Most Care Bears, as good as they are with the caring, have a singular focus. Bedtime Bear is for bedtime. Birthday Bear is for giving aunts and uncles easy present choices. Grumpy Bear is about cosplaying my spouse. But the newly-introduced Togetherness Bear? She’s here to ensure everybody loves everybody. So do that. Please.
Unlike the rest of the Care Bears’ color-coded fur, Togetherness sports a coat of rainbow hues, the result of receiving colored love hearts from her newly-discovered friends. Before she knew what she was about, Togetherness Bear was a plain white bear on an undiscovered cloud. She had no belly mark. One imagines life was pretty bleak, but then this animated short happened.
The rest of the Care Bears campaigned for this clean slate to take on their particular hue, and the bear who would become Togetherness accepted all of the colors of the rainbow, spontaneously sprouting a rainbow heart belly mark in the process. There might be a message here. There is a message here. GET THE MESSAGE ALREADY. Got it? Okay.
My toy coverage on Kotaku rarely strays into non-game-related plushie territory, but there’s something about Togetherness Bear that resonates with me. Though judging by the markings on my tummy I’m Uncomfortable Amounts Of Body Hair Bear, Togetherness Bear might just be my final form.