The Care Bears/WMG

There is a Gayheart
Exactly What It Says on the Tin

The Care Bears are fascist, emotion-controlling racial and species supremacists
They separate the "lesser" care bear cousins (none of them are bears) into a separate ghetto. They live in a cloud kingdom literally above humanity, constantly monitoring for wrongfeel and badthink. When they find any form of negative emotion, they use the "Carebear Stare," a metaphor for peer pressure, brainwashing, and a firing squad neatly rolled into one. By making negative emotion impossible, they can keep the world under their thumb. All their enemies want is the right to be able to feel sad.
 * Wonderfully mocked/exhibited in an episode of Robot Chicken where all the Care Bear Cousins are murdered and stored in a hotel designed for them. This is later revealed to be the founding of New Jersey. The Governor of New Jersey then declares, "Come get a piece of this rainbow!"
 * They'd meet a different kid almost each episode, but this kid was always white.
 * In the first episode, the white kids are saved from being ugly olive colored slaves.
 * Grumpy helps a black kid in at least one episode.
 * One black kid, once. Clearly a token to keep the Non-Bear-dominated media from catching on to the show's true, dark message. And Grumpy himself is the official misfit of the Care Bears.
 * There's a reason why black kids don't show up much on Care Bears or really many other cartoons. If they draw a black character with thick lips and a broad nose, they'll be accused of "racist caricature". If they give a black character a small nose and thin lips, they'll be accused of "making him look white". The Princess and the Frog had similar backlash. You can't win! White characters are just "safe".

Dark Heart was originally a human possessed by No Heart
What, he just happens to turn into a powerless human when he gives up evil? No.

Dark Heart's powers worked just like No Heart's, and later episodes in the show have True Heart and Noble Heart (the Founders) comment on how No Heart had been their enemy since they were all babies.

Since then, No Heart has been able to keep somewhat corporal form through the use of his Thunderstone talisman. He is grooming a new host to inhabit once her body gets old enough - his so-called "niece" Shreeky.


 * You, sir, are a genius.

The few villains seen in the series who are not visibly No-Heart are all possessed by No Heart in intangible form.
Its general goal is to spread fear and unhappiness. Nothing like using an unfamiliar body to throw your good nemeses off guard.

Think the "Parallax" entity from Green Lantern, only more of an asshole.

No-Heart is a Hollow.
Fact: His name is No-Heart.

No-Heart is a Heartless.
And his Nobody is Xenahort.
 * Strangely enough, Birth by Sleep actually has a Bonus Boss called No Heart.

Care Bears are Angels reformatted into a less terrifying appearance.
Since taking human form should only be done on special occasions (the whole "in God's image" thing), and the Ezekiel/Elijah "Beasts with hundreds of wings and eyes/Spinning Rings of Fire" would send kids running for the hills, they took a more friendly form.
 * The so-called "Great Cloudkeeper in the Sky" is a Robot Chicken creation. But the Great Wishing Star fulfills the "God" role.
 * Then again, they could be cruel angels.
 * interesting thesis

Care Bears are Soul Reapers
This ties in with the No Heart = Hollow guess above.

It's worth noting that people become Hollows by giving in to angst and despair. The Care Bear Stare dispels despair (that was a fun sentence). By keeping everybody happy, they prevent Hollows from forming.

The whole series is a strange Christian allegory.
No Heart (Satan) and his followers (demons) try to corrupt humans and entice them towards evil. The Care Bears (angels) counter by trying to point humans in the right direction.

It's like Touched By an Angel with teddy bears.


 * I would like to point out the quick shot of after they grow up in the second movie. We see them all gathered around a table passing around a cup one to each other.

Adventures in Care-a-Lot takes place in the same universe as the 1980s series
The care bears shown in this series are cubs. Some of them named for bears that have fallen in battle. The "Care-a-Lot" shown is a safe place far from the real Care-a-Lot, hidden so evil forces won't be able to find it.

Grizzle was hired to train the bears for battle and to protect the mini-Care-a-Lot in case evil does find it.
 * They don't need to fall in battle. Care-a-Lot is a case of Year Inside, Hour Outside (this is outright stated in the second movie), and Adventures in Care-a-Lot takes place many generations after the 1980s series.
 * Alternately, Adventures in Care-a-lot happens before the 1980s series, with younger and more childlike Bears in a more innocent time (their main antagonist is the bumbling Grizzle, and caring rescue missions are rare), in a very different and smaller Care-a-Lot. Sometime between Adventures and the second movie, Grizzle -- once again trying to steal the Care Bears' belly badges and keep the magic to himself -- began messing with forces he didn't understand and either unleashed or created Dark Heart in order to steal the Care Bears' powers.

However, Dark Heart proved to be too good at his task and ended up not only stealing the Bears' belly badges and powers but regressed them to baby stage as well. Only True Heart (possibly thanks to the intervension of Wingnut and/or Oopsy, neither of which had any magical powers but pulled of a heroic self-sacrifice at the end) managed to remain her proper age, and as such was able to escape with the Care Bear Babies as Dark Heart destroyed Care-a-Lot. This is why True Heart is older than the other Bears in the 80s series (and why Oopsy and Wingnut are not around).

At some point, True Heart and the Care Bear Babies met up with Noble Heart Horse and the young Care Bear Cousins, also on the run from Dark Heart, and finally they were both rescued by the Great Wishing Star and led to the new Kingdom of Caring. The Wishing Star granted the Bears and Cousins new tummy symbols and powers similar to their old ones, but could not restore the Bears to their proper age, meaning they had to grow up all over again. None of them would remember their old lives (or Oopsy and Wingut), but True Heart named the Bears' section of the Kingdom of Caring "Care-a-Lot," in memory of their old home.

Whew! Oh, and so as not to go too much against the spirit of Care Bears: Oopsy, Grizzle and Wingnut all survived, True Heart just thought they'd died in the inital confrontation with Dark Heart. In reality they were hurled far away through many worlds, and were imprisoned in the same strange reality that Dark Heart originally came from. They are currently working on a way to return to our world and reunite with the other Bears.
 * How did Funshine change genders?
 * Uh... Crossdressing? Or maybe the Bears are actually asexual and don't actually have genders, the individuals just identify as one gender or the other (would explain some of the Viewer Gender Confusion in the show) and Funshine upon growing up a second time for whatever reason decided to identify as female?

The island the Care Bear cousins come from is the island from LOST.
It was only reached through means of teleportation, there were out of place animals, and there was even a smoke monster, for God's sake.

Dark Heart is a male version of Asuka and Christy is a female version of Shinji in Asuka's hallucination caused by Instrumentality.

 * Asuka/Dark Heart acts confident and manipulates Christy/Shinji in subconscious revenge for him strangling her and but breaks down in a parallel to Shinji's crying over her in End of Evangelion.
 * John and Dawn are this Instrumentality's version of Kaworu and Rei
 * Nobleheart and Trueheart are supposed to represent Asuka's parents, Dark Heart's rejection of the Care Bears represents Asuka's anger at her mother and Dark Heart's redemption represents Asuka making peace with herself.

Nelvana's Care Bears series represent Shinji's Instrumentality.
Shinji is Shrieky, NoHeart is Gendo, Beastly or Grumpy Bear is Kaworu,the rest of the Care Bears are Angels. Shrieky tries to please NoHeart (who has the same personality as Gendo), and her abuse of Beastly represent's Shiji's guilt about Kaworu's death.

there are other "negative" emotion care bears out there besides Grumpy
the care bears are SUPPOSED to protect caring? even if you absolutely hate something you are still said to care about it, the REAL threat they're supposed to be fighting against is 'not caring' AKA apathy, but along the way the focus shifted to the positive feel good emotion bearing...bears. somehow Grumpy survived, but out there somewhere there's Sorrow Bear, Fear Bear, Jealousy Bear, ect, (note none of these bears are evil, as there are completely healthy to express these emotions, just the positive emotion bears just don't like associating with them because they think they're too depressing)
 * Well, not all Care Bears represent emotions; you have Bears like Birthday Bear, Wish Bear and Good Luck Bear -- but that doesn't mean there can't be "negative emotions" Bears out there... in fact, in the Big Wish Movie there is a Too Loud Bear, a Messy Bear and a Me Bear, representing respectively noisiness, sloppiness and selfishness -- and neither of them are actually evil, just self-centered and inconsiderate, so the idea of other "negative" Bears out there seems plausible. Though refusing to associate with someone because they aren't always positive doesn't seem like something the Care Bears would knowingly do (Grumpy does seem to be rather popular, for instance), but since none of the Care Bears knew Too Loud, Messy or Me from beforehand, it seems more likely that the "negative" Bears live somewhere else and just haven't met the other Bears. Maybe they're descendants of Bears who for some reason left Care-A-Lot a few generations ago because they didn't like it there?

The Wizard of Wonderland in the third movie is an Evil Uncle
He's either the brother or the brother-in-law of the Queen, which is why he's in the line of succession.