There are two parts to this review, the superficial this-is-what-the-studio-wants review and my actual opinion.

The Care Bears "Share-a-lot in Care-a-lot" DVD provides eight  "lessons from the heart" about "sharing and caring" with your family, closest friends, and people who aren't yet your friends. The Care Bears take you through eight cute vingenettes that teach lessons like:

• Patience
• Sharing with others (even when you don't have much to give)
• Giving back when you've taken advantage of a friend
• Appreciating others
• Putting yourself in someone else's shoes for a day
• And others

The bears are able to teach their lessons through these short, cute, and colorful images that any child will love and appreciate. Parents can rest assured that their children will be babysat and taught the best life-lessons with this quality DVD.

Who doesn't love the relationship struggles between Grizzle and Care-a-Lot? Will Share-a-lot bear ever get a drink of her own root bear floats that she so willingly serves to others? And where the heck do the baby Care Bears come from when the Care Bears are just children themselves? I don't know...

To be honest, I found the Care Bears DVD a little disturbing. The bears live in a commune-like village called Care-a-Lot. They all work during the day and sleep at night, sharing all the responsibilities of the cult community. Their belly badges (you know, the rainbows and hearts we all know and love) are magic yet they choose to do manual labor and chastise each other for trying to have an original thought outside the group. This all sounds a little too Borg for my tastes. Anywho, these Care Bears are not the ones I remember as a child. The cute and cuddly American Greetings bears from the 1980's have become a poorly-animated platform for conformity and complacency. I guess I was just a little disappointed.

Honestly, where do the baby Care Bears come from?