Since John Sebastian and his immediate family all are over 5, it`s not surprising he wasn`t intimately familiar with the Care Bears before he was asked to write three songs for ''The Care Bears Movie.''
''I learned about the Bears as I went along,'' he said. ''I think their central theme--being candid about your feelings, sharing your feelings--is a very positive message for children.''
And the rest of the package? ''I`m not crazy about the marketing aspect,'' Sebastian said. ''But that`s tempered when the message is constructive.''
Truth is, if you want to do animation music now, you haven`t got much choice. ''You can`t do `Pinocchio` anymore,'' he said. ''This is what there is.''
Sebastian, best known as leader of the Lovin` Spoonful in the 1960s and composer of the hit TV theme ''Welcome Back, Kotter'' in 1976, actually has been drawn to animation music since he was a teenager.
''When I first saw `Road Runner,` I thought how great it would be,'' he said. Over the past seven years, he has done half a dozen features (''The Devil and Daniel Mouse,'' ''Strawberry Shortcake`s Homecoming Surprise'') for Nelvana, the production company now giving you ''Care Bears.''
What`s essential, he says, is that the animation meets the standards of today`s child: ''They won`t settle for wooden. You can`t play down to them.'' Likewise, animation music now can be as time-consuming as a whole album in the 1960s.
For ''Care Bears,'' Sebastian used NRBQ, Tower of Power and drum machines, sometimes blending machines with live instruments ''to mix warmth with a modern sound.''
The musical result is three clearly distinct tunes. ''It Takes a Bear to Care,'' for instance, is rollicking, good-time music with horns and a subtle 1920s flavor.
It`s all unmistakably Sebastian, and none of it will smudge the Care Bears image. ''Let`s face it,'' said the man who long has had one of the sunniest images in the business, ''when someone wants me for a song, they probably have a certain mood in mind.''