When one thinks of the 1980s, one naturally thinks of rainbows, hearts, maybe even unicorns and Pegasus (or an iconographically implausible amalgamation of the two, as discussed previously). But let us not forget the other unusual obsession of the eighties: teddy bears. This obsession is reflected not just in the occasional teddy bear sticker...
...but also in its many variants.
Also, teddy bears were dressed up for action shots in the 1980s, not just for stickers but for magazines, posters, calendars, etc. Nobody does this anymore.
Stickers did, however, make it easy to dress a bear yourself:
I loved bears, but I wonder even today about the iconographical relevance of a bear on a zeppelin.
Then there were entire lines of stickers devoted to bears and their daily activities.
Seems that bears, much like many others at the time, were obsessed with ballet, aerobics, and even dancercize. And they were non-threatening enough to be appropriated for religious purposes. So marketable! But why bears? Does anyone know?
Does the Bialosky Bear have anything to do with it?
