In 1981 the cuddly, multi-colored Care Bears were introduced to excited kids everywhere in the form of greeting cards. Each Care Bear is a different color and has a special insignia on its belly known as a “tummy symbol” representing its personality. The Care Bears were created by Those Characters From Cleveland the licensing division of American Greetings Corporation, LLC. Jack Chojnacki co-president of Those Characters From Cleveland introduced the Care Bears to a group of businessmen from American Greeting Cards and Kenner.

The original artwork was painted by children’s book illustrator Elena Kucharik who created hundreds of full color illustrations for the cards, books, and other licensed materials. Muriel Fahrion who helped establish Strawberry Shortcake’s look was a concept artist on the project. American Greetings introduced the characters at New York City’s Toy Fair in February 1983. The character launch involved 26 licensees, including General Mills and Parker Brothers. That same year Kenner turned the Care Bears into plush teddy bears.

In conjunction with the success of the greeting cards the Care Bears appeared in their own TV specials The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings (1983). The next year American Greeting Cards introduced the spin-off characters Care Bear Cousins and The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine special aired on TV. The first of three feature films The Care Bears Movie was released in 1985, becoming the highest grossing animated film produced outside of Disney. In 1986 Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation came out and The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland followed the next year. They starred in a TV series from 1985 to 1988 and Disney Channel aired the TV special Care Bears Nutcracker Suite in 1988.

From 1983 to 1987 40 million Care Bears were sold, American Greetings printed more than 70 million cards in the ‘80s, and collectively the series and merchandise surpassed $2 billion in that decade.