Goodbye, Mr. Bear

A look into the future -- at the emotional farewell episode of TV's Bear in the Big Blue House

It had been twenty, nay, twenty-one years since the premiere of his show, Bear in the Big Blue House. But now it was time for Bear to call it quits. He had already talked it over with the ever-patient Sandy (the show's director), the producers, and the rest of the cast. The other puppets agreed it had been a good run, and they were ready to move on. At first, Sandy had been hesitant, suggesting they hire a new star -- but Ojo, Treelow, and the otters were adament: no Bear, no show. Now the studio was halting production. There would be just one more episode, a series finale. As Bear's swansong before the public, it was expected to attract millions of viewers. Then Bear would be off to Yellowstone or to his economy-sized home in downstate New York, to enjoy his indian summer with his wife and cubs.

Bear showed up an hour before schedule. Unable to face the old, familiar set -- the titular Big Blue House that had been his second home for the past two decades -- he walked past the stage into Sandy's empty office, choking back tears. "It's so hard!" he cried and clutched his breaking heart as he slid into a chair.

How many times had he sat there before, negotiating a raise or, more importantly, demanding changes in a script? How many nude scenes had he refused to do? Was he the lone paragon of good taste on TV, protecting children from the seedy workings of TV writers? Their wellspring of ideas for incorporating nudity never seemed to dry up. Every show in the business was shedding clothes for big ratings. When the government started clamping down, a coalition of writers had defended the practice by saying that kids only understood good hygiene with graphic illustration. After the courts agreed, every kids show on TV, from Zaboomafoo to Between the Lions, featured puppets bending over to wipe their dirty, anatomical assholes with sanitation napkins. Half the residents of Sesame Street were equipped with prosthetic sphincters that could lose retention on cue -- and sometimes off cue, to their handlers' dismay. Bear alone withstood the change in the industry.

"How can I leave?" Bear cried.

Just then Sandy walked in and sat behind her desk bearing the latest script. "Bear! Good to see you here early. I wanted to go over some changes with you."

"Changes?" Bear said, mauling away a tear with his gigantic paw. "I thought we agreed the show was perfect."

"Oh, I know, it was pretty perfect," Sandy said, "but wait till you hear what the writers came up with."

"I'm listening," said Bear.

"Five minutes in, the camera's still in the doorway..."

"...right."

"You turn your back on the camera. You span your arms and your back paws across the hallway, and you brace yourself against both walls..."

"...okay."

"Now get this," Sandy said with pizazz, singing the last word; "standing like that, you say you had a big breakfast -- here's the line: 'BEAR: I ate more than I should have. This usually comes later, kids, but you know what happens... when you break your routine,' -- See? That's the golden ticket. It's illustrative? Parents love it, advertisers love it, and the courts can't touch it -- 'What did I do to break my routine, you ask? Well, I will tell you. I gorged myself on...' -- oatmeal, figs, apples, a bowl of prunes -- you can't even oversell it, so go all out -- it's got to be big. Then, still standing spread eagle like that -- you can squat if it makes you more comfortable -- you crap on the rug, right there in the hallway."

"What!"

"Bear! Bear! Don't pass out on me now! Listen, our writers love the idea. The feedback we're getting from them is great."

"Of course, because they wrote it!" Bear wailed.

Sandy shook her head and pulled out a grid-lined paper from her top drawer. "Bear, Bear -- it's the last episode. People say the show's getting stale. Look at these ratings; our lead is getting smaller every week."

"Now is not the time to make changes," Bear said. "The formula has worked for years, and with one show left to do, we have nothing to worry about. Besides, the series finale is only 45 minutes with commercials, and things don't move as quickly as they did when I was young. I could be there for five or ten minutes."

"So?" said Sandy. " You talk while you're doing it."

"Talk to myself?" Bear guffawed. He sat back in his chair and folding his ursine arms. "Oh! This is ridiculous."

"Bear, Bear -- don't do this to me. Would you listen? We'll throw Ojo in the hall with you. Okay? We won't even have to cut anything from the script. While you're doing your business, Ojo does the warts routine."

"What warts routine?"

"Ojo's got warts."

"SANDY!" Bear cried.

"BEAR! You saw Doc Hog on the payroll. You knew we were doing a medical storyline." Sandy threw up her hands to animate a grand vision. "Picture this, Bear, you'll love it: Ojo's area is covered in warts. You can kinda see it when she's standing upright -- because there's a wart or two on the outside of her thigh -- so you kinda know there's something wrong even before you see ground zero. I'm not overselling it, Bear. The make-up team is brilliant. Have you seen CSI?"

"I'm not doing it!" Bear screamed, his voice cracking. He rose from his seat and, after spending a second to try controlling his rage, swept the script onto the floor. "THIS MY SHOW, you Hollywood scheisters!"

Sandy screamed back, "There won't be a show unless you act like a team player!"

Bear turned a whiter shade of pale. "You wouldn't..."

"I would," said Sandy. "I've never invoked your contract before, Bear," she said and took on a serious air. -- "But I'm invoking it now... You do the script as written, and you live with it. Get to the set, mister."

Little Johnny sat anxiously in front of his TV. Decked out in a Bear in the Big Blue House sweater, pants, and baseball cap, he sat impatiently through the network promos -- thirty minutes of build-up! -- finding little to enjoy outside of a montage of puppet asses. To pass the time, he used his mother's cell phone to text-message his vote for the cleanest ass. Ignoring the sponsor's obvious suggestion -- that its soap rendered Kermit's anus clean enough to eat out of -- Little Johnny gave Big Bird the edge, on account of the fact that the gigantic creature had both more to maintain and, well, feathers. As Little Johnny had seen on an episode of Sesame Street, not even Telly and Elmo, utilizing a high-pressured hose and dermabrasion technology, could clean the dried crap out of Big Bird's once brilliantly yellow plumage. To Little Johnny, it wasn't fair that Kermit, who had to do very little to stay clean, should win the coveted Assie award.

Finally it began, the show the nation had been waiting for. There was the title, the familiar opening credits, and the song. Expectations were high going in, but they were quickly set back by a disappointing opening segment -- strange scenes inside a gold mine.

Then the house appeared, and there, inside the doorway that had welcomed guests for two decades, was Bear -- the Bear.

"Mom, it's on, it's on, it's on!"

"I'm coming!"

When his mother was situated, Little Johnny pointed out every nuance to her, as though she had never seen the show before. "That's Bear, and he's smelling us. He always does that. That's Shadow. She always tells a story; she uses black and white to tell stories, and she tells them in a funny way. And then Bear leads us into the living room -- or the kitchen -- I think he's heading... he stopped."

Little Johnny waited patiently -- confidently -- unquestioningly. He would suffer his idol's daliance, no matter what -- so sure was he that it would lead somewhere interesting. "Whoa! I wish I could touch both sides of the hallway!" he said, finally satisfied when Bear, after sighing heavily, had moved.

Little Johnny laughed.

"My that's an awful lot to eat for breakfast!" his mother said, smiling. "I hope Bear doesn't spoil you. Don't think you can eat in one meal half the things he's saying!"

"No way! I want to eat all that too," Little Johnny said. "Can I, Mom?"

"Well, maybe if you're good!"

Just then the television reflected horror in both their eyes. A brown and inconsistent substance, inside which the listed breakfast items were still partly recognizable, began unwinding into a coil on the rug.

"Erm, Johnny, this..." she began, then started gagging. She quickly sat upright and forced her breakfast back down. "This is a natural process, Johnny. He's right... breaking routine... it's..."

"...Mom..." Little Johnny sat transfixed. "...Mom?" he said, in a long and wavering tone.

"Yes, dear?" Johnny's mother asked, reaching for the remote. "As I said, honey, there's nothing to be -- it's completely natural --"

"Why is he crying, mom? Why is he crying?"

Bear's howling overpowered their own conversation. It was insufferable. Neither of them had ever heard anything like it before, so lamenting, so pained. Finally, Johnny's mother could stand it no longer, and she turned it off. "I don't want you watching that thing anymore!" she cried, grabbing Little Johnny into her arms and breaking down.

Little Johnny acquiesced.

The End.