written by Maribeth Solomon

produced by David Greene

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And so after Carole King’s “Care-A-Lot,” and Dean and Carol Parks’

“Forever Young,” we come to the third installment in the original

Care Bears film series. After two consecutive years and two

correspondingly successive heart-warming pictures following the

basically same Care Bear formula, Nelvana and the CB camp wandered away from this drier well and took a page from Lewis Carroll’s book... actually, quite a lot of pages... gave the Bears a twist out of left field, and sent them to Wonderland. We open on Grumpy Bear—who’s kind of the “star” of this one in a way—getting up to brush his teeth... also establishing for the first time that the Bears apparently practice dental hygiene... and out of nowhere, the White Rabbit appears in his mirror.

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The Care Bears’ Adventure In Wonderland would have had a devil of a time working in all 22 members of the Bears and Cousins family (undoubtedly easier though that would’ve made their task), and so—although we do see many of the others through the opening sequence, under which this song, “Rise And Shine,” plays—this one stars three Bears and three Cousins, and takes them through the story. Astute viewers will also notice a minor distinction in the animation/design and the respective voice roles.

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CBM3’s music too is of a new flavor, most of it composed and performed by John Sebastian, who also laid down some tunes for the first film. John Stocker (whom the cartoon series fans know as the voice of Beastly) and Bobby Dermer (who’s voiced Grumpy from the beginning) get to bust a rap, and veteran recording artist Natalie Maria Cole sings the opening number. She and John take care of half the songs, and the Wonderland characters help drive the storyline with the other half.

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Natalie, our featured artist here, is originally from Los Angeles, one of few women in history who’s (sort of) named after her father, the famous and timeless Nat King Cole. She was born into a significantly musical family, and pretty much destined to grow into the singing star she became. She nabbed a record deal with Capitol, and her very first single, ’75’s “This Will Be,” was one of the biggest hits of her career. A couple decades’ worth of successful albums and singles followed, including a huge 1991 splash, singing “Unforgettable” together with her dad. She has a beautiful voice, and were I to be asked, I’d have to say the Nat Maria Cole song to which I’m most partial is a 1989 hit, “Miss You Like Crazy.”

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Back to “Rise And Shine,” an “official” or commercial version of the song was never produced. Just as Care Bears/Wonderland was the only ’80s CB movie never released on DVD, it was also the only one of the three with no packaged soundtrack album. “Rise And Shine” was not released as a single, nor is it found on any Natalie Cole record. Bit of a shame, too—it’s such a sweet, delightful song, and the lyrics are absolutely adorable. And so any version you find of the song will boast modest to decent quality at best. All of them are ripped directly from the movie’s opening scene, and so they’ll also include the sound effects accompanying said scene’s action. As to Natalie herself, sadly, she fell victim to congestive heart failure, and bade us farewell on New Year’s Eve 2015.

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RIP Natalie, 2/6/50 to 12/31/15. Your fans miss you like... well, you know.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

opening scene clip

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Natalie’s official website