The Little Polar Bear

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The Little Polar Bear (in Dutch: Lars de kleine ijsbeer) is a franchise about a polar bear cub named Lars who first starred in a number of books written by Dutch author, Hans de Beer.

The first of several animated adaptations of the books is a Japanese original video animation, released on April 28, 1990, with animation production by I.G Tatsunoko (now known as Production I.G).^[1]

It later became an animated TV series for BBC TV and WDR Lars, der kleine Eisbär, in the 1990s. The show proved to be popular in Germany.

The show was later revived between 2001 and 2003. For its first film, subtitled Der Kinofilm, Warner Bros. and animation studio Rothkirch Cartoon Film bought the rights to adapt the children's books into a feature-length film, released in 2001.

Following the success of the feature, several direct-to-video features were released, one of the new characters included was a tiger cub. In 2005, another film, The Little Polar Bear 2: The Mysterious Island (German: Der kleine Eisbär 2: Die geheimnisvolle Insel) was released and also proved successful.

The score to The Little Polar Bear was composed by Nigel Clarke & Michael Csanyi-Wills and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and was nominated for several awards.

The Japanese version uses Tomoko Tane's "Rainbow Song" as the ending theme.^[2]

Original BBC TV series adaptation

The Little Polar Bear
Genre	Animation
Created by	Hans de Beer (novel)
Written by	Birgit Quastenberg Josef Schelle Hans de Beer
Directed by	Theo Kerp
Voices of	Susan Sheridan Jimmy Hibbert Vanessa Feltz
Theme music composer	Manfred Schoof
Country of origin	Germany, United Kingdom
Original languages	German English
No. of episodes	26
Production
Executive producer	Siegmund Grewenig
Producer	Theresa Plummer Andrews
Running time	5-6 minutes
Production company	Rothkirch/Kringel Cartoon Films
Original release
Network	BBC One (UK) Das Erste (Germany)
Release	1992 (1992) – 1995 (1995)

In the mid-1990s there was a German-British TV adaptation for the BBC and WDR, featuring the voice talents of Susan Sheridan and Jimmy Hibbert. The animation of the series was provided by Sinan Gungor.

Voices

Susan Sheridan - Lars, Lena, Peeps, Mummy Polar Bear,
Jimmy Hibbert - Daddy Polar Bear, various male voices
Vanessa Feltz - Brownie Brown Bear

Characters

Lars - the little polar bear, main character of the show
Frieda, Lars' mother
Mika, Lars' father
Lena - the Arctic hare
Peeps - the snow goose
Brownie - the little brown Bear

Episodes

No.	Cartoons	Original airdate
1	"The Ice Floe"	1994 (1994)
Lars is carried across the sea on a drifting sheet of ice, until he reaches an island. There he makes friends with Hippo and is given a lift home by Orca.
2	"The Snow Storm"	8 February 1994 (1994-02-08) (production) 1994 (1994) (TV)
While playing in the snow, Lars meets Lena. They both get trapped in a snow storm, but Lars manages to find his way home.
3	"The Egg"	1994 (1994)
Lars stumbles across a goose egg and warms it, till out hatches a gosling he names Peeps.
4	"The Polar Station"	1994 (1994)
Lars ventures into the Polar Station. Lena is almost caught by a man, but Lena and Lars make their escape back to the safety of their home.
5	"The Net"	1994 (1994)
While swimming, Lars is caught in a fish net and loaded onto a fishing freighter. He is met by the ship's cat Nemo, who helps him off the ship.
6	"The Trap"	1994 (1994)
In a game of hide n' seek, Lena and Peeps get caught in a cage trap. Lars manages to release them and take them to safety from the hunting dogs.
7	"The Mission"	1994 (1994)
Lars goes to the forest to get some honey medicine for his ill parents. Daddy Brown Bear provides the medicine and Brownie accompanies Lars back home.
8	"The Hunter"	1994 (1994)
Lars and Brownie are captured by a hunter. Lars releases himself and Brownie, then they release all the other captured animals, before making their way home.
9	"The Ice Cave"	1994 (1994)
While exploring, Lars, Lena and Peeps plunge deep into an ice grotto. They make a hasty exit as the cave collapses and Orca takes them to safety.
10	"The Labyrinth"	1994 (1994)
Lena and Peeps are carried off into an ice labyrinth surrounded by thick fog. As Lars finds them, the fog disperses.
11	"The Weather Balloon"	1994 (1994)
As Lars examines a weather balloon, Peeps gets carried off in it. The seagulls save Peeps, while Lars recovers the seagull's bell clapper.
12	"The Boat"	1994 (1994)
Lena finds a deserted boat and with Lars and Peeps on board, she sails the sea. After fighting over a life belt, Lars jumps overboard with it and then saves Lena and Peeps from being crushed between two icebergs.
13	"The Barrel"	1994 (1994)
On a journey to find fish, Lars comes across a wooden barrel full of dried herrings. Lena helps Lars to move it, to provide food for Daddy and Mummy Polar Bear.
14	"The Book"	1994 (1994)
Lars, Lena and Peeps find a Treasure Chest hidden beneath a thick layer of snow. Inside the chest they see a scrapbook which contains various pictures of themselves. Lars and Lena start fighting over who the treasure belongs to, but eventually manage to share the contains with each other, then bury them once again.
15	"The Honeycomb"	1994 (1994)
Lars' friend the Brown Bear Brownie shows Lars a towering tree where the two friends try to gather honey from inside the comb, then escape as the angry bees chase them down. Lars and Brownie hide in a cave behind a waterfall.
16	"The Flower"	1994 (1994)
Lars stumbles across a rare flower and patiently waits for it to grow. Lena and Peeps help Lars protect the flower.
17	"The Teddy Bear"	1994 (1994)
In the icy land of the North Pole, Lars, Lena and Peeps come across a box, and find a teddy bear. Then they start playing house with it, but Peeps feels left out when trying to join in the fun.
18	"The White Bear"	1994 (1994)
Brownie introduces Lars to his two younger siblings, but they aren't nice to Lars and tease him to the point where the poor Lars breaks down in tears. Brownie spanks his two brothers, but then Lars, Brownie and his brothers are being chased by a hunter on a snow mobile. They hide in the snow in order to camouflage themselves. One of the two little Brown Bears comments that being a white bear isn't so bad after all.
19	"The Concert"	1994 (1994)
Lars invites Lena and Peeps to play along with his musical number.
20	"The Competition"	1994 (1994)
One day when Lars arrives home, he meets a younger Polar Bear, Björn, who starts bullying him. Daddy Polar Bear interrupts their fighting and starts a competition to see who is stronger. Björn swims down a chasm into a shipwreck to recover an anchor, but gets stuck inside a hole in the wreckage. Lars saves Björn from suffocation and the two become friends.
21	"The Camp Fire"	1994 (1994)
Lars and Brownie catch some fish in the forest. Brownie shows Lars how to make a campfire, but Lars is a little clumsy with it and hurts his paw.
22	"The Polar Night"	1994 (1994)
Lars tells his friends about an old legend in which a very rare ray of sunlight would shine down upon an old igloo. Lars, Lena and Peeps follow him to the igloo, and after scaring away a large group of noisy birds, the discover the igloo, where the ray of sunlight shines down on them through a hole in the igloo remains.
23	"Playing Tricks"	1994 (1994)
Lars awakens his friends at midnight to pull various pranks on the seagulls, who are sleeping on top of the floating buoy.
24	"Stomach Ache"	1994 (1994)
When Lena and Peeps visit Lars to play, they discover him lying in his secret playing den, groaning. After Lars tells them he has stomach ache, Lena and Peeps try to cure and distract him. However, later Lena starts to suspect that Lars is simply pretending to be sick in order to get his friends' attention.
25	"In Love"	1994 (1994)
While watching a herd of travelling Polar Bears, Lars meets the love of his life, an adorable Polar Bear girl named Oxana. They play together and fall in love with each other. The next day, Lars is shocked to discover that Oxana is part of the very same travelling herd he watched the day prior, and watches her disappear while she sits on the back of one of the elder bears. Oxana promises Lars she will return once the winter season arrives, but the poor Lars is still saddened by their unexpected divorce.
26	"The Sled Dog"	1994 (1994)
Lars, Lena and Peeps discover a big sled dog race, and help out a small Husky when his sled gets stuck in an ice crack.

Film

The Little Polar Bear
DVD cover
Directed by	Piet De Rycker Thilo Graf Rothkirch
Written by	Piet De Rycker Bert Schrickel Thomas Wittenburg
Produced by	Willi Geike
Edited by	Bettina Behrens Nadia Hennrich
Music by	Nigel Clarke Michael Csányi-Wills
Production companies	Warner Bros. Family Entertainment Rothkirch Cartoon-Film Motion Works GmbH Animationsstudio Ludewig GmbH Animagix Media AG Animationsfabrik GmbH Comet Film GmbH BB-Film GmbH Westdeutscher Rundfunk Nord-Sud Verlag, Schweiz
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	October 4, 2001 (2001-10-04)
Running time	76 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

The Little Polar Bear is a 2001 German film directed by Piet De Rycker and Thilo Graf Rothkirch and produced by Willi Geike, based on the books of the same name. The film was distributed in Germany by Warner Bros. Pictures through their Family Entertainment label on 4 October 2001.

Warner Bros also produced an English dub of the film that was released in the United States and United Kingdom in 2003.

Voice cast

Character	German version	English version
Lars	Mijail Verona	Wesley Singerman
Robby	Maximilian Artajo	Brianne Siddall
Kalle	Jochen Busse	Daran Norris as Brutus
Nalle	Mike Krüger	Neil Kaplan as Bert
Palle	Bernd Stelter	Tom Fahn as Boris
Mika	Ingolf Lück	Michael McConnohie
Greta	Jeanette Biedermann	RuDee Sade
Caruso	Dirk Bach	Joe Ochman
Pieps	Sandro Blümel	Sandy Fox
Lena	Adak Azdasht	Rebecca Forstadt as Anna
Henry	Harry Rowohlt	Steve Blum
Manili	Vanessa Petruo	Kimberly J. Brown as Lena
Sopho / Sophocles	Wolfgang Völz	Ralph Votrian
Großmutter	Barbara Adolph	Edie Mirman as Grandmother
Mutter Eisbär	Anke Engelke	Mari Devon as Nina
Lemmings	Hans Werner Olm Johann König Thomas Hackenberger Roberto Capitoni	Joshua Seth R. Martin Klein Edie Mirman Peter Lurie
Seagulls / Möwe	Santiago Ziesmer Hans Werner Olm Frank Schaff	Steve Kramer Jason Spisak Robert Axelrod

Additional English voices

Sequels

The Little Polar Bear: Lars and the Little Tiger (2002)
The Little Polar Bear: The Dream of Flying (2002)
The Little Polar Bear: Nanouk's Rescue (2003)
The Little Polar Bear: A Visitor from the South Pole (2004)
The Little Polar Bear: The Mysterious Island (2005)

References

^ "Little Polar Bear: Where Are You Going, Shirokuma-kun?". Production I.G. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
^ "謝んなさいよ歌詞種ともこふりがな付 - うたてん".

External links

Little Polar Bear: Shirokuma-kun, Doko e? (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
Little Polar Bear: Shirokuma-kun, Fune ni Noru (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
The Little Polar Bear at IMDb
Der Kleine Eisbär at IMDb
Der Kleine Eisbär (2002) at IMDb
Der kleine Eisbär - Neue Abenteuer, neue Freunde at IMDb
Der kleine Eisbär - Neue Abenteuer, neue Freunde 2 at IMDb
Der kleine Eisbär - Besuch vom Südpol at IMDb
Der kleine Eisbär - Nanouks Rettung at IMDb
Der kleine Eisbär 2 - Die geheimnisvolle Insel at IMDb
Original score: Nigel Clarke & Michael Csanyi Wills

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