair Bear Bunch" actually owed more to "Hogan's Heroes" than anything else. Hair Bear was most certainly Col. Hogan (with a touch of Sgt. Bilko), and zookeepers Eustace P. Peevly and Lionel J. Botch the show's Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz. The series itself was a quite inoffensive comedy of manners that was really nothing more to Hanna-Barbera than a tax write-off. It aired during the 1971-72 season on CBS, was shelved for a year, then brought back Sunday mornings in 1973 and moved back to Saturdays in February 1974.

was a Saturday morning cartoon, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1971 for CBS. The series depicted three fun-loving hippie bears — the Afroed Hair Bear, confusing-talking Bubi Bear, and laid-back Square Bear — who always find a way to escape the Wonderland Zoo and go out on adventures. Trying to stop them are the head zoo-keeper, Mr. Eustace P. Peevly, and his hopelessly inadequate assistant Lionel J. Botch. The bears have a modern "bachelor pad"-styled den at the zoo, but they disguise it from Peevly and Botch to avoid revealing their comfortable surroundings. The bears also have an invisible motorcycle, which Square Bear can call upon when necessary.



In some ways, the show was a hip, child-friendly update of Hogan's Heroes, which was still a popular sitcom at the time. The zoo replaced the Nazi prison camp, the Zookeeper replaced Commandant Klink, and Botch was a note-for-note copy of Sgt. Schultz, with Hair Bear himself taking the role of Colonel Hogan.



The show was developed under the name The Yo Yo Bears, a title which many sources inaccurately list as its name in syndication. The show never went into syndication after CBS canceled it in 1974; it reappeared in 1984 on cable on USA Cartoon Express.



A brief clip from the show was featured in the 2002 Adult Swim pilot for Welcome to Eltingville.

all I can say is Help Help here come the Bears, Help Help, here come the bears, Help help!! here come the bears, the Hair bear bunch. This was a great show, I assume it was Hanna-Barbarra (sp), beceause one of the Bears voice was very similar to the voice of Yogi Bear, and Mr. Peevly was similar to Park Ranger Smith, I think I might be wrong on that last one. This show was funny I watched in when USA used to show old cartoons, I think Cartoon network also had shows like this on as well, it was a great cartoon.