The Little Polar Bear (in Dutch: Lars de kleine ijsbeer) is a franchise about a polar bear cub named Lars who first starred in a number of books written by Dutch author, Hans de Beer.

The first of several animated adaptations of the books is a Japanese original video animation, released on April 28, 1990, with animation production by I.G Tatsunoko (now known as Production I.G).

It later became an animated TV series for BBC TV and WDR Lars, der kleine Eisbär, in the 1990s. The show proved to be popular in Germany.

The show was later revived between 2001 and 2003. For its first film, subtitled Der Kinofilm, Warner Bros. and animation studio Rothkirch Cartoon Film bought the rights to adapt the children's books into a feature-length film, released in 2001.

Following the success of the feature, several direct-to-video features were released, one of the new characters included was a tiger cub. In 2005, another film, The Little Polar Bear 2: The Mysterious Island (German: Der kleine Eisbär 2: Die geheimnisvolle Insel) was released and also proved successful.

The score to The Little Polar Bear was composed by Nigel Clarke & Michael Csanyi-Wills and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and was nominated for several awards.

The Japanese version uses Tomoko Tane's "Rainbow Song" as the ending theme.