Adventures of the Gummi Bears

Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears is an American animated television series that aired in the United States in the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. The series was the first animated production by Walt Disney Animation Television, and loosely inspired by the gummi bear candies; Disney CEO  Michael Eisner was struck with inspiration for the show when his son requested the candies one day. The series premiered on NBC on September 14, 1985, and aired there for four seasons. The series moved to ABC for one season from 1989–1990, and concluded on September 6, 1991 as part of the Disney Afternoon television syndication package. Of the series' 67 shows, 30 were double-features, consisting of two 11-minute cartoons, thereby bringing the series total to 97 distinct episodes overall. The show is well-remembered for its theme music, written by Michael and Patty Silversher.

The series was later rebroadcast on the syndicated Disney Afternoon block, and rerun on the Disney Afternoon through the summer of 1991. In later years, it was shown on the Disney Channel and Toon Disney, with its most recent televised airing occurring on Toon Disney on December 28, 2001. Seasons 1 to 3 of the series were released on DVD on November 14, 2006.

Premise
The series focuses on the escapades of the eponymous "Gummi Bears," anthropomorphic bears who are the last remnants of a once-great civilization of Gummis that fled the land centuries ago when humans, jealous of the advancements and magical skills of the Gummi Bears, forced the species into exile. Now regarded by most of humankind as fairytales, the show's main cast of Gummi Bears (six in number at the outset of the series, increased to seven during the third season) live in the vast subterranean warren of Gummi Glen in the medieval kingdom of Dunwyn.

The Gummis' modern adventures begin when they are discovered by a human boy named Cavin who happens to have a Gummi Medallion, found by his grandfather many years earlier. After he accidentally enters the colony's underground home of Gummi Glen, they capture and interrogate the boy as to how he gained the medallion. During the questioning, Cavin escapes after Tummi inadvertently gives him Gummiberry Juice to drink, but refuses to cause any harm and attempts to befriend the reclusive bears. Impressed by this civilized behavior, they make him swear to keep their confidence and make him a privileged friend of the colony. The medallion magically unlocks the colony's Great Book of Gummi, an essential reference guide to the forgotten knowledge of the Gummi Bears. Inspired by its writings, the colony resolves to rediscover their heritage and help Dunwyn defend against evil. Later, another human from Dunwyn accidentally learns that the Gummi Bears are real: the young daughter of the king, Princess Calla. She also promises to keep the Gummis' existence a secret. In subsequent seasons the Gummis would befriend or be discovered by other friendly humans.

The main antagonist of both Dunwyn and the Gummis is Duke Sigmund Igthorn, a renegade noble with an army of ogres, from the neighboring province of Drekmore. Unfortunately, in stopping Igthorn's attempt to bombard his enemies with a grand catapult, the Gummi Bears alert him to their presence. Igthorn will stop at nothing to discover and exploit their secrets to become invincible and capture Dunwyn Castle. Chief among his primary goals is gaining a reliable supply of the Gummi Bears' vital strategic substance, Gummiberry Juice, a magic potion that endows Gummi bears with bouncing abilities, but gifts humans (or ogres) with momentary super-strength as well as other numerous uses, including serving as fuel for machines.

In addition to combating Igthorn's ambition, the Gummis regularly encounter other evil humans and magical beings ranging from wizards to gods, all the while attempting to hide their existence from the world at large. One of the show's main recurring storylines outside of the schemes of Igthorn is the mystery of the ancient Gummis, who are now scattered all across the world, but who have left advanced technology behind them.

The Gummi Bears
Gummi Bears are a fictional group of anthropomorphic bears who have a vast amount of history, and unknown to the world with the humans believing that they are legends and fairy tales. While most humans believe that they're kids stories, it has been said that the Ancient Gummi's and the past humans used to live peacefully together side by side, but for reason unknown the Gummi's grew a grudge against the humans. The Ancient Gummi's left behind small sections of bears, such as the main group of the series the Gummi-Glen Gummi's.

The Gummi-Glen Gummi's are a group of Gummi's who live in an hollow tree known as Gummi Glen. The harvest the GummiBerries that grows wild around them in the forest, and created a powerful juice known as GummiBerry Juice. They try to hide from humans as much as possible, with the exception of friends Cavin, a squire, and Princess Calla.


 * Gruffi Gummi is an old fashion bear who wants to do things "the Gummi way", and the Gummi's defacto leader. An extremely skilled craftsman and mechanic, he is usually the one who ends up fixing all the old Gummi technology and trap doors, as well as building traps around the Glen to deal with Humans and Ogres. When it comes to building and using tools he is a perfectionist, which can be his undoing at times. Gruffi is voiced by Bill Scott in the first season, and by Corey Burton in all seasons there after.
 * Zummi Gummi is an old bear who is the Gummi-Glen Gummi's "Keeper of Gummi Wisdom" and later the holder of the Gummi-Medallion which he uses to read his magic book to become the group's magician. He is forgetful and clumsy, and his spells tend to back-fire. He also had a fear of heights early on. Zummi is voiced by Paul Winchell, but is replaced by Jim Cummings in Season 6.
 * Grammi Gummi is another old bear who is the matriarch of Gummi-Glen. She acts as the groups mother, who cooks, cleans, and is the Gummi who prepares the Gummiberry Juice. She holds the secret Recipe, and wants to pass it down to Sunni when she is of age. She has a huge rivalry with Gruffi Gummi, and tends to bicker with him over what has to be done. Grammi is voiced by June Foray.
 * Tummi Gummi is an overweight teenage Gummi who enjoys a good meal, and would much rather be eating the gummiberries than picking them. He has a rather relaxed and easygoing personality, which often gets him caught up in Cubbi's schemes. Throughout the series he shows signs of being a talented sailor, gardener, artist and craftsman. Tummi is voiced by Lorenzo Music.
 * Sunni Gummi is a preteen Gummi, who dreams about becoming a princess just like her best friend the human Princess Calla. Sunni is the most curious about human culture and human fashion, and least concerned with Gummi history. Later in the series she is shown to have a crush on Gusto. Sunni is voiced by Katie Leigh.
 * Cubbi Gummi is the youngest Gummi-Glen Gummi, and dreams of becoming a great Gummi knight. He is incredibly curious and has a tendency to get distracted by the mysterious or the exciting. He sometimes dawns a mask and becomes the vigilante known as the "Crimson Avenger". He is best friends with the human Cavin. Cubbi is voiced by Noelle North.
 * Agustus "Gusto" Gummi is an artistic, individualist Gummi who was stranded on a deserted island for twelve years with his best friend Arty Deco, a wise talking toucan. He was saved by Tummi and Gruffi and brought back to Gummi Glen at the end of Season 3. He tends to but heads with Gruffi for his out-side-the-box thinking, and how much of an influence he is on Cubbi and Sunni. He lives by himself inside a waterfall and stays in Gummi-Glen when the weather is to harsh for him. Gusto is voiced by Rob Paulsen.

Villainous Characters

 * Duke Igthorn was a knight of Dunwyn until he were banished, at some point he took control of a pack of Ogres and a rundown castle called Drakmoore and schemed to get revenge against the kingdom. After a failed assault with a mobile siege tower he came to know of the Gummi Bears and their juice, from there on he would frequently utilize the vast strength offered by the potion in his schemes. Despite occasional bumbling and a slight streak of cowardic Igthorn is a valid threat to both the Kingdom of Dunwyn & Gummi-Glen, he even managed to conquer Dunwyn and destroy Gummi-Glen in the series finale before being defeated.

Serves as the main and most frequent antagonist of the series.


 * Toadie is by far the most intelligent of the Ogres, and that say quite a bit about their general (or lack of) intelligence. Due to his size he is teased and mistreated by the other ogres, often serving as a literal punching ball, fittingly enough he serves as Igthorn's toadie.
 * Lady Bane, a villanous sorceress and secondary antagonist in the series, often taking gross advantage of Duke Igthorn's affection for her own ends. She is served by feline like Troggs in victorian era clothing.

Gummiberry Juice
Gummiberry Juice is a concoction formulated using Gummiberries by the Gummi-Glen Gummi Bears, with the recipe being held by women such as Grammi Gummi, and later-on Sunni Gummi. The juice is produced by adding 6 handfuls of Redberries, then 4 Orange ones, three Purple, 4 Blue and 3 Green and a Yellowberry, among other undisclosed ingredients. The recipe ends with the 3-step-stir: first stir slow to the right, then slow to the left, then bang the pot to get out the bubbles. The juice when consumed has varied effects depending on the species or race that consumes the juice.

Gummi Bears gain the ability to bounce at unusual heights for a limited amount of time. Ogres and humans both gain super strength for a similar amount of time. Drinking too much Gummiberry Juice have a unforeseen side effects on the consumer, and it appears that the abilities gained from drinking the juice only can be used once per day. Also if the juice is produced inaccurately from the recipe the results are explosive outcomes though nothing fatal.

In the series, the Juice was used a major plot device with the main reoccurring villain Duke Igthorn trying get the juice or the recipe to create mass amounts to make a huge super strength army of Ogres. Another reoccurring theme was the Gummi Bears or their companions using the juice to fight off Duke Igthorn or the other villains.

DVD releases
On November 14, 2006, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears: Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1. The 3-disc set features seasons 1-3 and does not contain any bonus features.

International Broadcast

 * Chile
 * Canal 13 (1992–1995,1999–2001)
 * Latin America
 * Disney Channel (2000–2003)
 * Russia
 * OITV - channel Ostankino (1992)
 * Poland
 * TVP1 (1990-1999, 11 April 2004-2 January 2005, 18 March 2007-15 June 2008)
 * Polsat (6 September 2009-)

Significance
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was Disney's first major serialized animated television series (it was released back to back with another show, The Wuzzles, which lasted only 13 episodes), and is often credited by animators and animation historians as having helped jump start the television animation boom of the late 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, it also became the forerunner to Disney's famous Disney Afternoon timeslot, which gave way to other famous serialized Disney television series, such as DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, and Bonkers. Although many of these subsequently-created shows exceeded Gummi Bears in budget and length, it is often credited as the sort of prototype to all of the subsequent animation which followed it, with DuckTales really jumpstarting the trend.

Additionally, while not having the largest number of total episodes, Gummi Bears has the biggest number of seasons of any Disney animated series. Whereas other shows simply produced large numbers of episodes for each of their seasons (DuckTales, for instance, had 100 episodes over three years), Gummi Bears is unique in that it was actually annually renewed for new episodes over six consecutive years, a feat which few other children's animated series can boast even today.

The show was so successful in the United Kingdom that the episodes A New Beginning and Faster than a Speeding Tummi were released as theatrical featurettes there in 1986 and 1987.

Other appearances of Gummi Bears in other media included one appearance of Gruffi Gummi starring in a D-TV music video of the Elvis Presley song "Teddy Bear" in 1986.

The show's popularity also led to a re-theming of Disneyland's Motor Boat Cruise, along with a small part of Disneyland that became known as "Disney Afternoon Avenue." The Motor Boat Cruise became the "Motor Boat Cruise to Gummi Glen" and plywood characters from the show made Gummiberry Juice along the waterway. The Gummi Bears, and on occasion human characters such as Duke Igthorn, Princess Calla, or King Gregor, have also been featured as meetable characters who greet guests in Disney theme parks.