Why was Bear in the Big Blue House canceled?

You’re in time-out, Bluey. Go do a wellness check on Steve, Blue’s Clues. There’s another blue-centric show for preschoolers now streaming, and it’s a ’90s gem. Bear in the Big Blue House, the puppet-based children’s show that aired on Playhouse Disney from 1997 to 2006, is on Disney+ as of October 19.

This is huge news for millennials and Gen-Z young adults who grew up with the show, which follows a large, Big Bird–size bear named Bear, who is best friends with the moon, owns gorgeous real estate, and lives with a coterie of cute creatures like bear cub Ojo, otters Pip and Pop, weird creature (apparently a lemur?) Treelo, and an extremely excitable mouse named Tutter. One housemate is the shadow of a girl separated from her body (which sounds like a Julio Torres bit on Los Espookys). Her segments deviate from the Jim Henson house style and use shadow-puppetry in the vein of Lotte Reiniger — if Lotte Reiniger ever made a short film about pooping in a toilet.

But any BITBBH stan knows that the best character is the moon (which sounds like another Julio Torres bit from Los Espookys). The show as a whole has cozy, mellow vibes in a children’s-media landscape that is so often chaotic, and the moon’s gentle vocals at the end of every episode drive the whole thing home. (Bear is also friends with the sun, who honestly gets slept on, but his vocals are undeniable.)

When Bear in the Big Blue House premiered, so many shows for children in this age range were either cloying like Barney or insipid like Teletubbies, which also debuted in 1997. Bear, on the other hand, plays like Sesame Street’s suburban sister — full of inventive puppetry and character design.So whether you’re a parent who wants to see Cocomelon murdered, a toxic nostalgist, or just an adult completist for all things Muppets-adjacent, you now have 118 episodes of Bear in the Big Blue House to enjoy. Anyway, here’s Tutter screaming for 47 seconds: