Lost Episode: Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night

Lost Episode: Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night

* I only own the storyline, myself as a character, and the summary of the Little Bear episode is based on my memories. Yes, this means this story is based on true events.*

* All Little Bear characters, places, ect.. belong to Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Maurice Sendak, and Viacom. Little Bear All Rights Reserved.*

Rain, bed covers, and a certain cartoon bear are the three thoughts that came to my mind whenever thinking about one of my favorite childhood cartoons; Little Bear. In particular, a certain episode that I only saw two times.

Being an American, a white, blond haired, casual kid, I liked cartoons growing up. But  Little Bear was different. It starred a six year old bear named Little Bear who acted just like a human kid. His parents, Mother Bear and Father Bear acted like normal human parents, except the bear version, and Little Bear's friends, Duck, Hen, Owl, Cat, Frog, and the others acted just like their animal selves, minus them being able to speak in English.

However, one episode always stood out to me; the pilot episode, which I later found out was titled "Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night". What I loved about the episode was that it actually was quite different from most Little Bear episodes, but was still straightforward. The storyline went like this:

It is storming outside, and Little Bear wakes up scared. He hides under his red bed covers several times - obviously afraid of the storm- before falling off his bed, still under the red covers. After struggling, a little bit, Little Bear then gets out of his red covers, and runs into Mother Bear and Father Bear's bedroom, before he climbs and gets into their bed. Little Bear must have wanted to sleep with Mother Bear and Father Bear to get some kind of comfort during the storm, and also to try and get back to sleep. While trying to sleep however, Little Bear continues to get scared of the storm - noticeable by all the thunder and lightning flashes, with the lightning flashes lighting up objects and displaying shadows in the room. Overwhelmed by fear, Little Bear hides under Mother Bear and Father Bear's green bed covers - which are big since the bed I think was a Queen sized bed- but struggles under the covers, tryinh to get some relief from the scary storm. As Little Bear hides, he continues to struggle under the green bed covers; moving around, and flailing his arms and body while trapped under Mother Bear and Father Bear's green bed covers. Eventually, Little Bear falls off of the bed still trapped under the green bed covers. Mother Bear and Father Bear however, continue sleeping. Little Bear gets out of the green bed covers, runs back into his bedroom, goes under his red bed covers and goes to sleep in bed.

Not only was this a simple Little Bear episode, but was even followed by the "supposed" pilot episode ''What Will Little Bear Wear?. I had only been able to see the episode once in full - due to the advertising on the Nickelodeon channel advertising the Little Bear'' show at times. After that day however, I only saw part of it one other time.

A few months had passed, and I got home from the grocery store with my parents and went to go watch TV. After turning the TV on, I flipped through the channels until I realized I didn't check the Nickelodeon channel yet. Sure enough, I flipped to the channel, and saw the last minute or two of Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night. 'Dang it!!' I remembered thinking as the episode ended and moved onto the next one. If only I had check the Nickelodeon channel first, then I could have seen at least Half of the episode! Sadly though, I never saw it again.

Years later, that pilot Little Bear episode is still fresh in my mind. I looked online in as many places as I could, but no luck. The only episode that came close to re-telling the same storyline, but was also different, was the Little Bear episode Under the Covers. I love that episode, but still wished I could see the original pilot. I don't know if Under the Covers replaced Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night, but I can't confirm that.

I even posted the plot on the official Little Bear Wiki website to see if anyone could find it or had an information about it. Ironically enough, it also got posted on the Lost Media Wiki site too. I thought that might help me more, but still, even with users getting interested in it, no luck.

Luckily, I found a Thrift store not too far from my house, and got some Little Bear VHS tapes from there. Hopefully it's on one of those tapes, or worse case scenario, it isn't.

To this day, I am still looking for any information about that Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night episode; pictures, audio, video, drawings, ect. I KNOW it exists. I have seen it, and wouldn't lie about something like this. I just have to keep looking. Hopefully, if I contact Viacom, or if someone can give me clues about the episode, I'll find it. I just have to keep looking. I still dream of the day when I'll watch Little Bear and the Rainstorm Night again, and watch Little Bear trying to find comfort from the rainstorm at night, while struggling under his parents green bed covers.