Bob Dermer was born in 1946 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to a mother who had given birth to him at the age of forty-six, a fact that initially led to her opposing his aspirations to pursue a career in acting.
Despite this, Dermer's mother eventually relented, and at the age of eight, he was enrolled in theater school, where he studied until he was thirteen.
Growing up in Ottawa, Dermer had a happy childhood, marked by occasional nuclear alerts, and a happy adolescence, during which he participated in the school concert every year.
In his Thirteenth Grade, Dermer discovered an opportunity to audition for a television series called 'Milk and Honey' for CGOH in Ottawa, and despite being just a teenager, he decided to intrude on the audition.
To his surprise, the director offered him a part, albeit not the one he had initially auditioned for, and Dermer was cast in the series, appearing in two hundred episodes.
After graduating, Dermer had accumulated ten years of acting experience and took dance classes to further hone his craft.
It was during this period that he was discovered by Noreen Young, who hired him for the Union meeting, where he would be working as a puppeteer.
Dermer, who had never done puppeteering before, was tasked with creating a live puppet show for television, a challenge he rose to in just three months.
From 1967 to 1977, Dermer worked on a series called "Pencil Box", utilizing his puppeteering skills, and it was during this time that he met his fiancée, Nina Keogh, a fellow puppeteer.
In 1980, Dermer was cast as Ralph Raccoon, a character he would go on to voice for the rest of the franchise, in Kevin Gillis' animated TV special 'The Christmas Raccoons'.
In 1985, the same year the 'Raccoons' TV series premiered, Dermer voiced Grumpy Bear in 'The Care Bears Movie', a role he would reprise in subsequent Care Bears films and series.
