Review: We Baby Bears “Hashtag Number One Fan/Snow Place Like Home”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Hashtag Number One Fan

Panda gets kidnapped by a pair of deranged French foxes.

Snow Place Like Home

When the bears realize whatever they build with snow comes to life, they decide to build the biggest snow party of all time.

Our Take:

Cartoon Network is kicking off the new year with a new series featuring some familiar faces. We Bare Bears was a light-hearted and comical slice-of-life cartoon that became one of the network’s successful shows in recent years. Following its conclusion via a movie, Cartoon Network wasted no time expanding the franchise with a prequel series centering on the young versions of Grizz, Panda, and Ice Bear.

The new series, titled We Baby Bears, is nothing entirely new for us as We Bare Bears had several episodes focusing on the young characters searching for their new home. This show, in particular, expands on that concept, but with a couple of twists. Not only does it have a unique animation style compared to We Bare Bears, but it also has the characters traveling to different worlds thanks to their magic box. These changes provided a refreshing and fantastical take on the franchise’s plot, but does that make it another show that’s worth following? Yes, it does.

Its first episode, “Hashtag Number One Fan”, has the three bears encountering a photo booth. After creating a perfect photo for his fans, Panda is unexpectedly captured by a fox mother and her daughter, Madeline. Madeline happens to be Panda’s number one fan, and she’ll do anything to keep him to herself.  

What made this episode work for me was Panda himself. As seen in We Bare Bears and this show, Panda’s hooked on getting fame through social media. “Hashtag Number One Fan” sees his personality put to the test when he has to choose between popularity and his brothers. This episode worked well in teaching viewers that the only fans they need to be popular are the ones close to them. Combine that with its anime-influenced animation and amount of cuteness, and you get another solid entry in the weirdly adorable cartoon.

The second episode, “Snow Place Like Home”, sees the bears transporting from the world of fan obsession to the frozen winter wonderland. They discovered that everything they built out of snow comes to life, so they decided to host a snow party. Unfortunately, spring is on its way to crash the party, so it’s up to the bears and their snowy scientist pal, Diaz, to save the day. This episode focused more on comical scenarios during the characters’ winter adventure, such as Grizz imagining himself as a wizard and the bears being confused by Diaz’s scientific explanations. While I liked this episode a bit less than the previous one, it’s still a fun little shenanigan that embraces the show’s bizarreness and inspiration regarding its humor and style.

Overall, both episodes offered plenty of decent material to get specific fans of We Bare Bears obsessed with this colorful spin-off/prequel. “Hashtag Number One Fan” features a worthy message amid its adorable and humorous plot. “Snow Place Like Home” delivered enough comedy in its wintery environment to become a treat that’s as tasty as a popsicle. These two episodes are suitable starts to Cartoon Network’s latest series, which I would best describe as “anime for beginners”, and I’m very intrigued to see where the magic box will take the bears to next week.