Saturday Night Live/Bear City

Bear City Saturday Night Live
Actor(s)	Fred Willard (Announcer)
Creator(s)	T. Sean Shannon Tom Davis
First Appearance	30x03 - Jude Law/Ashlee Simpson
Last Appearance	30x20 - Lindsay Lohan/Coldplay
Episode Count	6 (two aired in one episode)

Bear City is a series of pre-taped shorts about a city that became entirely inhabited by anthromorphic bears. According to the opening narration, when a meteor hit outside of Centerville, TX, a strange cloud spread across the city and allowed bears to evolve. They took the place of the humans who had fled underground and, within two weeks of the disaster, had established "Bear City."

Basic Information

The concept for Bear City was first created by T. Sean Shannon and guest writer Sean Davis in 2004 after they wrote a sketch about a bear who had become the corrupt CEO of a corporation and called to testify before Congress. The sketch didn't make it on the air, but it did lead to Shannon and Davis talking about other ideas they had involving people in bear suits. Soon after, the concept was born.

Shannon filmed several episodes of Bear City as filler shorts using the same crew from a previous short he wrote and directed called "The Adventures of Harold," which aired on the season 29 finale. At first the series existed to fill time if necessary, because the shorts were typically less than a minute long and made for easy laughs. The series of shorts premiered in the wake of the controversial Ashlee Simpson lip-syncing debacle.

On October 23, 2004, Ashlee Simpson began to perform her second song, but when the band started up, you could hear a recording of the first song in the background. Embarrassed, Simpson did what she later referred to as a "hoedown," and the show cut to commercial early. Because of the sudden disaster, Lorne Michaels was forced to fill for time using an old dress rehearsal sketch and, finally, two episodes of Bear City.

Each episode follows a standard format, beginning with a voice over by Fred Willard, whom Shannon befriended while writing for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The body of the episode chronicles a mundane event in a person's life like renting pornography or riding in an elevator, except with people in bear suits. No one in Bear City speaks English, instead opting to speak with grunts and growls, except for the last bear which closes the sketches saying "thanks for visiting bear city," although that could just be a bear mimicking the announcer.

The shorts broadcast on the Ashlee Simpson episode were received with positive criticism from fans and bloggers and led to five more installments of the short airing in the thirtieth season, including one on the notorious trainwreck episode hosted by Paris Hilton. Although 15 shorts had been filmed, only seven were shown on air and the remaining eight were put online. These shorts were technologically notable for being filmed in widescreen a full season before the series went to high definition.

Appearances

1. 30x03 - Jude Law/Ashlee Simpson. "Driving to Work." Two bears get into a car accident and growl each other loudly. They then exchange insurance information and go on with their days.
2. 30x03 - Jude Law/Ashlee Simpson. "A Day at the Office." After a meeting with a particularly disgruntled boss, three bear employees mock him behind his back. One of the bears is caught by the boss and immediately fired. He's led out of the building by security with a box containing what was in his desk.
3. 30x08 - Robert DeNiro/Destiny's Child
4. 30x11 - Paris Hilton/Keane
5. 30x14 - David Spade/Jack Johnson
6. 30x18 - Johnny Knoxville/System of a Down: "Barstool Blues." The patron of a bar is screamed at over the telephone by his abrasive wife. As he attempts to slink off nonchalantly, the bartender mocks him.
7. 30x20 - Lindsay Lohan/Coldplay. "Mom's Going Shopping." A mama bear leaves to go shopping but comes back to find her teenaged bear son masturbating to pornography.

Trivia

• The kids that appear in the opening credits of the sketches are actually neighbors of Shannon's named Olivia and Nicholas. The girl's name in the short, Cynthia Davis, is actually Shannon's sister's name. Rex Banter is just a goofy "soap opera" name that Shannon thought was funny.
• The theme song was written by Brady Harris with the lyrics "Bear City, Bear Bear City" from Shannon.

Quotes & Catchphrases

• Opening Narration: When a meteor hit outside the city of Centerville, a mysterious invisible cloud covered the town, forcing the citizens to flee underground. In this mysterious invisible cloud was a chemical that enabled bears to evolve and fill the void left by humans. And within two weeks, they had established Bear City. Although they couldn't talk, the bears went about their lives just like man had done. The only humans left in Bear City were two brave children. And they were quickly eaten by bears.

External Links

• BearBearCity.com - Contains clips of all 15 shorts.