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| Bamse – The World's Strongest Bear | |
|---|---|
 Bamse, the title character, carrying a jar of honey. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher |
|
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Publication date | 1966–present |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Rune Andréasson |
Bamse – Världens starkaste björn (Swedish for 'Bamse – The World's Strongest Bear') is a Swedish cartoon created byRune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of televisionshort films as well as a weeklyhalf-pageSunday strip in 1966, before being published periodically in its owncomic magazine since 1973.
Andréasson did all the artwork himself until 1975 and wrote all the comics until 1990. Francisco Tora did all the illustrations from 1976 until he was joined by Bo Michanek in 1983. Several new writers and illustrators were hired in the early 1990s, includingClaes Reimerthi, Olof Siverbo,Johan Wanloo andTony Cronstam. Andréasson continued to do the magazine cover illustrations until 1992.
The series somewhat changed direction when Bamse had children, specificallytriplets, in 1982. He had a fourth child in 1986, and his friend Lille Skutt had one at the same time; this saw the series focus more on family, while also discussing other values such asgender equality. In 1989, the character Skalman noticed that Bamse's fourth child Brumma had someintellectual disability, later defined as her being on theAutism spectrum,[1] which again brought up the subject of equality. The children did develop in real time within the magazine, but seem to have been fixed in age since around 1990. They are now around nine years old, in a narratively advantageous eternal state as third-graders.
Both the early Sunday strips and the early magazines have since been reprinted as glossy hardbound volumes.
In 1998, the theme parkBamses Värld ('Bamse's World') started as an attraction at theKolmården Wildlife Park, with theater performances, restaurants and houses from the comic.
The magazine has educational goals. On special "school" pages, the characters educate the reader about animals, cultures, theUniverse, and other subjects. They often deal withsuperstition, and Skalman's sceptical views ("I only believe in what I know") wins over those of his more naive friends. On the other hand, beings liketrolls,tomtar anddragons exist on a very real plane in most of the stories. As the series has evolved, the values expressed have become more general and less ideological. A fact sheet written and published by Andreasson in 1983 following a trip to the People's Republic of China became controversial as it seemed to praiseMao Zedong's dictatorial rule as a "liberation" and claimed that "nobody's starving anymore" in China under Communist single-party rule. It was later edited heavily when the adventure was reprinted in 2004.
Bamse and his friends are very clear about their views. They are strongly opposed to racism, bullying and violence. Bamse is not only the strongest bear in the world, but also the kindest, often repeating his slogan "Nobody gets better from being beaten". Bamse's own world seems to have strong implications ofanarchism orlibertarian socialism, combining private ownership with communitarian solidarity (from most of the characters), though a single policeman, Pontus Kask (named for his classic-style policeman's helmet, orkask in Swedish) and a small prison exists.
The original villain, a blackwolf simply calledVargen ('The Wolf'), became a friend of Bamse after consistently being treated kindly. The only villain that is depicted as unredeemable isKrösus Sork ('CroesusVole'), a crude capitalist who will do practically anything for money. Later, the foxReinard Räv ('Reinard the Fox') was introduced, which contradicted this earlier narrative. While shown as on the edge of society, Reinard is intelligent but uses his skills and efforts at disrupting the social order as a good in itself. By enjoying turning people "on the edge" to a life of crime he displays outrightantisocial characteristics, roughly mirroringBatman's antagonistThe Joker orShakespeare'sIago in this regard.
Six animated black-and-white short films were produced for television in 1966. In 1972, seven more animated shorts were shown in colour. Another two shorts were released in 1981, and a direct-to-video film became available in 1991.
The later colour films have aired frequently on TV in Sweden, and have been released onVHS andDVD. The black and white films had been unavailable to the general public for a long time, but were released on DVD by late 2006. The colour films were low-budget productions with actorOlof Thunberg narrating and voicing all characters, but are considered to be classics. The musical theme, composed by Sten Carlberg, is easily recognised by most Swedes.
In 1993, aGame Boy game (inSwedish) was released,[4] loosely based on the Bamse characters. The game was little more than asprite replacement of Beam Software'sBaby T-Rex and received generally poor reviews. The "Bamse version" has not been officially released outside Sweden.
In October 2006, forty years after Bamse was created, Ola Andréasson, the son of creator Rune Andréasson announced an animated feature film, featuring better animation, a full voice cast, and a budget ofSEK 25 million.[5] The film was released in 2014 asBamse and the City of Thieves. It was followed byBamse and the Witch's Daughter in 2016,Bamse and the Thunderbell in 2018,[6]Bamse and the Volcano Island in 2021 andBamse and the World's Smallest Adventure in 2023.
In the 1960s, there were a few translations of the seriesBamses skola 'Bamse's school', where the characters were given English names:[7]
In this translation, thedunderhonung was given the namemagic honey. However, in the 1980s, Andréasson referred to it in English asthunder-honey, which is the literal translation also used in the Netherlands and Belgium (donderhoning).
In the cancelled filmBamse and the Time-Travel Machine from 2009, the names were translated differently:
Before Rune Andréasson created Bamse, he had tried his luck with several other series. Several of them - Brum, Nalle ritar och berättar and Teddy - were about bears. Teddy had the subtitle ‘the world's strongest bear’ and a character gallery that was very similar to the characters that later appeared in Bamse, with both an early Skalman and a slightly bolder brown rabbit named Lasse Skutt.
Andréasson regretted that he had made Teddy so strong without giving him any weakness. To make the series exciting, he often had to put Teddy to sleep, and it eventually became very repetitive. So the idea of Bamse was born - a little bear who is only strong when he has eaten dunderhonung, who can do many things, but not everything.
The names Brum, Teddy and Nalle later inspired the names of Bamse's children Brum, Teddy and Nalle-Maja.
Bamse made his debut as the title character in six black-and-white cartoons onSveriges Radio-TV, starting on 29 October1966. (The six black-and-white films have been available since 2006 on the compilationDVDBamse: De första äventyren.) At the same time, the first craft books featuring the Bamse characters were published.
Two days after the second film had been shown, on 7 November1966,Allers number 46 was published with the opening episode of the Bamse weekly series. This continued for 3.5 years with Rune Andréasson as the sole author. The fourteenth and final Allers adventure ended in Allers issue 12 in 1970. During this period, the first Bamse storybook was published.
After Bamse ended as a series in Allers, seven new short films, this time in colour, were shown onSveriges Radio-TV in the winter of1972-1973. The films have since been rebroadcast several times, and were extended with three more episodes.
From January1973 (coinciding with the new Bamse colour films), the magazine Bamse - världens starkaste björn was available on newsstands. The magazine went on to become one of the best-selling comic books in Sweden.
From the year of publication1976, the comics were drawn by the Spaniard Francisco Torá, and from1983 also by the Swede Bo Michanek, with Andréasson remaining the sole scriptwriter. In1990, Andréasson retired from magazine production (though not completely; he continued to draw the front page of the magazine for a few more years) and handed over the magazine to the current Egmont Kärnan, whose Bamse editorial team employed additional freelancers on both the script and drawing sides. In July 2018, the Bamse editorial team consisted of Joakim Gunnarsson, Lise Jörgensen, Anna Bergström and Charlotta Borelius.
The show, originally a comedy adventure series, became known over time for addressing important justice issues for children, including social issues such as bullying, racism,child abuse,disabilities, drugs and gender equality. During the 1970s, the series was widely considered to have a clear left-wing political orientation. In 1982, Bamse started a family, which led to more and more stories revolving around children.
