Bear in the Big Blue House

Bear in the Big Blue House is an American children's television series created by Mitchell Kriegman and produced by Jim Henson Television for Disney Channel's Playhouse Disney preschool television block. Debuting on October 20, 1997, it aired its last episodes in 2006; however, it's unknown whether production was ahead of schedule or the final episode air date was changed.

In 2005, The Jim Henson Company sold the Bear in the Big Blue House franchise (along with The Muppets franchise) to The Walt Disney Company. The characters and show are currently owned by the Disney subsidiary, The Muppets Studio.

Plot
Bear lives in the Big Blue House with his friends Ojo, Tutter, Treelo, Pip, Pop, and Shadow. He and his friends have many adventures together. Those normally include solving problems, sharing, cooperating with each other, and developing social skills.

Each episode opens with the welcome song; the other characters in the show then make their appearance, and the theme and plot of the show then comes to place. Throughout the episode, the theme (ex; "sleep", "doctors", "Thanksgiving") is learned about, and a lesson is learned at the end of the episode. Songs and jokes accompany the episode. Bear acts as a caregiver towards Ojo the bear cub, Treelo the lemur, Tutter the mouse, and Pip and Pop, who are two otters. Character "Shadow" narrates a segment with shadow puppets in each episode. Most of the segments are in song, while some are simply a short story relating to the episode's theme. At the end of the program, Bear then sings the goodbye song with Luna, the moon.

Episodes
Main article: List of Bear in the Big Blue House episodes

Popularity
Bear in the Big Blue House was initially produced from 1997 to 2006. The voice actor for "Luna" the moon was played by Lynne Thigpen, who abruptly died due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Thigpen's death led to a 4-year hiatus of Bear in the Big Blue House. A planned film version of Bear was also put on hold. 2 years after Thigpen's death, Tara Mooney, who played the character Shadow, in an interview with Ray D'Arcy on Today FM stated: "The crew's hearts just weren't in it anymore". Thigpen's friends and family established a non-profit foundation, The Lynne Thigpen - Bobo Lewis Foundation, to help young actors and actresses learn how to survive and succeed in New York theater and to mentor the next generation of Broadway stars. After the hiatus and the spin-off Breakfast with Bear, new episodes returned to the Disney Channel in April 2006, with the last episode airing on April 28, 2006 was posthumously nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for voicing Luna the moon in Bear in the Big Blue House, but lost to Jeff Corwin.

International airings
The show was shown throughout the world including in the United Kingdom on five and Playhouse Disney UK, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and on RTÉ Two in Ireland.