Month: April 2025

Episode 483 – The Berenstain Bears’ The Bike Lesson!

Riding a bike? Never learned. Feeling like an outsider? Always.

In this episode of Deep in Bear Country, I get personal — and a little philosophical — about why bike riding has always baffled me, and how The Berenstain Bears’ Bike Lesson accidentally became a warning about life, failure, and stubborn optimism.

Plus: a weird history of bicycles you didn’t know you needed. Volcanoes? Hobby horses? Middle-class German inventors? Oh yes.

Let’s dive back into one of the earliest Berenstain Bears books!

Episode 482 – REWIND The Berenstain Bears and the School Scandal Sheet (1994)

Gossip, Journalism, and Junior High Justice! This week on Deep In Bear Country, I am joined once again by the first-ever guest of the show, Mitzi — now a fully fledged junior high student with opinions and receipts. Together, we dive headfirst into one of the most wild Big Chapter Books in Berenstain history: “The Berenstain Bears and the School Scandal Sheet” (1994).

THRILL as we spiral into debates over gossip, freedom of the press, teacher-student dynamics, too-tall’s surprising Dally energy, and why you probably shouldn’t let children run a newspaper. Also: The Outsiders vs The Berenstain Bears, printers: who has them?, and a lot of editing around my stupid mic!

Available wherever you get your bear-based media.

Episode 481 – Tax-Wise: A Pictorial Romp Through the Tax Form by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Before they created the beloved Berenstain Bears, Stan and Jan Berenstain were drawing… THIS?! Tax-Wise: A Pictorial Romp Through the Tax Form (1952) is a bizarre, hyper-specific IRS humor book filled with visual gags, surreal scenarios, and more gendered 1950s weirdness than you can shake a W-2 at. In this episode, I (Phil Gonzales) walk you through the entire book — panel by panel — and try to make sense of its wild humor, historical context, and what it tells us about the Berenstains before they became family-friendly legends.

This was a personal request from Mike Berenstain himself, and honestly, it’s the perfect unhinged way to celebrate tax season.

Episode 480 – The Berenstain Bears Meet the Easter Bunny!

In this egg-cellent Easter episode, we’re cracking open The Berenstain Bears Meet the Easter Bunny (2022), a delightful early reader book that reimagines the 1980s classic Easter Surprise — but with updated illustrations, a softer tone, and the return of everyone’s favorite grumpy hare!

But that’s not all! We dive DEEP into the strange, fascinating, and often completely made-up history of the Easter Bunny, from 16th-century German folklore to Victorian-era mythology to modern mall mascots. Is the Easter Bunny a magical hare? A burned-out holiday manager? A myth created by marketing? Let’s find out together. 🥚🐇🌸 🎨

PLUS: Why Mike Berenstain’s illustrations in this version might be the best Easter art we’ve ever seen in Bear Country.