The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, a third and last theatrical installment of the Care Bears animated franchise, was loosely based on Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, and was released in the US and Canada on 7 August 1987 by Cineplex-Odeon Films. The sequel marked the return of John Sebastian from the first movie, who performed Nobody Cares like a Bear therein; this time around, his contribution was Has Anybody Seen This Girl? Blues music legend Natalie Cole performed the film’s opening song, Rise and Shine.

Barely grossing US$2 million stateside, this big-screen foray sent the Care Bears into a 17-year hiatus as far as feature films were concerned, and it also marked the end of the Care Bear Cousins' movie careers. Their TV show would only run on the ABC network for one more year (1988), before fading away into syndicated and cable reruns in the 1990s (see show article for detailed information).

Meanwhile, Bob Dermer, who voiced Grumpy Bear, would get a cameo role in 1994's holiday smash, The Santa Clause; Natalie Cole would go on to record her hit album, Unforgettable, in 1990; and the film’s director, Raymond Jafelice , would continue his Nelvana contributions for another decade, starting with 1989's Babar TV series and feature film.

The third Care Bears movie has been recently released on DVD in France [1], Portugal [2] and even in Australia [3], where it is treated as an episode rather than a feature-length film. However, it is uncertain if such an edition will be availible in North America.

Synopsis

The beginning

A new day has begun in the Kingdom of Caring, and Grumpy Bear is still sleeping in his bed, when the always-late White Rabbit appears in his mirror and wakes up Grumpy. Then, going into his bathroom, Grumpy sees the Rabbit again in front of the room mirror and ignores him as he brushes his teeth. But as the Rabbit comes into view again, Grumpy spits out his water only to find out that the Rabbit is inside the mirror, and the latter asks the blue bear to pull him out of there. No sooner is this done than the Rabbit hurries out of Grumpy’s room and crashes right in front of Good Luck Bear, Brave Heart Lion, Tenderheart, Swift Heart Rabbit and Lotsa Heart Elephant!

Soon after, the Rabbit hops out of the muddle and asks for Swift Heart, his niece, before the blue bunny responds and her uncle, showing a photo of a well-dressed princess, tells of the reason he came to the Kingdom of Caring: the Bears must find her before the evil Wizard, the Princess's kidnapper, takes over her homeland of Wonderland; otherwise, Wonderland’s residents will be forced to obey him while he is King.

So on the Care Bears family goes to search for her, all over the world—even in outer space! When Grumpy Bear finally does, a boy directs him to a house in which a girl called Alice lives.

The discovery

Living with her cat, Dinah, Alice finds that she is so ordinary and not that special, when the White Rabbit, Grumpy and Swift Heart come out of the sky, sliding down a rainbow from a window. Looking at them, a surprised Alice recognizes them as the Care Bears. Having found their "princess", an unsure White Rabbit looks over her carefully, and Grumpy shows her the photo for proof. Alice herself admits she is the last person anyone would expect to pretend she is a princess; but Swift Heart assures her that she will be the perfect replacement of the Princess of Wonderland until the real one comes back.

In their quest to save Wonderland, Alice is not alone—for Grumpy calls for the same Bears and Cousins that the White Rabbit crashed into earlier on. After they come, the White Rabbit urges them all — Swift Heart notwithstanding — to hurry up and pass through Alice’s window—their only pathway to Wonderland. As they start leaving, Dinah is frightened by a blast of pink light that, suddenly, shatters the mirror completely. The others later find out that it is the work of the Wizard. However, the White Rabbit knows another way to get to Wonderland: Heart Palace.

The journey

Outside Alice's house, Swift Heart Rabbit and a starving Grumpy Bear search for the rabbit hole that will eventually take them to the Palace. After desperately eating some grass to try to solve his hunger problems, Grumpy finds the hole by falling deep down in it. The White Rabbit and his blue niece then follow him, and in turn Grumpy follows them.

While falling into the deep hole, Grumpy encounters a bowl of food that turns into a sinister face when he tries to reach for it. Before long, he and the rabbits land upside-down, and, in doing so, enter the strange yet "wonderful" land.

After they take a tour of the strange sights and sounds that make up Wonderland, Alice, the rabbits, and their friends embark on a mission in caring that none of them had ever imagined — starting with the journey to Heart Palace.

Little do they know that, as they are travelling, the evil Wizard, complaining of the possibilities of Alice being Princess, is spying on them. He then calls for his arachnophobic assistants, Dim and Dumb, on the real Princess' status. They respond, saying that, under his orders, they stashed her in the Jabberwocky's cave, with only the two of them escaping.

Commenting on the visitors' arrival, the Wizard thinks the White Rabbit can fool the court by presenting Alice as the real Princess, for she could eventually be crowned in his place. To avoid that from happening, he sends Dim and Dumb to prevent the visitors from entering Heart Palace.

Meanwhile, those visitors are encountering heavy flamingo traffic that a policeman/caterpillar is trying to control. They are at first confused as to how to get to the Palace from the signpost he dons on his hat. Tenderheart has one solution to this: by shooting a rainbow out of his tummy to reach Caterpillar.

Soon after reaching him, Brave Heart comes along to get the busy Caterpillar's attention. His booming roar causes a traffic jam all over the place.

When the dust settles, he asks the Caterpillar how to get to the Palace, where the Queen of Hearts resides--in response, he receives a confusing, quickly spoken list of directions. This leaves the lion and brown bear puzzled; in turn the cop suggests that they take the shortcut through the heart-shaped hedge.

Thanked by Tenderheart and Brave Heart, the caterpillar resumes his duties; as the rest leave, he warns them to stay off the checkerboard; Tenderheart, in the midst of the noise, cannot hear him.

The meeting with Dim and Dumb

However, when they come across the checkerboard, it is when the Wizard's henchmen come in on horse-shaped unicycles. Incoherently, they entice the group to take a ride to the Queen's palace, when actually they mean going to the Wizard. But Tenderheart opposes, and so the two quickly leave.

Then, a squadron of tiny robots, merging into larger versions of themselves, comes to scare off Alice and her friends off their route. The bears and Cousins try everything they can to get rid of them, until only one robot is left and they use their Countdown--and Stare (their secret weapon)--against it.

Dim and Dumb's plans to stop them hence are foiled when they see a serious Good Luck, Lotsa Heart, Brave Heart and Tenderheart (in order) before them, and they run fearfully in the distance across the checkerboard.

The Cheshire Cat

After the twosome's defeat, Brave Heart notices something rustling in a nearby bush, sensing another robot ahead. Only after he struggles to fight it off does he realise it is Grumpy Bear!

As Brave Heart discovers Grumpy, Swift Heart and her uncle come out of hiding. A moment later, they, in astonishment, hear some rap music that the Cheshire Cat is singing to. He knows everything that goes on in Wonderland, the White Rabbit tells the group. The Cat also advises them all in song to split in two and use their heads, in order to find the Princess and the Mad Hatter, a friend of the White Rabbit.

Following the Cat's advice, Tenderheart orders Brave Heart to take Grumpy, Swift Heart and Good Luck Bear to find the Hatter; the rest, in the meantime, will take Alice to the Palace.

After seeing Tenderheart, Alice, Lotsa Heart and the White Rabbit on their way, the Wizard orders his two assistants to bring the girl to him without fail.

The journey ends

Meanwhile, the other group--Grumpy, Good Luck, Brave Heart and Swift Heart--follow a rolling path that seems to take them nowhere. Grumpy encounters a tall snapdragon that, ironically for the hungry bear, attempts to swallow him whole! Brave Heart, upon seeing this, tickles the plant with two leaves, thus spitting the bear and, amazingly, the Mad Hatter's hat out of its mouth!

Wearing this hat, Grumpy is hypnotised by its powers, and eventually, he acts as a sea captain! Swift Heart figures the Hatter left it for the sake of following him, and, led by their "Captain", the others hurry along to return it to him.

Soon after Alice and company reach Heart Palace, Alice herself feels down about being a princess, acting on the details given to her by the White Rabbit, and not so confident about replacing the real one from Wonderland.

Then Tenderheart hears a sound to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel, and inside a jack-in-the-box from which it plays, out pop what looks like Dim and Dumb! The real twosome have already captured Alice and riden off to Heart Palace in a dodo-driven carriage.

After being taken in by Dim and Dumb, Alice faces the nasty Wizard himself in the Palace. In song, he argues on the status quo of Wonderland and explains how he could improve its residents' living conditions.

Frightened, Alice runs away when she finds out she could really fool anyone into believing she is the real Princess of Wonderland...

Crew members

• Directed by Raymond Jafelice
• Produced by Michel Hirsh , Patrick Loubert and Clive Smith
• Supervising producer Lenora Hume
• Story by Peter Sauder (loosely adapted from the works of Lewis Carroll)
• Screenplay by Susan Snooks and John de Klein
• Care Bears character development supervised by Ralph Shaffer , Linda Edwards and Tom Schneider
• Supervising editor Rob Kirkpatrick
• Picture editor Evan Landis
• Score by Patricia Cullen
• Songs written and performed by John Sebastian
• Rise and Shine performed by Natalie Cole; music by Maribeth Soloman ; arranged by Micky Erbe
• Creative consultants Jack Chojnacki and Harvey Levin

Cast members

Starring: (cast incomplete at present)

• Eva Almos – Swift Heart Rabbit
• Alyson Court – Princess
• Bob Dermer – Grumpy Bear
• Luba Goy – Lotsa Heart Elephant
• Jim Henshaw – Tenderheart Bear
• Dan Hennessey – Brave Heart Lion
• Keith Knight – White Rabbit
• Tracy Moore – Alice

Trivia

• This movie includes bits inspired by the book (and 1937 film) The Prisoner of Zenda and the play (and 1952 film) Androcles and the Lion.
• When Alice and company are attacked by the robots, Dim and Dumb can be seen wearing clothes similar to the appearances of Baby Hugs and Baby Tugs. (Instead of a sack, a moon is on the blue shirt worn by Dim; in this scene, his partner has a pink one with a star.)

External links

• NYTimes.com review (click on title; registration required)