Trivia / The Hair Bear Bunch

• Acting for Two: John Stephenson is both Peevly and the superintendent. Daws Butler does voices for Hair Bear, Bananas and Fumbo.
• Adaptation Sequence: The Hair Bear Bunch was an unlicensed Animated Adaptation of the sitcom Hogan's Heroes, which was an unlicensed adaptation of the film Stalag 17, which was adapted from the Broadway play of the same name, which was based on real experiences in a prisoner-of-war camp in Austria. It was a steady slide from reality, to talking bears with funky hair.
• Edited For TV: Scenes that were animated but not used on the first CBS run were used in the second run. Among the scenes were the bears getting busted for playing "Slap Jack" with Bananas ("Closed Circuit TV"), Peevly accosting a wild forest bear, mistaking it for the Bunch ("I'll Zoo You Later"), and Peevly verbally accepting Hair's proposal to stage a re-enactment of the story of Noah and the Ark ("Ark Lark"). These scenes have been noticeably absent from the show's play on USA, Cartoon Network and Boomerang. They are also absent from the DVD set. (Of note, the missing scenes from "Rare Bear Bungle" and "Raffle Ruckus" got spliced on to each other on the 1973-74 run on CBS.) The missing scene from ''Closed Circuit TV' is as follows:
  (Bears and Bananas at a card table, putting cards down in a pile, one at a time)
  Square: Wonder when a jack's gonna turn up?
  Peevly: (He and Botch are watching the four on his closed circuit monitor) Now we've got 'em. Come on!
  (Aerial shot; a jack is shown on the card pile)
  Bears and Bananas: Slap jack! (The bears slap their hands on the card; Bananas slaps his hand on top of the bears' hands, causing them to wince with pain)
  Hair: (painfully) Anyone for Old Maid?
  Peevly: (He and Botch are at the cave entrance brandishing brooms) The only game you're gonna play is with a broom!
  Square: Uh-oh.
  Hair: Uh, we doing something wrong, sir?
  Peevly: You know card playing is against the house rules. Now get busy with the brooms! (The bears start sweeping)
  Square: He sure caught us red-handed.
  Hair: How do you do it, sir? You must be a magician.
  Peevly: I'm a magician all right, and if you're not careful, I'll make you disappear to the north woods!
  Hair: D'oh, not that sir. We'll behave. (The bears continue sweeping)
  Peevly: All right, all right, that's enough sweeping. Just don't let me catch you doing anything else illegal.
  Hair: (sheepishly) Oh, we wouldn't dare, Mr. Peevly!
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Up till recently, the series was not available on DVD, although the debut episode was featured on volume 2 of Warner Home Video's 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoons collection in 2010 and selected episodes were released on VHS in the 80s. The entire series is now available on DVD through Warner Archive.
• Syndication Title: Some reference material claims that the show went into syndication under the name "The Yo-Yo Bears" (its working title) after its CBS run. It actually remained dormant until USA Network acquired it for their "Cartoon Express" show in 1984.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Hanna-Barbera planned to revive and update the Hair Bear Bunch and The Cattanooga Cats as revolving middle features of 2 Stupid Dogs in its second season, but the plans were scrapped.
  • Joe Flynn (of McHale's Navy) originally tried out for the voice of Mr. Peevly but he didn't work out. So they got John Stephenson doing a Joe Flynn-type voice.^note He would later use this voice for Finkerton in Inch High, Private Eye, and Captain Snerdly in Galaxy Goof-Ups, and to a lesser extent, for Kup in Season 3 of The Transformers .

---