Paddington Bear (1989)
First episode title: Please Look After This Bear
How familiar with the show am I?: I'm familiar with the franchise, but not this specific show - it was the 70s stop-motion series "Paddington" that was always on when I was a kid.
Just one particular incarnation of a talking animal franchise that started in 1958 and continues to this day, including a CGI/live-action movie series in the 21st century. No, this isn't a repeat of Alvin and the Chipmunks from our last entry, and the similarity is coincidental! Regardless of the version you're reading or watching, Paddington is a polite little bear from Peru who gets adopted by a family in London and is named after the train station where they find him.
And Paddington Station is exactly where the episode starts, with a couple looking around for someone.
Henry: Do you see him, Mary?
Mary: In this crowd, I wouldn't be able to spot King Kong!
It's a shame Kong: The Animated Series started just too late to be part of Debutniverse. Oh well - we've had Donkey Kong at least!
The couple, Mr and Mrs Brown, are looking for someone called David, but they're surprised to find a bear wearing a red hat instead! They start talking to him - he's voiced by Charlie Adler, who we already know as Buster Bunny, doing his best try at an English accent but unable to decide whether he's rhotic or not.
The fact that he can talk doesn't seem like that much of a surprise to them, by the way. He explains how he got there by stowing away on a ship from Peru, surviving by eating the marmalade he's brought with him. There's a tag attached to his hat: "Please look after this bear, thank you". Mary asks Henry what they should do, and Henry asks the bear if he'd like to stay with them, apparently not even checking with his wife first. The bear is also surprisingly willing to immediately take a stranger's offer of a place to stay, although from what I know of Paddington it's not really out of character for him to be so naively trusting.
Bear: I haven't really got a name - only a Peruvian one which no-one can understand.
A Peruvian name is still a name! Apparently in other versions of the story his name can't be understood because it's in bear language, which is a little better, but even just saying that they wouldn't understand his name without saying he hasn't got one would be preferable to what they went with here. Anyway, following her husband's lead of just deciding things without asking first, Mary names the bear Paddington after the station. In her case, she doesn't even ask Paddington before naming him! The best I can say is that he doesn't object.
Henry goes off with Paddington and Mary finds David's train to meet him. David is the American nephew of the Browns, made up for this show because, I suppose, American children wouldn't be able to relate to the British characters. It honestly surprised me to hear an American accent come out of his mouth when he started speaking, as that part hadn't been mentioned yet! It does give them a logical reason to be at Paddington station, anyway, since that's where trains from Heathrow Airport to London finish their journey. Mary tells David there's another new addition to the family, and David gives us this shocked reaction:
Henry and Paddington have gone to a cafe in the station to get tea and food. Paddington is of course eating a marmalade sandwich, but he's making a huge mess of it, standing on the table and knocking over the tea - the crowd around them mistake it for a performance of some kind! When Mary and David show up, Paddington has gotten himself trapped in the parasol above their table, and people are throwing coins into his discarded hat! Paddington is polite but he's very clumsy, so he tends to get in these sorts of situations. Just like me.
After they free the bear, a police officer shows up, and he's the most stereotypical London bobby possible, asking "What's going on 'ere?" Even more hilariously, Henry unsubtly tries to bribe the cop using the money in the hat! They only get away free because the police officer can't find the evidence - i.e. the coins - after Paddington hides them in a secret compartment in his suitcase. He never actually explains why his suitcase has a secret compartment - that detail, plus the fact that he's shown up in London and gone to stay with the first family he met, makes him seem like some kind of spy!
Paddington explains that accidents like this always tend to happen to him, and next they get in a taxi. The cabbie is just as stereotypical as the cop (I wonder just how many of these voices are actual Brits), and he demands extra for taking a bear in his cab. And when they get out at the other end, there's a sticky mess left on his back seat from all the marmalade.
Waiting for the taxi when it stops are the Browns' children, Judy and Jonathan. They aren't very fazed about meeting a bear either - they're more concerned about what the housekeeper Mrs Bird will think, especially with Paddington still in such a mess. Judy suggests having a bath, and Paddington says bears don't take baths, demonstrating by licking himself - luckily, only his hands. She does convince him in the end, but then they have the problem of how to get him past Mrs Bird to the bath.
David says he'll pretend Paddington is his stuffed toy bear that he's brought with him from America. Paddington seems a little bit too big for that claim to be believable. But they get him past the stern-looking housekeeper, Paddington staying as stiff as he can, until he slips up and says "Nice to make your acquaintance" to Mrs Bird. It seems obvious at this stage that she already knows the bear is alive - she comments that she's going to have to stock up on marmalade - and Mr and Mrs Brown seem to react, but the episode will go on to act as if none of the other characters realise that Mrs Bird knows, for some reason.
Judy, Jonathan, and David run Paddington a bath - that's a three-person job, apparently. They leave him in there, and he immediately gets distracted by writing his own name (spelled wrong) in the condensation on the window.
Mrs Bird walks in on a conversation between the Browns about whether to keep Paddington, and they quickly change it into a conversation about "padlocking" the door, to cover themselves. The thing I find weirdest in this scene is that Mr Brown is the one expressing concern over whether it's a good idea to keep him, when he was the one who insisted on it in the first place!
Paddington continues to ignore his bath and starts drawing Peru on the mirror in toothpaste. As a result, the bath overflows and floods the room, Paddington falling into the water - the episode actually cuts to an ad break as Paddington starts to shout "Help!", in a surprisingly perilous cliffhanger for such a sedate show!
Back from the break, and I'm starting to dislike Henry's attitude:
Henry: At the very least, we should alert the authorities about Paddington.
Somehow he's become the opposite of the "dad who didn't want a pet" meme. Mrs Bird comes in again and they try to disguise the conversation as one about Paddington station, but Mrs Bird finally tells them she knows he's a real bear... and then they notice the water dripping from the ceiling right before the flood bursts out of the bathroom and Paddington is washed down the stairs!
Paddington apologises to Mrs Bird, and it seems like she's going to be annoyed at him about the mess she'll have to clean, until she reveals she was planning to clean the carpet today anyway and so he's actually made things easier for her. I'm pretty sure a flood of water from the bathroom is likely to cause more harm than good, though...
They decide Paddington needs some clothes, despite the fact that he's a bear, so Mary and Judy take him to Barkridges department store, a reference to Selfridges of course, although I'm not sure where they got the Bark from. And of course it's the women that get the job of shopping...
Anyway, the shop assistant is very rude to Mrs Brown - he suggests she should be shopping at a "government surplus store", so he seems to care more about Mary's apparent lack of wealth than the fact that she's accompanying a bear. And now, here's where things get weird. One of Paddington's signature gimmicks in the books is his "hard stare" - essentially, he is very good at convincing people to stop behaving rudely simply by angrily staring at them. This is just meant to be like anyone else who might have a very convincing stare, not something too out of the ordinary. But this cartoon seems to have interpreted it as some kind of magic power - he stares, and a ray of multicoloured light is fired at the target (who doesn't even need to be looking at Paddington, so it's not just a visual representation of the way it works in the book). And then the person starts doing whatever it was they were refusing to do - in this case, the shop assistant changes his mind about serving them. It's so weird!
Side note about that shop assistant: he consistently pronounces "madam" as "moddem" when addressing Mary. I don't know if this is some posh pronunciation I don't know, or if this is an artefact of Americans trying to voice Brits.
So Paddington needs to get a new hat, a duffel coat, and Wellington boots. I'm not sure why he needs a new hat when he already has his iconic one, and indeed, even when he's decided on a new one (a beret) he goes back to his usual hat for the rest of the episode. He also gains the blue coat he's known for here, but weirdly the boots never show up on-screen despite being mentioned twice in dialogue - were the writers expecting the artists to give him boots at the same time as giving him the coat?
Newly coated, Paddington gets left alone while Mrs Brown goes to see where Judy has gone. I'd ask whether letting Judy wander off was bad parenting (how old is Judy anyway?), but it turns out that leaving Paddington alone is the much worse idea. It starts out with the lid from his jar of marmalade rolling under a door, and he ends up with his hood over his head stumbling around the front window display of the shop, knocking things over and flying around on an out-of-control trolley. Paddington is surprisingly uncomprehending of what's happening to him, thinking that someone has turned the lights off as if he can't feel the hood on his face, and, while climbing up a mannequin and onto a washing line, mistaking those things for "the strangest floors". I prefer him being clumsy rather than stupid. All the while, a crowd has formed in front of the window, once again mistaking his antics for an intentional performance.
There's another ad break as Paddington gets washed along by the output of a washing machine, although I'm not sure why a store display would have a working plugged-in washing machine that's apparently in the middle of a cycle! Meanwhile, Mary and Judy have been talking to an employee about the missing Paddington, but they hear the commotion and rush to the front, just as Paddington's "performance" ends and the crowd decide to enter the store. What follows is a bit of a disjointed conversation that almost seems like it's in the wrong order, as the last line feels like it should lead to the first:
Employee 1: "Mean anything"? It's not a question of intentions!
Employee 2: Well, what are we going to do?
Mary: He didn't mean anything!
But then a man I can only assume is the boss shows up to congratulate Paddington, as the show he inadvertently put on had filled the store with customers! He offers to give Paddington anything he wants, and, of course, Paddington just wants more marmalade. He apparently only gets one jar, so they weren't that grateful.
Back at the Browns' house, Henry suggests they all go out for dinner at a fancy, expensive restaurant called the Porchester, to celebrate David and Paddington's first day in England. Wow, all this was in one day? I don't know if the name Porchester is meant to be a parody of anything in particular. Anyway, they get to the restaurant and the waiter is a rare instance of someone who disapproves of there being a bear around. Henry's objection is that it's his party, so I guess he's forgotten all about this celebration being for both David and Paddington already! Without actually reading the book, I'm wondering if that line is copied straight from the book with consideration for the fact that David was added for the cartoon.
Paddington uses his magic stare on the waiter, though, so they're allowed in. Once they order, he starts causing trouble again by asking for a marmalade sandwich - this time, with custard. I've never heard of a combination like that before, but Paddington is far too friendly to be intentionally trolling them.
Things continue from there in much the same manner as they've already gone for Paddington - salads are served as a starter, and an onion escapes from Paddington's plate, somehow ending up in the saxophone of the restaurant's live band. Then Henry's omelette flambée arrives, and Paddington, seeing the fire, throws all the ice from a wine bucket all over the dish, and the waiter! Look, you can tell he's only trying to be helpful with that last one, but it's the last straw for the waiter and he demands that Paddington leave.
Mrs Bird sweetly stands up to the waiter and says that if Paddington goes, they all go, but it becomes unnecessary - an old man with a moustache who's been a loyal customer of the restaurant for decades is delighted by Paddington's antics and wants to eat with them, so the waiter has no choice. I like how in this show everyone other than authority figures enjoys Paddington's company - all the antagonism comes from people with the power to push others around, and they get made fools of every time.
Old man: I'm Sir Huntley Martin, the Marmalade King. I've been in marmalade for fifty years, and I've never heard of a marmalade sandwich!
As far as I'm concerned, marmalade sandwiches are a normal thing, so this might be an intentionally absurd joke... but then again, I've never lived in a world without Paddington Bear, so maybe this franchise was what made them a thing? Martin invites Paddington to come and see his marmalade factory some time, which is one of my usual pick-up lines.
The final scene is Paddington in bed writing a letter to his Aunt Lucy (who lives in a home for retired bears), Mary convincing him to finish his letter tomorrow, and then Paddington going to sleep, unknowingly knocking over his bottle of ink in the process. It's just another standard joke about Paddington's clumsiness, but I love how ominous the gif of the ink being spilled looks out of context, as if Paddington has just died:
I liked this cartoon despite its flaws, but it's obviously not the best of the Paddington franchise. Maybe at some point I'll look at the original book and see how wrong I was about what was changed.