The Making of the Berenstain Bears Meet Big Paw
As we round the corner towards the Holiday season, here at Berenstain Studios we thought we would revisit our second Holiday TV Special, The Berenstain Bears Meet Big Paw! Nearly 30 years ago on November 20, 1980 The Special aired on NBC and has since found audiences on VHS tape, and now on our YouTube […]
Q&A with The Berenstain Bears
Here at Berenstain Studios we get a lot of questions from readers through fan mail, our social media pages, and in person. We asked our followers on social media what their biggest questions about the Bear Family were and we’ve picked a few to address here on the blog. Check out our the Questions and […]
Drawing Inspiration for the Berenstain Bears
There have been over 350 Berenstain bear books published, and at Berenstain studios we often get the question “How do you keep coming up with book ideas?” Sometimes the answer is re-cycling! Before Stan & Jan created the Bear books, they worked for years creating “Sister” and “All in the Family” cartoons for Colliers, Good […]
55 Years of the Berenstain Bears and the making of “The Big Honey Hunt”
September 28 Marks the 55th anniversary of the first Berenstain Bears book, The Big Honey Hunt published in 1962. Below is one of the first sketches of the Bears, found in the archives 5 years ago while getting ready for our 50th Anniversary. The Bear family has gone through lots of changes since 1962, but […]
Guest Post, Myth-busters with Emily Berenstain
Hi Everyone, My name’s Emily Berenstain, I’m the granddaughter of Stan and Jan Berenstain, and the daughter of Michael Berenstain. I wanted to take a minute to clear up a few things about the books and debunk some myths about our last name. People have questioned the pronunciation of my last name since I can […]
Behind the Scenes: The Berenstain Bears Hospital Friends
On April 21st, HarperCollins Children’s Books will release a special new Berenstain Bears book: The Berenstain Bears Hospital Friends. Hospital Friends represents the fulfillment of the Berenstains’ long-cherished dream of adding a story about visiting the hospital to the Berenstain Bears series. All author’s royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to […]
Memories of Stan and Jan
By Mike Berenstain My parents used to watch the Sid Caesar show in their bedroom. This had started off as their studio, but when I came along, they needed another bedroom and so built a newer, bigger studio onto the house and converted their first studio into a bedroom. It was a bedroom with […]
Why Bears?
Bears have been a staple of children’s books ever since Goldilocks decided to engage in a little illegal entry at an inadequately secured home in the woods. Children’s book bears have ranged from the large and lumbering to the cute and cuddly. The Berenstain Bears fall somewhere in-between. They are big – at least as […]
Excerpts from an interview with Stan and Jan Berenstain by Scholastic students – Part 2
Over the years, a number of questions have been asked many times about the Berenstain Bears. The following answers from Stan, excerpted from an interview with Stan and Jan a number of years ago, might answer some you have had … 1) Have you had an adventure like those of the bears in your books? […]
Back Then … by Jan Berenstain
The following is the Introduction to Child’s Play, the Berenstain Baby Boom, 1946-1964, Cartoon Art of Stan and Jan Berenstain, by Mike Berenstain, published by Abrams, Inc., 2008. When asked “What is art?” in the 1970s, cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan replied, “Art is whatever you can get away with.” In Stan’s and my day, it […]