Why a Grateful Dead Bear?

The dancing bears symbolized the fun-loving aspect of the Grateful Dead and their fans. Over the years these bears have appeared on multi-colored bumper stickers, T-Shirts and posters.

The origin of the bear was taken from the Bob Thomas album art cover. The back cover of History of the Grateful Dead, vol 1 (Bear's Choice)(recorded Feb 13 and 14, 1970) showed multi-colored marching bears. Bob's inspiration for the bear came from a 36 point lead slug of a generic bear that was a standardised figure from a printer's font box.

The First Grateful Dead Bear

What has now become the "jester collar" on the "dancing bears" was actually the chest fur of Bob's marching bears. How things were switched is not clear. However, we must remember the Grateful Dead were good friends with the Merry Prankesters.

The first Grateful Dead plush bear came to life in 1990. At that time one of the main design manufactures was Native Art Trading Company. A little later the tide shifted to plush bears being designed and manufactured by Liquid Blue.

In August of 1997 the Grateful Dead Bean Bears were born. All of the Bean Bears are designed and created by Liquid Blue.

The First Generation Set of 11 includes: 3 Tie-Dye, 6 Solid Colors and 2 Animal Patterns. Each Bear comes with a laminated full-color tag with the Bear's name, The Bear's birth data (from a Grateful Dead show date and venue), and a "Favorite Tour Memory" (story of fact and fiction on the road with the Grateful Dead)

On June 21, 1998 it was announced which of the 5 bears from the group of 11 were going to be retired. The five and their world wide production numbers are.....ALTHEA (49,920), JACK STRAW (49,920), SUGAREE (57,600), TENNESSEE JED (56,256) and DELILAH (44,464) with the Black Paws, and (11,000) without the Black Paws. Delilah without the black paws was a mistake in production.

A note for collectors: When Liquid Blue announced the retirement of the 5 bears, Sugaree had already been sold out during the first week of June. Cosmic Charlie and St. Stephen were sold out soon after. Liquid Blue released more of the non-retired bears from the first generation, they all had the new style hang tag and tush tag.

The Second Generation of Grateful Dead Bean Bears were released in September 1998. This set of ten features Jerry, a gray tie-dye with a black t-shirt. Jerry the bear is in tribute to Jerry Garcia. The other nine bears get their name from a character or theme in a Grateful Dead song. The new style hang tag is larger and includes the Liquid Blue logo and a upc code.

Black Peter: This Grateful Dead Bean Bear was released on November 30, 1998. Peter is Limited with a total production of only 30,000. He is all black with a black Jester Collar. Along with Peter's information tag comes a Numbered Backstage Pass. Black Peter was the first of the limited edition bears.

The Third Generation was released in mid May 1999. This set of twelve will feature "Blues Man". Blues Man was named after Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan who died on March 8th 1973 at the age of 27. The other 11 bears get their name from a character or theme in a Grateful Dead song. The exception is Daisy. She was born at Woodstock while the Grateful Dead were on stage.

Nine bears from the Fourth Generation were released November 1, 1999. This set of 10 bears will include their friend. Terrapin Turtle makes this a set of 11. Release date for Father Time and Terrapin was November 30, 1999.

Two Limited Bears, Touch of Grey and Casey Jones were released October 21, 1999. Each has his own "backstage numbered pass" and is limited to 25,000 each.

The Special Edition Bear called All Access was released October 21, 1999. He has a special All Access Pass Tag. The pass is not numbered.

Announced November 13, 1999: Release of one Signature Bear (Poppa Bear) and a Limited Edition Bear (Wharf Rat). They were available the first week of December, 1999. Both have a special "backstage" style numbered pass and both are limited to 25,000 each. Wharf Rat is all yellow,
Poppa Bear is the colors used in the Liquid Blue Logo. Paul Roidoulis, President of Liquid Blue has signed his name within the pattern. These are the first bears limited to 25,000 in the new bear style with longer arms and a tongue.

Pictures of these bears are loaded on our Fourth Generation and Friend web site and the Special Edition web site listed in Our Further Links Section.

The Fifth Generation of Grateful Dead Bean Bears and Friend were released the first week of March, 2000. This set has 8 bears and 1 purple turtle.

The Sixth Generation of Grateful Dead Bean Bears and Friend were released mid September, 2000. This set has 8 bears and 1 turtle named Lazy Lightning who sports a 13 point Grateful Dead lightning bolt on the back of his shell. In June of 2001 a production mistake resulted in 5,040 King Bee's having black antenna instead of yellow.

The limited edition bear Devotion was released November 15, 2000. This bear has a total production of 20,000.

The Seventh Generation of Grateful Dead Bean Bears and Friend were released mid May, 2001. The seventh set has 8 bears and 1 turtle named Stealie who sports a white 13 point Grateful Dead lightning bolt on the back of his shell with the classic Grateful Dead Blue and Red background.

Series A of the 5" Grateful Dead Bean Bear Cubs were released mid June, 2001. The word LIL will be in front of the following names: Heart, Star, Sugar, Del, Daisy, Love.

Series B of the 5" Grateful Dead Bean Bear Cubs was released in mid Nov. 2001

The limited edition bear Mardi Gras was released July 10, 2001. This bear has a total production of 20,000.

October and November 2001 a couple of Holiday Bears were released. The Grate Pumpkin and Frosted. For more information see Rose's Whats New section or the 2001 Holiday Bear link below.

In March 2002 a couple of Holiday Bears will be released. Freedom and Lucky. For more information see Rose's Whats New section or the 2002 Holiday Bear link below.

April 2002 the eighth generation of bean bears were released. This set of six has a couple of unusual patterns for Grateful Dead Bears.

June 2002 the limited editon bear Cold Rain was released. This bear is limited to 20,000 and comes with a numbered back stage pass.

October 2002 the ninth generation were released. This group of bears is by far the most unusual due to the bears costuming.

Pictures of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Generations of Grateful Dead Bean Bears plus the Limited Edition, Special Bears, Series A and B bears can be viewed by clicking the links in our Further Links Sections.

For those of you who would like to know if the 7" bean bear series will ever end, the answer is: We don't know.

The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth generations of bears and turtles plus the limited editions and specials total 98. The entire line was to consist of 99 styles. Only 1 more of the 7" Grateful Dead Bean Bears and Friends were to be produced.
No paws Delilah, Liquid Blue Employee Bear and King Bee with black antenna were not counted in the total of 99.

March 2003 Liquid Blue announced the coming release of 8 more bears in the Tenth Generation.

We wonder if Paul at Liquid Blue was a Merry Prankster.
Looks like we are going Futhur.
But what about the 99th bear?

Well in June of 2003 Liquid Blue announced the Limited Edition Bear "Grate One". This bear would be released sometime in July. This is Bear 99 and has the number 99 on it's back.

Starting in May, 2004 the Eleventh Generation was released. This edition had a production problem with glue on the collar of the Ace bear.

Through 2004 the Twelfth and Thirteenth Generations were released.

September 2005 the Fourteenth Generation of six bears were born.

January 2006 saw the limited U.S. release of White Lightning and Midnight.
These 2 bears had been available on the Japanese market only.
1200 of each were available on the U.S. market

Please let us know if you would like to be on our Magical Mystery Tour List. We will contact you when new bears are offered.

You may reserve new bears or products at any time.
We do not require any type of advance payment for reservations.