A licensing studio inside a card company.

The Care Bears began on paper. English Wikipedia says the multicoloured bears were painted in 1981 by the artist Elena Kucharik for greeting cards from American Greetings, and that they were developed by Those Characters From Cleveland, the company’s toy and licensing design division. It says Jack Chojnacki, the division’s co-president, introduced the first Care Bear to executives from American Greetings and the toy company Kenner in February 1981.

Several artists shaped the look. Wikipedia says Muriel Fahrion, who had helped create Strawberry Shortcake, was among the first concept artists, and that she and creative vice-president Ralph Shaffer designed the first six bears, taking the company’s most popular greeting-card themes for the symbols on their tummies. It credits Susan Trentel with the first Care Bears plush, and says Kucharik then became lead artist, producing illustrations for books, clothing, stationery and other licensed goods as well as cards. Wikipedia says the line was developed jointly with a marketing and design service in the toy group of General Mills.

American Greetings kept the programme secret until the advertising was ready, Wikipedia says, and “Care Bears” began as the project’s working title. Among the bears named in its account of the early line and its later stage show are Tenderheart Bear, Cheer Bear, Funshine Bear, Bedtime Bear and Grumpy Bear, each with its own picture on its tummy.

From a 1982 launch to a run of relaunches.

The franchise was unveiled to investors before it reached shops. Wikipedia says the Care Bears were launched on 24 September 1982 in New York City before members of the area’s Society of Security Analysts, with president Morry Weiss representing American Greetings. Kenner produced the toys the following spring, in 1983, as plush teddy bears and small poseable figures, and Parker Brothers published six Care Bears books early that year.

The cast and the media grew quickly. Wikipedia says American Greetings added the Care Bear Cousins, animals other than bears, in 1984; that Nelvana’s The Care Bears Movie followed in 1985, with sequels in 1986 and 1987; and that the series The Care Bears Family ran on ABC in the United States and Global in Canada from 1986 to 1988. Those Characters From Cleveland and Kenner relaunched the line in 1991.

The 2002 relaunch changed the bears themselves. Wikipedia says American Greetings marked the characters’ twentieth anniversary with new plush made by Play Along Toys and a series of films, and that the artwork and design were revised. Champ Bear’s fur went from golden yellow to blue, and Share Bear’s tummy symbol changed from an ice-cream soda with two straws to two crossed lollipops; the brand’s own website, as archived in 2004, explained that change in its FAQ.

Toy partners have changed several times since. Wikipedia says the master toy rights passed to Hasbro and, as Kidscreen reported in August 2014, to Just Play; that a revival series, Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot, premiered on The Hub on 2 June 2012; that Netflix commissioned its continuation, Care Bears & Cousins, in 2015; and that Basic Fun took the master toy licence in a deal reported by Animation Magazine on 29 May 2019, with its line on sale in 2020.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make dolls, plush animals or character toys: playthings built around a named figure, a family of characters or a ritual of choosing and dressing a companion. Doll and character-toy brands sit at many different points in the trade, from names that began with a single designer or a single shop to labels that now belong to much larger toy, greeting-card or entertainment groups, and a single character can be licensed to several different makers over the years.

A character-toy brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a name, a face and a familiar set of colours on the box, because the company behind the character may have changed hands, licensed it out or moved its production far from where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who created it, who owns it now, and where its toys are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its toys are made and how its marks have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Cleveland to Authentic.

The licensing unit that built the bears left American Greetings in stages. Wikipedia says the unit was renamed American Greetings Entertainment on 6 October 2015, a change Kidscreen reported that day as a shift in focus to Care Bears and other entertainment properties. When the Weiss family agreed in 2018 to sell a majority of American Greetings to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, it says, the family kept the entertainment unit, which was spun off on 28 August 2018 as Cloudco Entertainment. Cloudco then backed a new series, Care Bears: Unlock the Magic, which Deadline reported in September 2018 would premiere on Boomerang’s streaming service; Wikipedia dates its debut to 1 February 2019 and says it later tied in with the Basic Fun toy line.

The latest change of owner came this year. In a press release dated 19 August 2026, Authentic Brands Group announced that it had closed its acquisition of the Care Bears intellectual property and was setting up a new character entertainment vertical around it. Authentic said Care Bears was its first character-driven property, and that its Authentic Studios and Authentic Live divisions would help lead the characters’ storytelling. The release named Simon Philips as the company’s executive vice-president for character brands.

Through every relaunch the core has stayed recognisable: a group of pastel bears, each with a symbol on its tummy, rooted in the greeting cards Elena Kucharik painted in 1981.

For a design guide, Care Bears shows how a character system can be built from a single device: a colour and a tummy symbol for each bear, which survived new toy makers, new animation and new owners. Compare two other character brands from the same era in our My Little Pony brand guidelines and our Cabbage Patch Kids brand guidelines. For this guide we use cheer pink, sky blue and sunshine yellow with a rounded display sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Care Bears’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.