"A Teddy Bear's Dream"

13 March 2025

90s

A bear's purpose.

It's the moment every teddy bear dreams of: when they're chosen by someone at the store. That moment is subverted in a Sandy Hook Promise film directed by Henry-Alex Rubin, who also made the nonprofit's 2023 'Just Joking' ad. Before we learn the bear's true fate, however, Rubin delivers the kind of toy story Disney and Pixar would endorse.

Scored by 'Best of Friends' from 'The Fox and the Hound', the first half of this 90" commercial shows how the bear and a young girl become best friends forever. She draws with it, tucks it in at night, and even persuades the school bus driver to stop so she can rescue it from the ground... all a teddy bear could ever ask for, to be honest.

This is when Rubin takes us back to the store, back to the where the teddy's dream came true and its best life began. In a bittersweet twist, it's not taken home by the young girl, but to a chain-link fence where flowers, candles, cards, and other bears mark yet another school massacre. Another Santa Fe. Another Uvalde. Another Sandy Hook.

A symbol of innocence, therefore, becomes a symbol of young lives cut shot by gun violence. As the bear is left sit in the rain, viewers are encouraged to learn as much as possible about prevention (and not before time).

USA

Lobby Groups