Bear Necessities

« Transformers: EarthSpark ep 15 »
Cocaine Bear II, directed by David Cronenbear.
"Bear Necessities"
Season	1
No. in season	15
Production company	Entertainment One Nickelodeon
Airdate	March 3, 2023 (Paramount+) August 19, 2023 (Nickelodeon)
Writer	Isabel Galupo
Director	Alex Kwan
Animation studio	Icon Creative Studio
Watch this episode on Paramount+

Mother's Day goes wrong when Twitch kidnaps a baby bear, leading the Maltos to discover a toxic threat in the woods of Witwicky.

Synopsis

Somewhere in the outskirts of Witwicky, a mysterious man drops some boxes emblazoned with a G.H.O.S.T. insignia that begin to ominously glow as he departs.

Back at the Malto family farm, it’s Mother’s Day and with Alex gone picking up her present, Dot finds herself being catered to by her children and Terrans. During the gift giving session, Robby learns from Twitch that she wasn’t able to find a gift for Dot due to her fretting over wanting to pick the perfect one. When Robby tells her that Dot will appreciate anything Twitch gets her and to go for something classic like flowers or a teddy bear, Twitch flies off, seemingly having gotten an idea. However, upon returning she reveals she's misinterpreted Robby’s statement and presents Dot with an actual bear cub. Knowing that the cub can’t be away from its mother at such a young age, Dot takes the cub to return it, bringing Robby and Twitch along with her. While driving on the way to find it's mother, Dot’s prosthetic leg suddenly fires off a laser shot that sends the car nearly whirling off a cliff. Dot soon realizes Nightshade’s Mother’s Day gift to her was to alter her prosthetic leg with a series of enhancements triggered by keywords such as “fight”. The trio then have to continue the journey on foot after the cub escapes its cage and runs off into the woods.

[Exit, pursued by a bear.]

Back with Mo and the others at the farm, they find themselves terrorized by the arrival of the mother bear. Fleeing into the woods they find Hashtag’s advice she’s found online on how to fend off a bear attack to be unhelpful at best. Realizing the animal smells its cub on Jawbreaker, Mo and the others use him as bait to try and lure the mother back to its cub as they race off to find Dot. Meanwhile Dot, Twitch, and Robby discover more of the mysterious G.H.O.S.T. boxes left in the forest, which seem to be infecting the wildlife around them. Not having time for this mystery, they find the cub to have run to the edge of a steep waterfall. The trio is then surprisingly re-united with Mo and the others as they arrive with the mother bear closely trailing them. As the animal rages at them, it begins to glow purple along with spawning tentacles and a series of eye-stalks.

Realizing the mother bear has been mutated by eating toxic grubs that came from the mysterious G.H.O.S.T. boxes, Dot and most of the Maltos are flung around with ease by the mother as Robby tries to make a go at rescuing its cub from falling off the cliff into the waterfall. He finds himself having to be rescued by Twitch when the branch he uses as support breaks, though Jawbreaker luckily grabs the cub at the last minute. Dot for her part is able to finally take care of the infected bear (the mutated part seemingly separating itself from its original host) by using the modification Nightshade installed on her prosthetic leg, firing a well-placed laser shot at the mutation that seemingly causes it to break down and eventually dissipate.

The last, best, hope of the Cybertronian species

While thanking Nightshade for their gift, Dot reminds them that they need to ask for permission when modifying something personal such as Dot’s leg. Realizing their mistake, Nightshade apologizes and says they can work together in the future. With the mother and its cub re-united, Dot and others decide to make the best of their situation and have the rest of Mother’s Day out in the woods, just as Alex finds them. Dot spots a rare type of bird she’s been looking for and uses the occasion to mark it in her new bird watching journal gifted to her by Robby.

Elsewhere the mysterious man from earlier arrives at G.H.O.S.T.’s mountainside H.Q, revealing themselves to be one of their operatives as Agent Croft looks on approvingly.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Humans	Terrans
Delivery Man (1) Alex Malto (2) Dot Malto (3) Robby Malto (6) Mo Malto (4) Executive Agent Croft (10)	Hashtag (5) Jawbreaker (6) Thrash (7) Nightshade (8) Twitch (9)

Quotes

"Happy Mother's Day!"
"Twitch, did you take a baby from the woods?!"
"Hmm, when you say like that, it sounds like a bad thing."

—Twitch learns about the concept of kidnapping from Dot

"But I only wanted to make your life easier, Mom!"
"I know your gift came from the heart, Nightshade, but something like this is deeply personal. And that means I'm the only one who decides what does and doesn't work for me."
"Oh, I'm sorry I overstepped. So no more enhancements...ever?
"I'm open to some small changes but they have to be ones we come up with together."
"I'd like that."

—Nightshade learns about personal boundaries from Dot

Notes

Real-world references

• "Bear Necessities" is, of course, a reference to the song from the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book.
• Among the bad advice Hashtag finds online for dealing with bear attacks is to "give them a pic-a-nic basket", a reference to Yogi Bear.

Errors

• While probably a case of reusing a pre-existing bird model, the bird that Dot claims is a Trumpeter Swan at the end of the episode does not resemble the real life animal.

Trivia

• This is the first episode of the show to feature no Autobots or Decepticons.

Foreign localization

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Necessidades de urso" ("Bear necessities")
• Original airdate: March 4, 2023

German

• Title: "Muttertag"
• Original airdate: March 4, 2023

French

• Title: "Le cadeau idéal" ("The perfect gift")
• Original airdate: April 28, 2023

Hungarian

• Title: "Félelemtől ledermedve" ("Frozen with Fear", "-medve" also means "bear")
• Original airdate: April 28, 2023

Mandarin

• Title: "熊的必要" ("The Necessities of Bear")
  • In the Mandarin version, Jawbreaker's line "O is for Optimus" is misread as "0(zero) is for Optimus", which is hilarious for the Chinese fans because "0(zero)" is the fandom term for "bottom".

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

DVD

2024 — Transformers: EarthSpark - Season 1: Episodes 11-26 (Paramount)