open/close all folders
Fridge Brilliance
- The bears' respective positions in the bearstack are reflective of their character and personalities.
- Grizz is at the top and the most noticeable, much like his frequent, more active efforts to make friends and get involved with other people.
- Panda is in the middle, similar to his comparatively more reserved desire to be noticed, largely through making friends and trying to find a girlfriend on the Internet.
- Ice Bear supports them both at the bottom, fitting his tendency to act in the background and perform the chores (cooking, cleaning, etc.) for the household.
- Panda is desperate for a relationship and not being alone because real pandas are critically endangered (until 2016, where their wild population increased and their status was changed to vulnerable).
- Panda is a vegetarian because giant pandas are primarily herbivorous and feed mostly on bamboo. It's because of this diet pandas have become lethargic and avoid social interaction, which would explain Panda's social anxiety and being the least energetic of the cast.
- Ice Bear spends time and sleeps in the refrigerator and takes a bath in ice water because polar bears are native to arctic regions and cold climates.
- His taste for fish may be due to the fact polar bears usually hunt fatty, blubber-rich prey such as seals, while fish tends to be an inaccessible treat.
- Grizz's need to be popular and have friends is probably in part due to being stuck in a tree as a cub and being apparently orphaned.
- Much like how Nom Nom is adorable and lovable in his viral videos but an obnoxious, self-centered primma donna behind the scenes, real-life koalas seem cute and cuddly but are very territorial and bad-tempered.
- Another possible explanation for Nom Nom's attitude; real life koalas have very limited energy and need to sleep 20 hours a day. Nom Nom however is constantly in the spotlight making videos and appearing at cons and such, so his crankiness and Hair-Trigger Temper may be due to lack of sleep.
- A koala is the bears' main antagonist. Ironically, koalas are often mistakenly called bears. Fridge Brilliance in that sometimes people ask Nom Nom if the bears are with him.
- Continuing on from that, the episode "Kyle" is all about Nom Nom meeting his long lost brother, and none of the three bears make an appearance. Koalas aren't really bears, just like how Kyle isn't actually Nom Nom's brother.
- Rather than dating the show, the references to memes and internet humor are important because the show is a snapshot of the social media age. The bears being social media addicts is an allegory for how the human race is developing an interconnected culture. Even though a savage animal heart lurks beneath their thin veneer of civilization ("Primal"), internet culture has made the bears effectively human and allowed them to get in on the global conversation. To this end, the bears all represent different popular websites:
- Grizz, a friendly and outgoing guy who desperately wants to make something that others will love (i.e. go viral), is YouTube.
- Panda, who is obsessed with his internet image and networking with others, is Facebook.
- Ice Bear, a memetic badass who only speaks in concentrated quotable bursts of 140 characters or less, is Twitter.
- A promotional video features the Bears playing ARMS. The Bears each have their mains.
- Grizz’s is Master Mummy. Master Mummy is tough (like Grizz wants to be) and has a family that he loves just as Grizz.
- Ribbon Girl is an idol singer, perfect for everyone’s favorite Otaku, Panda
- Ice Bear’s main is Ninjara, who is a Ninja. Ice Bear pretty much is a Ninja, and even has Ninja stars.
- Panda's squeaky little sneeze is considerable adorable, but the viral video it's inspired by was actually of an infant panda. Adult panda sneezes, while pretty darn cute, sound like what you'd expect to hear from a bear.
So not only does Panda get the embarrassment of being cute, he sounds like a literal baby. - Grizz's Big Eater tendencies are likely due to the fact that as a cub he and his brothers frequently went days without eating and were always searching for food.
- In "Icy Nights II", we find out that Yana is Yuri's daughter(or at least heavily implied to be). Then in "Hurricane Hal", Professor Lampwick from his titular episode tells us(and shows us)how all the Bears' stories are (inter)connected. "Icy Nights II" somehow foreshadowed this revelation!
- It might also explain how in most of the episodes where the Bears go off to do their own things, they somehow end up reuniting by the second act.
- The Bears' human counterparts are named Griff, Tom and Isaac. Griff and Isaac are named after their respective Bears, but how about Tom? Pandas are the only bear species without 'bear' in its common name, so naturally Tom's name is the Odd Name Out.
- Why is it the bears as Cubs could never be adopted? Well beyond various circumstances both wacky and tragic, it’s probably because most humans don’t have the necessities to take care of 3 baby bears of threatened species. Most people wouldn’t feel comfortable adopting Grizz, Panda or Ice Bear because they just can’t take care of them. It doesn’t help that they can talk; which, in this world is a rarity. Its likely why people try to ignore them.
- Baby Panda's desire to go to Paris (and Adult Panda's desire to date a woman from there) is interesting, considering the word "panda" was loaned from French. (Where the French got it is unclear, but it is believed to be from "panjā”, the Nepali name for the red panda, meaning "paw".)
- Panda's eye markings evoke the appearance of glasses, which enhances his nerdy character type.
- Grizz's behavior towards the firemen trying to get him unstuck from the tree may be due to some emotional damage that was revealed in "Burrito", as it was shown he was stuck in a tree as a cub and rescued by a fireman.
Primal
- Grizz is able to adjust better than his brothers in the woods because he's in his natural habitat, while his brothers are different types of bears from different continents.
- Panda's reversion to predatory instinct makes sense when you realize pandas are omnivorous and have a carnivorous digestive tract like other bears.
Shush Ninjas
- When the movie theater manager wants to repay the bears for helping his theater, the bears humbly turn down his offer with Ice Bear saying he refuses praise which could explain why Ice Bear doesn't mind that his brothers don't thank him for cooking and cleaning for them because of how humble he is.
- The all black ninja outfit did not historically exist as ninja uniform but rather as Kuroko which are stagehand uniforms. In the setting of this episode the bears worked as theater volunteers in this outfit.
My Clique
- Whenever Chloe and Ice Bear celebrate, they do a Secret Handshake. She and Ice Bear do this again at the end after she hugs Grizz and Panda because from the above example, "Ice Bear refuses praise."
Charlie
- Crosses into Tear Jerker and Fridge Horror territory: the reason Charlie has No Social Skills is because he can't stay in the same place very long without being harassed by people with cameras. He's probably never learned how to properly act around other people and make friends.
- An answer for Bigf... Charlie sightings is that of other large fauna that just happen to be walking on two legs at the time. The most common subjects? Bears.
Nom Nom's Entourage
- At one point Nom Nom demands that he be given eucalyptus leafs on a branch, as he refuses to eat them off a plate. That may just seem like his typical diva-ish behavior, but it's actually Truth in Television. Koalas do in fact only eat leaves off branches, as seeing them on a plate confuses them.
Pet Shop
- During the scene where the bears are waiting to be adopted and all the other animals are being adopted instead, in the background there are three puppies sleeping on top of each other: A brown one on top, gray in the middle (so a mix of black and white), and white on the bottom. Meaning that the other animals are copying the bears' actions.
Yuri and the Bear
- This episode gives us insight into some of Ice Bear's mannerisms: Yuri was a Third-Person Person who let Ice Bear stay with him in exchange for doing chores. He also taught Ice Bear how to cook, knit, fix mechanical items, read, and most importantly, how to use an axe.
- Also, take note of the title. It simply refers to Ice Bear as Bear. Which makes sense, as before he met Yuri, Ice Bear isn't the same Ice Bear we're familiar with. It's only in the end, where Ice Bear drifts away on the ice so he wouldn't be captured by poachers thanks to Yuri that he cements himself as the Ice Bear that Grizzly and Panda meet him as.
Coffee Cave
- Ice Bear carried Panda to his bed and sang "a weird lullaby". Ice Bear probably learned a Russian lullaby that was sung to him by Yuri.
Fridge Horror
Burrito
- Given the absence of Ice Bear and Panda, as well as his mother in the flashback, you just have to wonder how long Grizzly was stuck in that tree. Or how it even came about, and why he's alone.
Jean Jacket
- Crosses into Tear Jerker territory: In the end, the Jean Jacket is still out there and is still ruining good and lifelong friendships.
Nom Nom
- Considering Nom Nom's behavior, would he have even remembered that he'd left Ice Bear down a covered hole with no food or water?
- When Ice Bear was stuck in the hole for the whole night, he hears Grizzly and Panda and tries to get their attention. The only problem is that he can't speak loud enough to be heard, most likely because of his quiet nature. And considering that he usually sleeps in the fridge, he was probably suffering from heat or dehydration.
Charlie
- When the bears realize that a horde of paparazzi have gathered outside their cave for Charlie, the bigfoot explains that he has to constantly move around, get used to how lonely he is, stay put a little bit, and then start moving again. Exactly how long has he had to put up with this?
Yuri and the Bear
- One of the hunters is shown wearing a polar bear pelt, implying that Ice Bear's mother was killed and skinned.
- Ice Bear is too young to hunt or really defend himself in this episode. He could have been killed by the hunters or starved to death if Yuri hadn't adopted him.
Ralph
- Ralph is shown to have a different moral view on humans compared to Charlie, to the point of plotting to drop several tourists off a bridge just for laughs and saying they deserve this just because there are so many of them compared to his and Charlie's rare species. One could make the assumption that he's actually done deadly pranks like this before - but nobody was there to stop him.
Pigeons
- It's very bad to feed wild birds because they cannot properly digest the food people have, even bread; this, of course, includes everything that Grizz eats.
Bro Brawl
- Ice Bear loses the cooking competition not because his dish was inferior, but because the judge found a strand of his fur in his dish. Since Ice Bear is entirely covered in fur and he doesn't wear anything to prevent his fur from falling into the food, how often do you think his fur falls into the food he served without him and anyone else noticing it?
El Oso
- There's some Fridge Horror when we see how Charlie interacts with El Oso in the past compared to the way he interacts with Ranger Tabes in the present. While Charlie was still wary of humans in the 1910's, he wasn't completely terrified of them like he is in the 2010's. With El Oso, he was very open to the idea of being his friend and very conversational, while with Tabes Charlie is still nervous and very slow to trust being around her because of her species. Its been implied a few times that the rise of modern technology has made humanity increasingly dangerous to the cryptid, so what happened to Charlie during those hundred years to make him even more afraid?
Bubble
- The fact a toxic waste dump exists nearby San Francisco within walking distance is Nightmare Fuel alone, especially since despite having a fence, the hole's large enough for even a bear to enter in, but consider this: during the climax of the episode, Panda ends up in the stink of it all only protected by the titular bubble at the cost of his mobility, prompting Charlie to save him; to do this means he had to walk and then swim to the center. Meanwhile, while Grizz and Ice Bear were looking for ways to save their brother but avoiding the runoff, Charlie not only exposed himself to many dangerous chemicals but also came close to drowning which would've been terrifying on it own had Panda not saved him in time; that being said, it also meant that his bubble had to be destroyed in the process. Simply washing the waste aside with only a hose isn't enough to say the least; for what it was worth, even if they had managed to seeking medical help afterwards, living onward would be no laughing matter with the sterility, immunodeficiency, and mutations.
