Please Look After This Bear

"Please Look After This Bear" is the first episode of Paddington Bear season one. It aired on December 2, 1989 in syndicated markets that featured The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera programming blocks. It was written by Gordon Kent.

While picking up their American nephew at the train station, Londoners Mr. and Mrs. Brown find and adopt an orphan bear, who they name Paddington, after the station. The Browns soon realise that while Paddington means well, his clumsiness gets him into all kinds of trouble.

Detailed summary
Mr. and Mrs. Brown come to Paddington station to collect their nephew, David, only to find a lonesome bear, who informs them he comes from darkest Peru. Mrs. Brown worries that he must be hungry, but the bear has a suitcase full of marmalade, which he claims his kind to like. While the bear is checking on his marmalade, Mrs. Brown spots a note on the bear, which reads, "Please look after this bear. Thank you." Immediately, Mrs. Brown feels responsible for him and asks Mr. Brown what they should do. Although somewhat hesitant at first, he asks the bear what he feels about coming home with them, which he likes the idea of. With that settled, all that's left is the bear's name. His Peruvian name would be hard for them to understand, so Mrs. Brown picks out "Paddington," when seeing the Paddington station sign. Mrs. Brown then goes to pick up David, while Mr. Brown takes the newly christened Paddington for tea and buns.

At the station's cafe, Paddington acts so ever polite helping Mr. Brown with his chair, although when it comes to himself, he is revealed to be quite messy and impolite. He squirts the marmalade from the buns everywhere and decides to stand on the table, knocking over plates and cups, and when he spills hot coffee on his foot, he jumps around in pain. They get the attention of everyone around them, while Mr. Brown hides underneath the table. Mrs. Brown and David see the commotion, and find Paddington trapped inside the table's umbrella, and his hat filled with money as if he had been performing a show. The commotion gets the attention of a cop, who considers bringing Paddington in, although Mr. Brown tries to explain he's new and trying to get the hang of things, and then tries to sweeten the deal by sheepishly trying to bribe the cop, but acts like he's donating to the Police Benevolent Fund. The cop isn't falling for it and wants the money as evidence, but Paddington sneaks it away in a hidden compartment in his suitcase. Free from the cop, the Browns, Paddington, and David head home, which is a whole other story.

When they get to Windsor Gardens, Mrs. Brown introduces her kids to David. Paddington, who momentarily gets stuck in the taxi until Mr. Brown pulls him out. Paddington uses some of the money in his suitcase to pay the driver extra for the sticky mess he left behind. The kids welcome him to the family, although Judy thinks Paddington should take a bath first before meeting Mrs. Bird, their houskeeper. Paddington doesn't exactly like the idea, but he agrees in any case. The family decide it's best to just act like Paddington is David's stuffed bear he brought along with him from America, which seems to have fooled Mrs. Bird, although perhaps not when she remarks on how she's going to have to stock up on marmalade.

Mr. Brown discusses with the family if they should actually let Paddington stay with them. The family also still think they're fooling Mrs. Bird, but she's not that gullible, and adds to the discussion of where exactly they're going to keep him. Meanwhile, Paddington has been left alone with running his bath by himself, which leads to the bathroom soon dangerously overflowing with water. It then bursts through the bathroom door, along with the bathroom door itself, and all around the house. Paddington, holding onto the door, makes its way down to the bottom of the stairs, where he meets Mrs. Bird. He apologizes to Mrs. Bird for the inconvenience, but she is nice about it by saying that it helped her with cleaning the floor. With Mrs. Bird accepting of Paddington, it becomes official: Paddington becomes one of the family.

After Paddington dries up, Mrs. Brown takes Paddington out to buy him some clothes, as his hat was the only item of clothing he came with. They get help from a stuffy salesclerk (after a hard stare from Paddington) with a new hat, duffel coat, and wellington boats. First Paddington tries on a hundred different hats until he gets to a beret. They then want help from the worn out salesclerk with the coat and boats. After apparently getting those two items, Paddington is simply wearing what becomes his signature look: His old, oversized red hat and blue duffel coat. While Mrs. Brown goes to check on Judy, she momentarily leaves Paddington by himself, which leads to some inevitable, but unintentional mischief. He opens up a jar of marmalade, but the lid gets stuck under a door. When he reaches for it, he only succeeds in pushing it to the other side, and when he rushes into the next room, he gets his coat stuck over his head, leading him to make a scene in the store's washing room, which draws attention from a crowd watching outside, who burst into applauding cheers, having been amused again by Paddington's antics. This gets the attention of security, but the store's manager is delighted, as Paddington's "performance" has caused the outside crowd to come in and buy. As a thank you, the manager responds to Paddington's request by giving him a new jar of marmalade.

Back at the Browns', Mrs. Bird is impressed with Paddington's new attire, while he talks to her about his time out. Mr. Brown then wants to take everyone out to a fancy dinner to celebrate the arrival of Paddington and David (because he's in this episode, also). When they arrive at the Porchester, the stuffy maitre'd turns Paddington down because he's not dressed in formal attire like the rest of the family, but Paddington fixes that with another of his hard stares. Paddington then shocks the maitre'd by ordering a marmalade sandwich, before getting a salad. He adds an onion, which rolls off the table and somehow manages to get into a band player's saxaphone, although Paddington is none the wiser to this. He finally outstays his welcome when he innocently pours a bucket of iced water on Mr. Brown's omelette flambe, but also gets the maitre'd in the process. The family are about to leave with Paddington in protest, but one of the customers, a Sir Huntley Martin, informs the maitre'd that he wasn't disturbed at all, in fact it's the most lively thing he's ever seen the establishment do in the 30 years he's been going. Joining the Browns' party, Sir Huntley, who turns out to be the Marmalade King, is shocked to discover Paddington's marmalade sandwich, which leads him to invite Paddington to his factory sometime.

After an evening at the Porchester, Paddington takes to his new bed and begins to write a letter to Aunt Lucy about his first day in London, before being stopped by Mrs. Brown, who suggests he should get some sleep after the long day he's had. This act leads Paddington to believe Aunt Lucy will be very pleased with who adopted him, although the Browns will be dealing with a lot of accidents, such as the ink pot stain Paddington created after knocking it all over the floor as he turns over.

Memorable quotes
Maitre'd: There isn't anything you'd want, that we wouldn't have. Paddington: In that case, I'll have a marmalade sandwich.

Characters
In order of appearance:

Mentioned characters are in italics


 * Henry Brown (John Standing)
 * Mary Brown (B.J. Ward)
 * Paddington Brown (Charlie Adler)
 * David Russell (R.J. Williams)
 * Cop
 * Taxi driver
 * Jonathan Brown (Cody Everett)
 * Judy Brown (Katie Johnston)
 * David's mother
 * Mrs. Bird (Georgia Brown)
 * Aunt Lucy
 * Salesclerk
 * Maitre'd
 * Sir Huntley Martin (Jonathan Harris)

Locations

 * London, England
 * Paddington Station
 * Windsor Gardens
 * Barkridges Department Store
 * The Porchester
 * South America
 * Peru
 * Home for Retired Bears
 * United States

Objects

 * Marmalade

Vehicles

 * Trains
 * Taxi

Filming
The credits for each episode group four different directors together, which include Don Lusk, Paul Sommer, Oscar Dufau, and Art Davis.

Music
The music was composed by Tom Worrall.

Behind the scenes

 * The title of the episode comes from the first chapter in Michael Bond's book A Bear Called Paddington, published in 1958.
 * Barkridges is a parody of Selfridges.

Errors

 * In the beginning, Paddington's suitcase has a photo of himself wearing the duffel coat Mrs. Brown has yet to purchase for him.
 * While Mrs. Brown and David were in the taxi, David's hair was yellow.
 * Paddington never did get those wellingtons, at least not on-screen.
 * The details of how Paddington traveled from Peru to London is never explained, although the note left attached to him would imply his Aunt Lucy sent him.
 * For such a stark change in the established canon of an American nephew not existing in Michael Bond's books, no explanation or focus is even put on David in the end. He's just in the series for some reason, presumably to appeal to the American audience.

Home availability

 * In the UK, Castle Vision originally made this available on VHS in 1989, with Paddington Bear: Please Look After This Bear/Calling Dr. Paddington. The intros and outros have both been removed.
 * The Warner Archive Collection will release this episode on DVD for the first in the United States on August 2, 2020, as part of Paddington Bear: The Complete Series.