Significance
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was Disney's first major serialized animated television series (it was released back to back with another show, The Wuzzles, which lasted only 13 episodes), and is often credited by animators and animation historians as having helped jump start the television animation boom of the late 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, it also became the forerunner to Disney's famous Disney Afternoon timeslot, which gave way to other famous serialized Disney television series, such as Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, Bonkers, TaleSpin and Gargoyles. Although many of these subsequently-created shows exceeded Gummi Bears in budget and length, it is often credited as the sort of prototype to all of the subsequent animation which followed it, with DuckTales really jumpstarting the trend.
Additionally, while not having the largest number of total episodes, Gummi Bears has the biggest number of seasons of any Disney animated series. Whereas other shows simply produced large numbers of episodes for each of their seasons (DuckTales, for instance, had 100 episodes over three years), Gummi Bears is unique in that it was actually annually renewed for new episodes over six consecutive years, a feat which few other children's animated series can boast even today.
The show was so successful in the United Kingdom that the episodes A New Beginning and Faster than a Speeding Tummi were released as theatrical featurettes there in 1986 and 1987.
Other appearances of Gummi Bears in other media included one appearance of Gruffi Gummi starring in a D-TV music video of the Elvis Presley song "Teddy Bear" in 1986.
The show's popularity also led to a re-theming of Disneyland's Motor Boat Cruise, along with a small part of Disneyland that became known as "Disney Afternoon Avenue." The Motor Boat Cruise became the "Motor Boat Cruise to Gummi Glen" and plywood characters from the show made Gummiberry Juice along the waterway. The Gummi Bears, and on occasion human characters such as Duke Igthorn, Princess Calla, or King Gregor, have also been featured as meetable characters who greet guests in Disney theme parks.
Alicia Keys performed a rendition of the theme song on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" on November 21, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Disney's Adventures Of The Gummi Bears
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—Joyce Maynard (20th century)