Nev The Bear is a small, blue
puppet bear that originally appeared in the
CBBC television programme
Smile. Since 2007, Nev has starred in his own CBBC show
Bear Behaving Badly, alongside
Barney Harwood. His name was created from the name of his co-star
Dev Griffin on
Smile He was last seen on
Hacker Time when Derek puts Nev on Line 1 for Barney Harwood. Nev has patches in places on his body and is missing part of his ear. This is due to Bandit the cat, who is seen in some episodes of
Bear Behaving Badly, trying to eat him. Nev often has trouble with pronunciation of certain words, he cannot sing but he can
rap well. Nev likes
ice cream,
jam, dressing up, sleeping in and his '
snuggly ducky duck duck'. When scared or intimidated, he growls, just like a real bear would. Originally on
Smile, the voice of Nev was prerecorded with his limited vocabulary played in as appropriate. When Nev took on a more significant role in
Smile, puppeteer Ross Mullan, who also stars in
Bear Behaving Badly, was recruited to provide the voice live. On December 28, 2007, Nev appeared on a puppet special of
The Weakest Link hosted by Anne Robinson and broadcast on
BBC One, but was eliminated in the fourth round of play, and as hinted in his post-elimination interview, he has a crush on both Soo and host Anne Robinson. In 2004, a soft plush Nev was released, but was only available in a few stores. In 2005, a talking Nev was released, speaking a number of catch phrases including "Fwightened" and "No no no no". A complaint was made against the toy with regard to the word "Quick", by an individual who believed he had heard a similar sounding profanity instead. A smaller version of the soft toy has since been released.