Bay Area creator of ‘We Bare Bears’ marks end of series with new movie

A show about three cartoon bears caught up in episodic high jinks might serve as one of the only safe distractions from an increasingly maddening world. And it mostly does: In  the universe of “We Bare Bears,” the Emmy-nominated Cartoon Network show about three bear brothers — adoptees  consisting of a grizzly, panda and polar bear — and their misadventures in the human world of San Francisco, trials big and small are always conquered in 11 minutes, give or take, often with a warm salve of chummy love.

Still, these days, it can be hard not to see reality — a politically violent one — catching up in the periphery. This is particularly the case with “We Bare Bears: The Movie,” which premieres on streaming services Tuesday, June 30, and follows up on last year’s fourth season of the show.

While “We Bare Bears” is beloved globally, particularly in Asia, for its funny, wholesome cuddliness, Daniel Chong — the Berkeley creator of the show who set it in the Bay Area after the formative period he spent while working as a storyboard artist in Emeryville’s Pixar Studios — first conceived of “We Bare Bears” as a reflection of the marginalization he felt in his early years.

“It was about my experiences as an Asian American and feeling like an outsider growing up where I didn’t quite know my place among the world,” Chong, who was raised  in the predominantly white suburbs of Orange County, told The Chronicle recently over the phone. “I knew that was the identifying thing for me, but I kind of knew that might be maybe a little too specific as a pitch. So to me, the broader message was always that we all are feeling that way. We all are trying to find our place and trying to fit in.”

The show is informed, lightheartedly, by this feeling. Episodes of the “baby bears,” which chronicle their early cub years, often follow their desperate struggle to be adopted, while Charlie (voiced by Jason Lee), the tender bigfoot-esque friend of the bears  — Grizzly (Eric Edelstein), Panda (Bobby Moynihan) and Ice Bear (Demetri Martin) — is viewed as a mysterious terror by the human world.

But in the new film, this often latent sense of alienation becomes central and takes on a new tone. After the bears inadvertently cause a citywide blackout, citizens call for their banishment, forcing them to go on the run.

“The biggest realized fear is feeling that you’re not wanted there anymore and that everybody wants you gone, and you’re going to be imprisoned or something like that because people are discriminating against you,” Chong says. “It felt like that was a very timely thing to say.”

At a town meeting, a villainous federal agent takes the podium and, amid a fearmongering diatribe about the bears’ disruption of the “natural order,” calls for the brothers to be captured and put into cages.

“When we were making the movie and writing it, something very specific was happening around that time: Families were getting locked up,” Chong says, referencing the federal family-separation immigration policy enacted at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The narrative here was a specific response to what was happening at the time, though, in the writers’ room, it felt like a natural reaction — even a necessity — based on the show’s core theme.

“We would all wake up and we would look at the news, and we would say, ‘This isn’t right.’ It would feel sort of disingenuous to not acknowledge it,” says Kris Mukai, a writer for the show and film whose own Japanese American grandparents were interned during World War II. “I hate to think about my grandparents being bused away and no one stopping it, so I want to do right by them now. These feelings definitely came out while writing the movie.”

Yet, that process was some two years ago. In recent months, and even days, the resonance of the bears’ allegory has mutated in seemingly endless, tragic ways.

There have been troubling reports of increased anti-Asian violence and racism due to the pandemic, a stark reminder of the feeling that fueled Chong’s initial idea behind the show. Most notably, the film is released amid a nationwide movement unlike any seen in decades, sparked by the death of George Floyd, another Black civilian killed by police.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to stop. It’s very disheartening,” Chong says. “This movie to us is an expression of reacting to that and hoping that we can learn to understand each other a little better.”

To be sure, most of “We Bare Bears: The Movie” — which Chong, who has since departed Cartoon Network to work on an unnamed project, says will be the conclusion of the official series, while preceding an upcoming spin-off show of the baby bears — is still ultimately an expansion of its typical, irresistibly cute bear fare. But Chong and Mukai see the lesson that hangs in the background as essential to a program that can be formative for its young viewers.

“I hope it makes them think about standing up for people that might not look like them or might be being treated differently from them,” Mukai says. “I hope it empowers kids to feel like they can do something.”

That message, Chong adds, should not be controversial.

“All I’m saying is it’s wrong to discriminate,” he says. “It’s not a good thing, and there are better ways for us to coexist.”

Yet, most of all, at a time when the future seems bleak, the goal is to provide viewers with a sliver of joy and relief.

“If something resonates with them about the message and what the story is in how it relates to coexisting and tolerance, that’s great. That is exactly why we wanted to make this movie,” Chong says. “But more than that, I just hope people laugh.”

“We Bare Bears: The Movie” (TV-Y7) is available for purchase on streaming services starting Tuesday, June 30.

• Brandon Yu

  Brandon Yu is a Bay Area freelance writer.