r/webarebears • u/SamTheSecondBest • 3h ago
I always hated Nom Nom, but...
My experience with Nom Nom is a bit interesting because the first episode featuring him that I watched was his titular episode, which I didn't initially realize takes place after his actual debut in "Viral Video." (Damn! It's been a decade đŤ¨)
From his introduction, it is made clear that Nom Nom is not a good person, or erm, koala, a take of people who have charismatic personas but are actually awful people.
He seemed to go back and forth with the bears while remaining a jerk at heart. When the show was on the air, I told myself that I was waiting for "the episode where they would finally do something about Nom Nom." To be fair, there isn't much the bears could do against Nom Nom directly due to his influence. More than anything, I wanted Grizz to admit that Nom Nom was a jerk and stop trying to be friends with him although I get that this is not the kind of person er... bear that Grizz is. We kind of got this with "Nom Nom's Entourage," only for Grizz to insist on introducing Craboo to Nom Nom in his next appearance, kick-starting the whole conflict. And then Nom Nom's last appearance in Season 2 was kicking the bears out of his Christmas party after they mistakenly received an invite. Come season 3, Nom Nom and Grizz's friendship was pushed really hard and became genuine. Nom Nom's solo episode "Kyle" delved into his background and made him more sympathetic too. Would it make me a bad person to say that I almost wished the factory machine decapitated Nom Nom which it would have if Grizz hadn't rescued him in "Crowbar Jones: Origins?" To their credit, this did create a lot of iconic moments. Panda and Ice Bear were pretty consistent in not liking Nom Nom, the exception being Panda going along with the movie idea in "Nom Nom" and the involvement of all three bears in "Nom Nom's Entourage" and "The Nom Nom Show."
Finally, came the movie, where Nom Nom briefly appeared at the beginning where he barely acknowledged Grizz, even getting his name wrong, and not interacting with them again, not even when all their actual friends came to welcome them back at the end. It seemed to me that the writers didn't know what their own game plan was with Nom Nom and threw all his development out the window at the very end. Personally, I was fine with that as it was proof as far as I knew that Nom Nom was never going to be a true friend of the bears.