Review: We Bare Bears “Panda’s Birthday”

Happy birthday!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Pan-Pan’s birthday is here but his party is a bust. None of his K-pop friends want to come by and his brothers get him merch for the wrong band. Pan’s favorite group, Monsta X, is in town so Ice and Grizz decide to take their bro downtown and check them out. With Grizz’ help, Pan Pan and Ice Bear break into Monsta X’s hotel room, but Ice Bear is the one who befriends the band due to his bilingual tongue. Pan Pan gets separated from his brothers and is dangling on the hotel building for his dear life along with the other Monsta X super fans and one of the bellhops has it in for Grizz anyway. After a bit, the bears finally get to hang out with Monsta X much to the delight of Panda.

Our Take

There were two threads to this week’s episode of We Bare Bears that were truly the funniest. To start, the crazy bellhop begging for his tip. It’s hilarious how the producers built him up as a guy who wants all the tips and the extreme lengths he’s willing to go to get those tips. Clearly, that line of thinking must have come from someone who, in fact, used to be a bellhop which at one point was a rather popular “first job” for being moving to Hollywood. In fact, I’m surprised that there aren’t more TV shows or movies about the subject.

Extreme fandom is another fun road that we go down on “Panda’s Birthday” though it’s not without a sense of sadness. For example, when Pan-Pan’s friends ditch the birthday boy in favor of seeing a pop group, I couldn’t help see a parallel to the extremes fans go to in real life to get closer to their favorite celebrities all the while skipping out on good people right in front of them. Anyone who has seen this in action, and I’m looking at you Bon Jovi fans that live down the street from me all my life, can attest that extreme fandom can be very unhealthy, and We Bare Bears shows this to a “T”.

Monsta X made for great guest stars, though those expecting any extended conversations in Korean will have to listen hard as they go fast. All that said, We Bare Bears posts another strong effort for a season that has been a tad up and down thus far.