The Bear Story

digresssmlOriginally published January 3, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1207

“Tell us about the bear.”

It’s the most-asked question I get at conventions. “Tell us about the bear,” they say, “the famous Babylon 5 bear.”

Joe Straczynski, B5 creator, goes around at conventions and tells folks near and far about the adventure regarding a certain plush bear which has thus far made appearances in two, count ’em, two science fiction series, with more possibly on the way.

Of course, Joe’s version of the events surrounding the bear aren’t quite exactly right. And so I, in the interest of public spiritedness and public service, will now tell the complete, unvarnished, and, frankly, slightly bizarre history of the B5 bear.

The time was two years ago, as we were approaching the holidays. Joe had purchased not one, but two scripts from me for the second season of B5: one called “Soul Mates,” which had already been filmed, and a second called “There All the Honor Lies,” which had not yet gone before the cameras.

As a token of appreciation befitting the holiday spirit, I sent Joe a bear from Vermont Teddy Bears that was dressed in a little baseball jacket that read “Babearlon 5” on the back and sported Joe’s initials on the front.

About two weeks later, I was talking to Joe on the phone (I don’t recall who called whom), and Joe said, in that famous overly formal manner he sometimes adopts, “I got your… package.”

“Ah, the bear,” I said chipperly. “Did you like him?”

A frozen moment. “I’m not into cute,” he said in a voice evocative of Lou Grant informing Mary Richards of his feelings on “spunk.”

My response was the natural one in such situations. I said, “Oh. Well, sorry. Didn’t know that. Do you want to send him back?”

“No. No. He’s staying here.” He paused. “I’m going to get you back.”

“You are? Why?”

“I’m going to get you back,” he repeated.

I found out what he meant when I got the final draft version of “There All the Honor Lies.”

Joe had done some rewrites on the script, which was, naturally, his prerogative. And I cannot stress enough that I have no problem with that. B5 is Joe’s vision.

When you write a script for someone else’s show, it’s a given that he’s going to make changes to keep consistent with that vision.

Certainly, it’s a situation I encountered as co-creator of Space Cases. Virtually every script on Space Cases required rewrites, so why should my work for someone else’s program be any different?

But this was a little different.

One of the storylines in “Honor” involved the establishment of a souvenir shop on space station Babylon 5, hawking all manner of B5 merchandise. It was basically a riff on how Star Trek has become regarded as the money-making “franchise” of Paramount. I even had the character Ivanova protest, “We’re not some—some deep space franchise!”

I had originally wrapped up the souvenir shop story by having trouble resulting from a toy weapon which was thought to be a real one—and Ivanova then working with a lawyer character I’d introduced to have the shop shut down through legal means (since it presented a hazard to station security).

But in the rewritten version, Captain John Sheridan learned that little bears with his initials (not coincidentally the same as Joe Straczynski—or, for that matter, Jeffrey Sinclair, Sheridan’s predecessor) were being sold in the shop. Considering it an insult to his dignity, he ordered the entire shop shut down and off his station. And the next time we saw the offending bear, it was ricocheting off the windshield of a Starfury fighter ship, having been hurled into the vacuum of space by the annoyed Sheridan.

Now, I gotta say something here. Joe is one of the most diplomatic people you could ever hope to meet. My feeling (and he will strenuously deny it, I’m sure) is that he kinda got a kick out of the bear. I mean, Joe strikes me as the type of person who, if he received a gift he didn’t like, would simply mumble “Thanks” and stick it on a shelf somewhere. Instead, he gave it national attention and incorporated it into B5 canonical lore. There are several B5 encyclopedias, “making of” books, and such (all published in England), and all of them have extensive entries on the bear.

Nonetheless, when one’s gift is dissed coast to coast (globally, if you consider that B5 is shown in other countries), then retaliation is in order.

I warned Joe that the bear was going to return on Space Cases. And Joe started getting really enthusiastic about the whole idea. “I’d love to see this bear start showing up on every SF series on TV: pops up on Star Trek, and wherever else. Make it a running gag on science fiction television. We can play this up.”

Not a bad attitude for an alleged bear-hater.

So some months later on Space Cases, the crew of the Christa found a bear floating in space. The bear was no longer wearing his cap and jacket for reasons too byzantine (and, frankly, silly) to go into. But it was an identical bear (since I’d taken care to get a duplicate from Vermont Teddy Bears). Rosie, upon discovering the hapless toy, asked rhetorically, “What kind of dope would throw a perfectly good bear into outer space?”

The answer was not long in coming. It turned out the bear had been a fiendish plan courtesy of a race called the Straczyn. The Straczyn wanted to conquer the galaxy, you see, but it was short on funds and didn’t have the money to mount a conquering army. So it conquered a little bit at a time by leaving bøøbÿ-ŧráp viruses planted on harmless-looking objects and depositing them in space for unknown passersby to pick up. The virus wound up almost killing our entire crew (but not succeeding, obviously, since it was only our second episode).

And after it aired, I said to Joe, “Now we’re even.”

“No, now I have to get you back,” he said joyfully.

“Uh, no, you don’t. We’re even.”

“No, no, my boy. You’ve unleashed the floodgates,” he chortled.

And I thought, “Ooookay.”

Nothing happened for a while. To me the most amusing aspect was at a B5/Trek convention in England called Wolf 359. Not only were B5 bears popping up in the dealers’ rooms, but Bruce Boxleitner (who plays Sheridan) was doing a Q&A on stage, and one of the first questions he was asked was, “Do you feel that Captain Sheridan has hurt his likability because of his ghastly treatment of the bear?” The British adore B5, but they also take their bears seriously.

Joe’s efforts at retaliation, however, didn’t go exactly as planned.

At the Chicago Comicon this year he announced that at Dragon*Con in Atlanta (which I was attending that same weekend) he’d arranged for someone in a bear suit to follow me around with a sign that said, “Peter David Unfair to Bears.” Which is kind of weird, considering Joe‘s the one who blew the thing into space. But ultimately the question was moot, because there weren’t no such animal. Whether he was putting on the audience or simply misfired on the arrangements, I dunno, but it simply didn’t happen.

At the San Diego con, a girl in a bear suit actually showed up to deliver a teddygram during a Space Cases presentation. She sang, danced, and gave me a stuffed bear with huge gashes in it. But no one saw it. Why? Because I’d spotted her in the back of the auditorium while I was running an episode.

I told her she’d have to wait until the tape was over and then kept telling her that, gosh darn it, that costume looked pretty hot. She sweated up a storm and finally agreed to do the presentation in the hallway—which, as it happened, was deserted. (That was lucky on my part: Todd McFarlane was giving a presentation next door. If it had let out while the bear woman was serenading me, God knows what would have happened. But I was willing to risk it so that my Space Cases presentation would be uninterrupted.)

So Joe had retaliated, though it had misfired. And I was ready to strike back, to keep it going.

Then I got a call from a friend of mine, SF writer John Peel, who had been contacted by a convention up in Boston. They had asked him for recommendations as to whom they could invite to an upcoming convention. John had recommended me.

The response from the con organizers? “Well, y’know, we like Peter David’s work and all, and it’s nothing personal—but we’ve already got Joe Straczynski coming to this convention, and everyone knows that he and Peter hate each other.”

Upon hearing that, that’s when I said, “Okay. That’s it. It’s over.”

Because it’s one thing to have this semi-demented battle of wits going on, using the convention landscape as a playground. But now fans are going around thinking that Joe and I are enemies. And I don’t want that, not at all. Joe and I get on just fine. We’re friends and have tremendous respect for each other. And the last thing I need is for fandom to think I’ve got some sort of mad-on for Joe Straczynski. I mean, hëll, there’re enough people out there who really do hate my guts. I don’t need fans adding to that list.

So as far as I’m concerned, the “Great Bear Feud” is over. Although it might be that the fans don’t share that opinion. Joe was doing a B5 presentation at a convention a month or two ago, and when he turned around he discovered that fans had placed an array of half a dozen plush bears on the table behind him: all those bears, staring at him in silent accusation. My understanding is that a little girl raised her hand and asked if she could have a bear, whereupon Joe gathered up all the bears and gave them to her.

And I bet not a single one of them ended up floating in space.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. Fans should be happy to note that he’s finally actually hired an assistant to help him organize and answer fan mail. His name is Bernie. So next time you write, put “Hi, Bernie!” on the envelope. He’ll appreciate the attention, I’m sure.)

 

21 comments on “The Bear Story

  1. “Joe and I get on just fine. We’re friends and have tremendous respect for each other. And the last thing I need is for fandom to think I’ve got some sort of mad-on for Joe Straczynski.”

    Whereas Mark Waid on the other hand…

  2. There is only one thing that fans like even more than an inside joke they can beat to death and that’s a manufacured feud that they can beat to death.

  3. As a comic book writer I find JMS very uneven. I loved bits of Rising Stars and Supreme Power, while the rest of his Marvel/DC has mostly left me cold. But dámņ, Babylon 5 was absolutely amazing, and I still miss it.

    And I still remember how much I liked the teddy bear episode and how it underscored JMS philosophy of no cute children and no cute robots in his Science Fiction.

    And I’m still angry that the show has never been released in DVD here in Brazil. We have dámņëd Star Trek and Stargate DVDs out of the whazoo, but no Babylon 5.

  4. Wait, isn’t Peter David an alias for Joe Straczynski? What am I doing visiting this website and reading your books then? 🙂
    .
    Since then the bear crossed a stargate and ended in Caprica and eventually reached earth aboard the galactica where it ended inside the hatch with Desmond who gave it to Penny but it was erased from the timeline when Peter Bishop got inside the machine.

    1. You’ve missed a bit. The doctor retrieved it when he was erased form existence after he re-booted the universe. He stored it in the TARDIS and it then escaped back into the universe. Where it went after that…

      1. It’s truly a pity that Eureka was cancelled – but perhaps someone remembered this during the writing, and the Titan probe will run across the bear when they drop out of FTL…

        I do still hold out hope that it will appear on the shelves of Warehouse 13, however.

        (And it’s a bit sad, how few shows there are any more that could possibly have the bear pop up.)

      2. Let’s just say that right now there are Top Men looking after the bear.

        Top. Men.

  5. Or someone could stick it in a new remake of The Prisoner wher it could be the new Numbear Two.

  6. I agree, there was a lot to like in that episode. Funnily enough, I only just recently found one of the extra heads from the Londo doll tucked away in the bottom of a drawer. If I remember correctly, the props people used a generic doll body, but the head was sculpted and made by the folks at Optic Nerve. Some months later, my wife and I were getting a tour of the shop and Optic Nerve chief showed us an entire drawer full of rejected heads and gave us a couple as mementos. I completely forgot where mine was until I just came across it again. Not quite the same as a bear of course…

  7. I remember hearing you tell the bear story at a local con herein Dallas. Even though I’ve never been a B5 fan, I love the story.

    Wasnt there eventually a coda to the story that, while you initially thought the story of JMS unloading the bears on the little girl, that you met her at a con, where she had a picture of herself with the bears and you suggested she write to JMS and tell him she’d named them Babearlon 1, 2, 4, and 5 because 3 disappeared?

    –Daryl

  8. And suddenly I’m reminded of the giant stuffed bear Peter Parker owned. Or rather, of the bear he accidentally covered in melted shower curtain and threw out. For it to be found by a nattily dressed bearded man with a Superman belt buckle who thought the bear was neat and took it.

    A few issues later, the editors told us in the lettercolumn that the man was Len Wein. Who wrote the story where Peter got the bear. It seemed only fair for Len to get it back.

    Which begs the question of whether Joe’s bear and Len’s ever met in Spidey.

  9. How well I remember having dinner with PAD and several other fans outside Comic-Con at Horton Plaza (a.k.a. Escher Mall) right around this time.

    We walk out of wherever it was we’d eaten, and see outside a toy store a giant bear. I mean, easily eight feet in height.

    And Peter just says, “oh, Joooooooe…”

    Good times.

  10. I’m still hoping for Joe to pop up on “Big Bang Theory” for a meeting with notorious B5 hater Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

  11. Kind of interesting seeing the origin of the “fake toy gun mistaken for the real thing” that ended up in one of Peter David’s novels. At the time I read it, I just thought it was a plausible way to have certain events happen, while subtly criticizing the dangers of realistic toy guns.

  12. Just grin and bear it.

    But seriously, how many of the bear references in the comments were just jokes and how many were official bear sightings since B5 and Space Cases?

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