Where the Bears Are
Where the Bears Are is an American comedy-mystery web series that ran for seven seasons from August 1, 2012, to November 1, 2018, following three gay bear roommates in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles who are drawn into a different murder investigation each season. It was created by Rick Copp, Joe Dietl, and Ben Zook, who also star as the three leads, and the creators described it as "The Golden Girls meets Murder, She Wrote" with big, hairy gay men.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | Comedy-mystery web series; each season is one continuous murder-mystery story arc2 |
| Run | Seven seasons, August 1, 2012 to November 1, 2018; 144 episodes plus eight 30-minute holiday specials1 |
| Creators and stars | Rick Copp (Reggie Hatch), Joe Dietl (Wood Burns), Ben Zook (Nelson Dorkoff), with Ian Parks as Todd Stevens ("Hot Toddy")1 • 3 |
| Setting | A shared house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles4 |
| Funding | Season 1 paid for entirely out of pocket; Season 2 funded by DVD and merchandise sales; Seasons 3 through 7 funded by Kickstarter campaigns5 • 1 |
| Reach | Almost 60 million views since 2012; Best Gay Web Series from afterelton.com (Season 1) and a Queerty Award for Best Gay Web Series (final season)1 |
| Rating | TV-MA; IMDb user rating 7.53 |
Spoilers
Premise and format
The first season opens the morning after a wild birthday party at the roommates' house, when Nelson Dorkoff, Reggie Hatch, and Wood Burns (played by Zook, Copp, and Dietl) find a young bear cub in bed with Nelson and a dead body, the party guest J Cub, in their bathtub. Because the three become suspects, they spend the season trying to clear their names and find the real killer.4 • 6 Producer and lead actor Ben Zook summarized the setup before launch: "We wake up the next day after a wild party and we find a dead bear in our bathtub. We spend the entire season trying to solve the murder because we become suspects."4
Each season builds a new season-long mystery around the same core cast. Season 2 centers on the murder of a gay politician gunned down at his own pool party fundraiser; Season 3 follows the killings of male models at a studio called Chunk Studios; Season 4 begins when a party crasher dies of poisoned champagne at Nelson and Todd's wedding shower; Season 5 turns on Todd's disappearance from a male-only clothing-optional resort during the couple's honeymoon; Season 6 has Nelson framed for the on-set murder of a TV co-star while Todd works to prevent the assassination of a foreign dignitary; and the seventh and final season sends the Bears to Palm Springs, where a mysterious stalker targets them and someone sabotages the "Mr. Bear America" pageant at which Reggie is serving as celebrity judge.1
Episodes were short-form: the first season was planned as episodes of roughly 4 to 5 minutes each, and later listings put a typical episode at about 12 to 13 minutes.4 • 3 Episodes were initially uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo, and the producers later re-edited each season into full-length feature films sold on DVD with specials, featurettes, bloopers, and commentary.1
Creators and cast
The three leads came from mainstream entertainment backgrounds. Rick Copp, a writer and producer who played Reggie, worked on The Brady Bunch Movie; Joe Dietl, the director and producer who played Wood, had credits including Mom and Maron; and Ben Zook, who played Nelson, was a theater actor and writer who received story credit for Adam Sandler's 2011 film Jack and Jill.1 • 5 Dietl and Zook are married in real life, and the series was filmed mostly at their Los Angeles home.4 • 5
Ian Parks joined the core cast as Todd Stevens, Nelson's boyfriend, known in the first season as "Hot Toddy."4 • 3 Recurring and guest roles included Chad Sanders as Detective Winters and George Unda as Detective Martinez.3 Over the run the series drew well-known guest stars, including Margaret Cho as a leather-clad dominatrix, Missi Pyle, Tuc Watkins, Peter Paige, Chaz Bono, and Jennifer Elise Cox.1
Production and funding
The three creators funded the first season entirely out of pocket and produced Season 2 with money from DVD and merchandise sales.5 Starting with Season 3, they ran Kickstarter fundraising campaigns that raised the budgets for Seasons 3 through 7. For the final season, the producers promised donors a bonus episode if funding passed $175,000; the campaign did so, and the result was a Christmas musical featuring five original songs, released in early 2019 after the series finale.1
The production company behind the show is 3 Bears Entertainment.1 In a 2018 interview, Zook said the seven-season length was a deliberate echo: he and his collaborators were huge fans of The Golden Girls, which also ran seven seasons.7
Reception and the bear community
The show accumulated almost 60 million views between 2012 and the end of its run and won the "Best Gay Web Series" award from afterelton.com for its first season and the Queerty Award for "Best Gay Web Series" for its final season, along with numerous other indie nominations. Its popularity was international enough that the creators and stars were flown to Europe, Australia, and Mexico.1 The Los Angeles Times profiled the series in 2014 as striking a chord with the bear subculture, noting that bears, once known mostly within the gay community, had become more mainstream through the internet and bear-specific media.5
The series sits within a distinct gay male subculture. Bears are a large global community of big and hairy gay, bisexual, and queer men that originated in 1980s San Francisco and valorizes larger, hirsute bodies in contrast to a mainstream gay aesthetic favoring thinness and hairlessness.8 • 9 A reviewer for Pride.com's queer web series guide described the show's appeal as its "adorable cheesiness" and self-awareness, noting that it seemed to have "a lock on every bear-ish actor on the West Coast."10
Aftermath and availability
Production stopped in late 2018, but the series continued to sell on Apple and Amazon and maintained a presence on streaming outlets including Tubi, Dekkoo, OutTV, and HereTV.1 In 2023, a documentary about the series and its popularity, A Big Gay Hairy Hit! Where The Bears Are: The Documentary, written and directed by Eduardo Aquino, premiered at various LGBTQ+ film festivals; its end credits paid tribute to series actor George Unda, who died in 2021, and to BearCity screenwriter-director Doug Langway, who died in 2022.2
Streaming access has narrowed since the series ended. A JustWatch check found the title unavailable for streaming in the United States, with availability in Germany and Finland on the OUTtv Amazon Channel.3
References
- Where The Bears Are | A Big Gay Hairy Hit Web Series! (official site)
- Where the Bears Are - TV on Google Play
- Where the Bears Are - streaming tv show online, JustWatch
- LET THE FUR FLY!: Where the Bears Are webseries a hairy murder mystery, GayCalgary Magazine (August 2012)
- 'Where the Bears Are' strikes a comic chord with a gay subculture, Los Angeles Times (September 3, 2014)
- Where the Bears Are - Aired Order - All Seasons, TheTVDB.com
- Instinct Exclusive with the Zany & Hilarious Cast of 'Where The Bears Are', Instinct Magazine (August 13, 2018)
- Peter Hennen (2005). Bear Bodies, Bear Masculinity: Recuperation, Resistance, or Retreat? Gender & Society
- Nick McGlynn (2020). Bears In Space: Geographies of a global community of big and hairy gay/bi/queer men, Geography Compass
- The Ultimate Queer Web Series Viewing Guide, Pride.com (December 12, 2014)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › LGBT-related web series
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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