Episode 30: The Saga of Smokey the Bear

We'd welcome to ranking on Bass and offhand joke that became a podcast. I'm your host. Mike White joined me. Is a real firebug. Mister Chris stas Shoe, I prefer to be referred to as Smokey the Buskin.

Also with us as a very talent beaver. Mister Richard HadAM welcome to General Electrics Fantasy Hour. On this podcasts we discussed the works of Arthur mckin junior and Jules Bass, specifically stop motion and animated work, and this episode fits perfectly into that because we are visiting the world of Smokey the Bear through two productions, a nineteen sixty six ANIMGIC production called The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, and then also nineteen sixty nine TV show. Did you know there was a TV show all about Smokey the Bear? There was?

It was called The Smokey Bear Show. Came out in nineteen sixty nine, ran seventeen episodes, and we watched some of them. And will you definitely watched the Ballad of Smokey the Bear at least I hope we did. Richard, Did you watch the movie this time? Yeah?

I did? I went all right, I checked it out. Good deal. Wow, that's a hell of a callback. It's been episode since that happened several In fact, Richard, what did you think of the out of Smokey the Bear, Sir, I want to start at the very very beginning.

I want to start with the general I want to start with a General Electric introduction. This is how TV used to be. It was, you know, first you would have the peacock spreading it's it's it's multi colored feathers, and you know, with a little NBC music, and then General Electric. And here's what I want to call out, General Electric welcoming the viewing audience to a you know, a sort of a family fantasy hour of viewing this AnimagiC special. And then they then they informed the audience of what they were General Electric.

What are the what are the what are the things? They called out that they do Portable home appliances. Okay, so in other words, ge portable home appliances, clocks, health, beauty and floor care products. That's it really is the your top five things. So it's health and floor care products.

Done. I'm in ge don't say another word. I'm in customer for life. And then apparently also AnimagiC specials. So so I was already charmed and enthralled when I when I then saw two two animals fighting each other to the death.

I guess there was like a bobcat and a fox or something just ready to kill each other as they tried to, I guess, murder another forest animal for their breakfast. It was a big opening. And then and then what I thought was Smokey the Bear comes out and ain't Smoky the Bear. It is Smokey's brother, Big Brother Bear, nameless, and he tells us the story. Right, Oh, hi, I didn't see you.

My name is Big Bear. I was you guys know how disappointed I was that it didn't feature that. It was just I was, hey, ember, buddy. And by the way, no amount of putting him in a bear body can change the fact that it's Jimmy Cagney doing the voice of a bear. Yeah.

Yeah, we know, like and Smoke's mom died, what the fuck? Like? Yeah, yeah, this is some This is like nest on steroids, like it's I was not I don't even know what I thought of this. I watched it like two or three times, and each time I was like somebody was on something. When they made this, and look, I know the song existed for this, right, because like the song there was a song.

There's an Eddie Arnold song called the Ball of a Smokey Bear. Yeah, And so like it's like the Rudolph thing again, where it's like we're telling the story of a thing that what did you think, Mike, Uh? Yeah. I have to say, I'm not very familiar with the origins of Smokey the Bear, so I was, you know, pleasantly surprised to find that it was intense childhood trauma that gave us Smokey. I was also very happy to see that there are a lot of animals that wear clothes in the forest, a lot that dough.

We've got rabbits of wear jackets, We've got beavers and wear hats. But yeah, having brother Bear come out wearing his just pants, I like to wear pants and a belt with a little kerchief in the back pocket. And I was trying to use the hanky code to find out what this bear was into, but was unable to discern that. So he does not wear a belt. He wears a piece of rope.

Okay, oh, piece of rope. Oh. He is a he is the anthropomorphized Bear of my dreams. He only wears pants and he wears a piece of string as a belt. It's just it's so quaint and pastoral, isn't it.

And then we named you after the fire that killed your killed your friends and your mom. Hilarious, everybody etsd That's not what I expected Rankin and Bassacan brunt. But here we are what here we are the character design I'm brother Bear is so straight because he looks so angry all the time. Even when he's happy, he looks angry. Yeah, he's got like those big angry eyebrows.

Yeah, just downturned the entire time. We two like the baby bears that look so like ute and generic, like it's such a choice. Well, it takes a while to kind of get things sorted out, so you know what journey we're going on. Because when you first see the first bear, you think, oh, okay, well this must be smokey Bear. But then then it's like, oh, no, he isn't.

Then his two children come out and they're like little bear cubs. And then for a second I'm like, well, is one of them going to turn to be smiliar in the man, And then it's like no, no, hold on, We're gonna do a flashback to my brother. So I'm telling you a story about my brother who eventually becomes Smoky the Bear. So let's go back to when Smokey Bear was a child. And then I thought he would also be a child.

But he looks exactly the same. It's like he's he's still the same age, but he's got a baby brother or something. So I was like, wait, hold on, ed did I miss? Am I getting this right? Because I expected them both to be smaller, But okay, he's the older brother, got it.

Whatever, And finally we understand we're on the journey of Okay, I'm going to tell you about the day something terrible happened and then you know, the children sit there filled with dread. It's like all we wanted to do was play. Right now, we're getting some lecture about our uncle and some hideous tragedy. Okay, and we're off. We're off to a fun filled fifty one minutes that didn't need to be fifty one minutes.

It needed to be the story of Smokey the Bear. And that's it, Like, guys, at one point, If you haven't watched this yet, it's available on Archives dot org, which is the Internet repository for things. People forgot him and they care so little about it that it's literally for free. There is a gorilla in this. There's just a fucking gorilla.

But yeah, and that is that is the AnimagiC touch here that I was expecting. It's it's funny. The first half of this I think is really compelling, and it kind of narratively slots itself into like all the Christmas stuff that we've talked about, where it's like, something is different about this character. Don't you want to find out why? And here's the story.

And then the second half of this is the fucking white Ape movie that we watched. But just in Smokey the bear Land, like it's what it feels like. You have a bunch of disparate characters coming together to trap an animal that they don't understand. It's an analog people, by the way. I love the whole idea of like he becomes a Rudolph character at one point, Smokey that is.

But instead of it being oh, you got that b Lincoln nose going on palettes, Oh you lost your family in this fire. Oh we better not talk about fire around this guy, we named him smokey like it's like, oh, it's like if someone cut horribly had their arms cut off, and it's like, oh, your term of endearment is now stumpy, like, but don't mention the fire part, but we can call you stumpy. Like what this point? This poor bear when he comes down from the tree, looks like he saw either the face of God or whatever deity he believes in, because he's like this, And it's just like, is this for kids? Like who is?

Who the fuck is this for? Because no, I don't know how a child in sixty six would respond to seeing a bear having PTSD. It's just it's it's a very It's like Nestor. That's why I said, it's like when Nestor and Nestor's mom died, Like yeah, wait, what the fuck? What the fuck?

All of these I mean a lot of them, including Little Drummer Boy, are well, I mean, including a lot of the Disney ones, are about people who lose parents, you know, in terrible ways, either by a fire or a hunter or something, and so that that childhood troun I'm sure no one even questioned it. And it's fine. I mean, it's there and he's you know, surrounded and supported by his older brother and various benevolent forest creatures, so we're never really worried that something terrible will happen to Smokey. But once we know that he's sort of in a matrix of love and support with his forest community, now we just focus on the fact that he got really freaked out. He was up a tree, he almost died, he's afraid of fire, and and then that becomes for the second half of the special, the thing that must be triumphed over.

He's got to get over his fear. This is so clunquily written to me, and I now I need to go back and listen to that song. I felt very I feel very bad Chris that I didn't realize that there was the Smokey Bear song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins. But do they talk about the guerrilla in there, because it just it feels so slapped together. There's one point where I'm like, okay, you know answer to that question by the yeah, there must have been some gorilla.

Yeah. The song way better. This is the only time that Rankin and Bass are dealing with Joseph Shrink as the writer of their stuff. We've got really so much of this team is the Rudolph the Red Nosed Braindeer team. We've got Larry Rohmer directing.

He also directed parts of Return to Oz. He's directing this one. We've got Shrank here as the writer. We're not doing the Romeo Muller thing, like we really, I think we've found, gentlemen that Romeo Muller was kind of part of the key to the magic here. We've got Johnny Marks doing the music instead of Maria Laws.

These songs are okay, but they're definitely not up to the Rudolph quality. And it's one of those musicals where as soon as they start to sing, it's like there's that little pause and I'm like, please don't turn into a song, Please don't turn into a song. And sure enough, it's like everybody gets a song in this stupid thing. If you trust a turtle with your secret, a turtle walk slow, hey, hey, hey, what the fuck? What the actual And on top of everything else, it's like fucking thirty seconds of a song.

It's not even so, it's like the notion of a song that someone came up. The original Smokey the Bear song from fifty two includes a no mention of a gorilla smoking the bear. Smokey the bear crowling and a growling and a sniff in the air. He can find a fire before it starts to flame. That's why they call him Smokey.

That was how he got his name, Ladies and gentlemen. That's the last couple lines of Smoking the Bear the song. Wow, yeah, good, good, good call there, good detective work there, and find away Smoky the Bear was a real bear that this This actually happened to a real bear that climbed into a tree in like I want to say fifth maybe in New Mexico, as they mentioned it in the cartoon. They're like, smoking the Bear was a bear in New Mexico. Whatever.

These don't sound anything like the real songs. We have to make sure we don't get sued. Yeah, well that's really what we put this up on YouTube. We get a copyright strike, that's it. Croft and the rest of them take us down.

So I'm pretty sure Throws ravens Craft was singing the theme song for this as well. At least there was a very deep baritone voice in the back towards towards some of it music. And this is just atrocious. Well, so okay, so the US Forest Service sort of turned smoking the Bear into a you know, a mascot for their or one of their big messages, which was, you know, prevent forest fires, which I don't know where was this. Like the major issue in America in the late fifties was just the the you know, were they the mass shootings of the day.

You can't go a day without another, you know, million acres being destroyed by some irresponsible camper. Because it was very much about how people were starting forest fires and you if you were gonna go camping, for God's sake, you know, make sure that fire is put out, because we're losing our forests to this. Well, you know that people are idiots, right, I mean this was that fire was a last year the year before, caused by the gender gender reveal party that burned up millions of acres of people. Aren't aren't sweeping the floor of the forest, you know, and there's smokey. He should have a broom rather than a shovel.

He should be out there sweeping all the time and just making sure there are no forest fires. But yeah, you know, people are idiots, are going to leave their fire going not do the proper maintenance and stuff. This was just kind of a reminder for that's kind of like a Woodsie the owl, you know, give a hoot, don't pollute because people are animals in there well, leaving their ship everywhere, and they're leaving it on fire. I mean, that's the thing. That's the challenge this special had.

And it came two years after Rudoff, but it was kind of I get the impression it was the one put into production pretty quickly after Rudoff, so it wasn't a direct follow up, but it kind of was the next one done in that style. And and it's burden is that it's not about a holiday that children love. It's basically an admonishment. And so they did everything they could to make the journey fun and to give us sympathetic characters, but you know, ultimately it is about you know, okay, so what lesson did you learn? Kids?

You know, clean up after yourself and don't let there be a forest fire, or your mother's gonna die, or that one bear that is stringing you along is gonna die. Which is the weirdest character in this entire thing is there's like a girl bear who is Delilah. Yeah, antagonizing Smokey, whose name at the time is Sonny the Bear. Look what they did to my boy, right, that's all I can think of. His name is Smokey.

Now, Pope, does she die? I guess she never comes back after the fire. I guess it's implied that she goes into the woods and lays down to inhale God's own. I don't know. It's weird, like it's weird.

She never comes back and she gets her own song, and they interact with the Beavers, mister Joe Beaver, who does end up coming back. It's kind of weird. They never mentioned her. I guess she died. But that's weird because they make a big deal.

They specifically say the mother was lost in the fire, and they kind of try to get past that story point as quickly as possible and then come back to modern day and it's like, okay, oh kay, now let me tell you the rest of the story and try to forget that mom's dead. I think it would have been too much of Elilah also died, but it is weird that Delilah wasn't around to sort of help frame the challenge. It's, you know, to be a voice telling smokey you you think you're a coward, but you're not. I mean, you know the song that would go right there, right, that's what I mean. Like, where is there is no carrecter, Like it's weird.

Smoking the bear because of the way they tell the story is not a real big part of his own story. It feels like it feels like that, like especially the second half, the first half that it's all smoky, but then the second half it's like the goings on of these woodland morons, like because again like the beaver and like, these are characters that I was not hoping to have to spend more time with thein smoking the Bear, interacting with them, but then it becomes like all of the woodland creatures are the main focus because it's like, well, we got to figure out how to stop this gorilla from destroying the woods. It's like that's not that's not interesting. This is the well yeah, but I don't just put people in there, like I don't know why it.

Yeah, I thought for sure it was going to be a person because where they're like, oh man, this big ugly thing and it's tromping through here and it destroyed my damn, and it did this and I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a person. But then they're showing the paw prints and I'm like, well, still look like shoe prints. But I thought that would really work with the narrative of the destructive people. And we can't do that because you can't make the viewing audience the antagonist of the story. So you have to come up with a standistic on its own, like only you can prevent forest fires, Like, isn't the message immediately antagonistic the way that they're presenting it anyways, No, but you can't.

You don't want a child's not gonna want to watch a special about a bear that we're supposed to identify with and you know, get excited about. And the enemy is people just like me, even though we get it, but if you're showing it, you're like, well, this is an even bigger bummer than it is on paper. So as you as you said, Chris, they needed a stand in. So it's like, well, we don't want to use Homo sapience, but we should get a primate in there to sort of represent how shitty human beings are. And it'll it'll be reading the newspaper and smoking and acting like an asshole.

So um, so we'll put it out there. But but again, but it's also sympathetic because it's it just needs it's ignorant. It's not you know, uh, it's it's not violent, it's not like a pyromaniac. It just doesn't get it. It has to be sort of told and taught.

Yeah, your actions have unintended consequences, so watch what you do and respect your woodland neighbors, which is the message they want to get out. So what are you gonna do? So they end up with this thing that again, it's sort of a stand in for the bumble, for the you know, you know, the big the creature that comes out of the north, you know, the Yukon Cornelius is all excited about. Yeah, I get it. I mean, you're right, but it is it's still a misstep because like it just it.

I don't feel like it hangs together with the first part very well. Then I liked the first part of this a lot, other than the really forced musical bits, because I think it gets we get four musical numbers, three or four before we even get to what would be considered kind of the turning point of the narrative where it's like, now we're following Barry Pearl as Smokey the Bear, who is fine. Barry Pearl's an awfully nice guy. He's in Grease. That's what I know him from, spoke to him years.

We should reach out to him. Hey, what was it like playing Smokey the Bear? If that's the thing you remember out of here, right, I mean, hey, you know what a random thing to ask him about. I'm sick and tired of talking about Grease. Let me talk about that rank and invest Smokey the Bear.

Oh totally. No. If you know this guy, then absolutely he would. Is he still alive. Yeah, he's in Australia right now on a doing a convention appearances for what other Grease?

Of course? Yeah, oh my god, like a huge anniversary this year. I think, yeah, he would. Talking about five might be an off yere. I don't know, Yeah, no, I just I don't know.

I don't feel like it needed to be an hour, and I think that that's unfortunate because like they've done half an hour specials before. It's not like they were beholden to an hour. I mean, GE wanted it to be a fantasy hour. But yeah, it could have been two different things, like could have been Smoky the Bear and nope, I guess there isn't anything else. I guess it's Smoky the Bear, like the quintessential I guess other than like Uncle Sam, it's like Smokey the Bear Uncle Sam, and then who else for like a quintessential American mascot Donnie apple Seed and Paul Bunyan.

I guess so, I guess. Yeah, No, it had to be an hour, just like the Cricket and the Hearth had to be an hour because that's how much the network set aside for you know, the Danny Thomas ABC Christmas Hour. This is better than that by like leah, Yeah, well, it also helps that it's the AnimagiC, you know, and things like the whole thing with the bees I thought was very well done, the little AnimagiC bees and then the animation of the bee cloud coming after him, and then when the one bees like hey it's this guy and they all go after him. I thought that that was very well done. Yeah, I totally agree, and it is charming.

Look, it's just a very charming kind of animation and the character design was all pleasant. This one unlike so many that we've talked about, was not you know, it wasn't an eyesore. It was it was it was pleasant to look at the production of it. I mean there was a lot you know, big you know panoramas and rushing water at fire. I mean it took it.

Technically, it sort of was I don't know, I want to say, kind of better or more advanced than Rudolph. It wasn't a step backward for sure. Let's let's say that. No. I I mean, outside of the music, which just it seemed like they phoned it in, Like I think, I think it's a shame that they didn't do more things like because like woodland animals and stuff like that that lends itself to the AnimagiC thing.

I feel like, and we've seen I mean we've seen obviously woodland animals before in was it the Lifetimes of Santa Claus. Is that where he's interacting with all like the woodland animals or there's one of them where it's like this level of like town Yeah, uh, the year without the Santa Claus. I mean you know there were there were several, right like this this one it's finally like it's this focus on these like woodland animals, and you know, it just happens to be Smoky the bear, Like, I mean almost in a lot of ways, like the fact that he's Smoky the bear is incidental, right, Like we're gonna we're telling you the story about this bear who solves problem. He becomes Smokey the bear Like, okay, sure like him being Smokey the bear.

Like they don't like because at the end it's like, why did he get his hat in his face? And it's like, well, the forest rangers said, good job. I love that. I love just a shot of a box. It's like, and the forest rangers heard about this, but I loved it so much I sent in my hat and the shovel.

Okay, great. I mean, look, you know, for me, like growing up in the nineties, I don't actually I realize the thing I think of when I think of these kinds of things is McGruff, the crime dog. That's the one that I think, I mean, Smokey is kind of like a I think, a you know, outdoorsy one. I mean when I think i'm smoking the bear, I think of only who can prevent forest fires? You pressed you?

I think you mean me the thing from The Simpsons where he's like pressing at the It's one of the funniest goddamn bits in the Simpsons. But that's what I think when I think of Smoking the Bear. I don't even think of like the ramifications of Smokey the Bear, but when I think of like the quintessential like thing for me in the nineties growing up was McGruff, which never I never saw like a cartoon for McGruff. So it's kind of cool to see like what this is for, Like I guess because this would have been for people y'all's age, right, like theoretically, well it was, well, okay, so it was nineteen sixty six, so it was the year I was born, so we can we can pretty much nail it down and say that this special is fifty six years old older than y'all.

Oh yeah, yeah. And when I was growing up in the same thing with you, Richard, I mean, like I mentioned Woodsy the Owl, he was all about pollution, iron eyed Cody as that silent Indian Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, who was crying about all the pollution. I mean, we had a lot of different mascots, so and yeah, I think I saw Woodsy more than I saw Smokey personally, but I do remember the commercials for that. Never heard of Woodsie the Owl before. Well, woods the Owl is the one who said give a hoot, don't pull out, right, So if you know the phrase, then all you didn't know was the owl.

Yeah. I knew that. Yeah, I knew the phrase. I didn't know the owl. What interesting mascot?

Yeah, right, but I mean r Nightmarish as well, just the character design. Yeah, there was never a cartoon about McGruff the crime Dog where you know, his family was you know, murdered by by you know, thieves and punks like in Death Wish, and then he grows up with an obsession to take a vigilante violence, right, you know though, to see a A zero movie and this this kid out in the back of the alley Prime Alley, Yeah, exactly, and he cuts the pearl necklace off of or McGruff, sorry mother's neck there. Right, that's when Woodsie decides to become a bat. And instead of the name McGruff, he's actually just gave the dog murder the crime dog, because like Smoky, we're just going to refer to your childhood trauma in the descriptor, right, murdering the dog, murdering the dog.

Oh my god, hold on, I think I've got my next my next pilot. Yeah, you better not write it down though, down Richard, Yeah, pencils the fuck down, motherfucker's I will say. The thing that was the most kind of like off putting about this entire special was the way the turtle move has it. Oh yeah, okay, see, I'm glad it wasn't just me. The hands.

The hands were very strange. We never had an heromorphic cans. I think there were only four fingers, but still it was like, oh, and then the way it would like swap and its head would be out one side and then swapping come out the other side. I'm like, that's not how turtles worked. I'm glad it wasn't just me.

Mister turtle is quite possibly the craziest AnimagiC anthropomorphized thing because he has human hands, like straight up like one like he said, one digit list. But the way he walked was like a guy on all fours walking. Yeah, it's not how turtles walk. That's whoa so terrifying. But it was.

But but turtle was sort of the like savior of the story in a way. Turtle is the one who's like, okay, look, let's cut the ship. You spend the night in the forest, listen to the trees. And then the trees like again, I can't tell if this would have freaked me out as a kid, but the trees all start to whisper, apparently save us, Smoky. It's like their bancorn forests.

I'm like waiting for tree Beard to come out. I've got a door. I'm smoking the bear. We'll have to see about that. Yeah, so he gets the message, I guess.

And then and then when it comes time when when he goes and is you know, like banging down the door of the old shack where the gorilla lives, and brother Bear wants to like, oh no, I gotta stop him, and Turtle's like, no, no, don't. He's got to do this on his own. He's got this. I'm telling your brother he's this. And then what he does instead, what he does he knocks, he destroys the house and sets and sets it on fire.

He causes a fire. Right, only he can start the fires that we can prevent. Well, you know, I mean it's the old joke. He's the arsonist and the fireman, you know, it's like he starts a fire and then he's like, come on, grab a bucket everyone, and they're like, well, you moron, why'd you have to knock the house down, don't you know? In one hand he has a shovel.

On the other hand he has a lighter. It's just fine, okay, Pyro, right, the bearn sh smoking the lightning, you know, smoking the firebug. Oh well, it's better than the cartoon version of Smokey otherwise than as Smoky the narc boy. If you've got one version of Smoky in the Anti Magic, let's take about thirty steps back and go, mister bright wing Smoky because he's not putting up with your ship and you know what, straight to fucking jail with you like that. Yeah, it's so aggressive too.

I don't understand the point. But all right, it's so weird that it was seventeen episodes. They were based on the was it the Dell comics? You know, the real kind of cheap ee comics. I remember those when I was a kid.

They um it was like was that like you're Richie rich in those kind of things. It feels like they were always like the off brand one. Yeah, little eight ball little light Ball light Ball and yeah, just like Strange, you know, like Bewitched they did comic books of and just like taking TV shows and bizarro ideas and making them into comics stories. And yeah, here we had another toe ay animation style here. And you can tell.

As soon as this thing starts up, I was just like, okay, yeah, this is all Japanese. And I was surprised that it was even um it looked like it was done originally in English. I thought for sure that this was a Japanese cartoon. They poured it over and I was just like, no, that doesn't make any sense at all. No fire lighting bears, no fire bear ship.

Yes, exactly, much much catchier title, right, good lord, a big big picture of Mount Fuji in the background as they were all traps in around Yeah right god, uh yeah, I I this is you know that smoking the bear balance Smokey Bear is fun. This is like the tongue clucking. No sense that I was worried that that was going to be in its entirety. This is like again, Smokey is the fucking nark. Like I don't who was entertained by this?

Like who when they were working on this They're like, kids are gonna love being spoken down to constantly, aren't they. Well, it's weird how little. I mean, we said this about the Ballad of Smokey Bear, but the Smokey Bear Show barely has any Smokey Bear in it. It's he's at the beginning and the credits, and then so much of it would be, oh, here's my two quote unquote deputies. Like they basically make him the sheriff, there's a mayor character.

I mean, this becomes basically a Western with Smokey the Bear as the quiet like Gary Cooper sheriff, and so much of this is you know, featured on like Festus and Gabby Haynes, like doing their shenanigans, and then eventually Smokey has to come and rescue them or bail them out. It's like, I don't know if you guys watch the one where the two deputies are chained together and they're just having little adventures. Because I ended up like going down a rabbit hole and watching a ton of these and they all ran together. After a while. I watched Founders Day Follies, and I watched the YouTube one and the archive dot org one, and I think that there might be a different segment between the two, because the segment of that I think sticks out the most that I guarantee the Three of Us saw is the one.

Well, I guess there's probably two. The one about the Founder's day, right, and I want to do a pie eaton contest and they want to goes. That's stupid, that's stupid. It's just like us banal stupid shit possible. But then the other one is the snake oil salesman comes to town to steal there to steal their money because he's doing a gold rush scam, like oh right, the pig, right, Yeah.

It is just like I don't understand what this show was supposed to be. Is the smokey the bear like waiting for the Donner party to come, Like I don't. It's like they're in like the High West. Because the the pig shows up in like a like a wagon. It's like, hey, I'm gonna steal their money.

It's very weird. I think he hit the nail on the head. When you say the High West, I mean that that snake was pretty clearly supposed to be the late sixties beat Nick. You know, his eyes are just pinwheel spinning and he's like wild man, you know. So it's like, Okay, I think we get what that guy's all about, which, by the way, is fine.

I mean, may do a bold characterization. It's better than everyone else who's those characters just kind of like, all right, this is a version of a version of a version of a version of something I didn't care about five versions ago. It's it's it's so like again, like I would use the word boring, but I think it's just so basic and generic, like there's not it's it's like you. It's like you took It's like you went to chat gbat and said, can you write me a cartoon about Smoky the Bear And it'd be like, yeah, Smoking the Bear is a sheriff in a town of animals. Like there you go, like it it's shockingly lazy, And I'm with you, Mike.

I watched it several times, several different episodes, and it's all the same, Like there's Smokey is not. Smokey shows up at the beginning and the end of the episodes to essentially chastise everybody for being stupid, and he's like, well, I guess it was like Smokey you left the hands of your town. You left your town in the hands of these morons. That does reflect poorly on you. Smokey the Bear, It's just it's weird because when it's baby Smokey or like child Smokey, it's actually kind of cute and fun.

But when it's like adult Smokey, it's not. I don't think it's entertaining at all. Frankly, it's like, go, I could go watch any other cartoon that has these similar things and probably be better than this without the inherent jingoism of Smoky the Bear. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna say something right out, because we've been doing this show for a while and we've seen a lot of their stuff, and we've seen a lot of their attempts at sort of Saturday morning cartoons. I mean, this is like, you know, several leagues below Hanna Barbara, which for my money, was several leagues below Looney Tunes.

But okay, I gotta just stay right out. I get the feeling their hearts were not into these Saturday Morning style cartoons that I don't think they, honestly as creative people, had much interest in it. I think it was seen as well it's a thing to do, and apparently there's an hour of programming that needs to be provided, you know, and they came to us and they're going to pay us. So somebody hires someone who knows what that is and go do it, and who knows, maybe the kids will like it. But like the AnimagiC specials are charming because maybe it's just that style of animation seems so inspired and characters come to life and it seems like someone gives a shit, And I think that's what we're sensing in a lot of these, but this one is a real good example of a lack of giving a shit about telling a story, being engaging, being entertaining, having just a new approach to that strata of entertainment.

And it's not like I mean again, and there was a lot of shit Saturday Morning cartoons ninety nine percent garbage, But then the ones that had even the slightest spark of creativity are ones that we still know, So, you know, I don't know, I get the distinct feeling anyone who parents were alive in sixty six, their parents tax dollars probably helped pay for this, because this feels like something that's like coming from the US government paying them to do this. I mean it has to. I mean, let's not I mean I mentioned the jingoism, but like in a lot of ways, let's not kid ourselves. Smokey the Bear is a product of the US Forest Service, which is paid for by public tax dollars. So they're spending money on a Smokey the Bear show, is my point.

And like at the end of the Smokey the Bear cartoon, they go, We're gonna have to earn you over to the US Marshals, Like whoa, which like that? That's that's such a weird thing to bring up in a children's cartoon about like you know, like criminal wolves that are stealing your food. They need to go deal with the US Marshals. It's just there's some stuff in this that feels like again he's clucking his tongue at you real hard, and that again like that I have a distaste for the government, and that's where that comes from. Is just like speaking down to you because you're stupid.

And I get people are stupid, but this feels like a cartoon with a purpose too, like a intent right, like better ye. Unfortunately, the character of Smoking the Bear isn't isn't a fun character. It's a it's a character who is who is? You know? Basically, you know, warning you about something terrible all the time, and and blaming you and putting it on you.

It's like it's like, look, I'm an animal. Will you please not kill me? Could you? Could you please not murder all my friends? Thank you?

Have a good one. I do wonder, though, could Smokey not be the best one to prevent forest fires, given that he's imminently always prepared to do so, given that he has trouble because oh my god, you have learned nothing. You've learned a fame. But if he and the rest of the bears, who are also anthropomorphic, got together to stop the fires, I'm just asking. I'm just asking questions here, folks.

No, okay, oh oh you okay. Now I'm the scold. The point isn't putting out forest fires. The point is preventing them in the first place. What is he gonna do?

He and his guys are gonna walk around the forest spraying flame retardant chemicals on everything. No, he's there to tell you, don't cause a problem. He yes, if I have to, I will solve that problem. How about you cut me some slack and not cause the problem in the first place, because my mother died. You're right, it wouldn't have played as well if it had shown the US government indiscriminately bombing the forest with flame retardants that then hurt the way that the bears were born.

Right, that wouldn't play nearly as well as this does. Is what you're saying. The bear that's just got a flipper, you know, Yeah, smoking the bear suing the US government, right, yeah, smoking the solidamide bear. Yeah, we call you Orange Salley, the soide bear. Yeah, there's the flashback smoke you see in his eyes, just the way retarded being dropped.

Just anything better, mister Turtle, right, anything is better than this cartoon. I was so like just put off by what Smokey stands for in this cartoon. It was so upsetting, like he's so boring and mean to everybody. But but again, but again, I like, I think it was that feeling of when I within five seconds I'm watching and I just had this sort of like sinking sort of like oh, it's like all the others right, Oh yeah, I mean I was so reminded of things like all the terry tune stuff like Deputy Dog and the Mighty Heroes and just that kind of real cheap animation. Yeah, that's what this felt like.

It was just somebody crapping it out in very interchangeable stories. I mean you could basically take any other character and put them in place of Smoky Bear and it would be the exact same cartoon. And it's Towey. I mean, Towe is still around now, like Toe is still in business. Towa is working on One Piece and Super Dragon Ball and all kinds of stuff, and they've been around, you know, since before this.

This feels very much like a hey, you're paying us because it's probably cheaper than doing it yourself, and because we know they had a relationship them. I mean again, you know they had a working relationship. I honestly think the big takeaway, at least from the things that we've seen that Toe works with Rankin on Rankin brings Towey's quality down with the level of projects that they're asking them to work on. Like Towe is a really well known Japanese production house for animation, and this is all this is is reflective of their style. That's it.

They all the characters look American, through a Japanese lens. I think that's the nice way of putting it. Like they all look very samey, but like that's it, Like there's nothing else. It doesn't have that layer that the Japanese cartoons that Towey was producing at the time, they were just like, well you want this to be boring. Fine, I guess like right right, well, you know Anna magic.

You see that, you immediately think Rank and Bass. I mean, it's just boom instantly. What they didn't do was also develop a very distinct sell animation style that will will always be associated with them. That they could have. Then every single thing they did could have been in that style, and it could have been engaging, it could have been beautiful, it could have been interesting or at least distinctive, and then you would know every time you saw it in the same way that you know the other you go, oh my god, that's a Rank in Bass cartoon the way you do know some others.

And they could have done that, and and and they didn't because this it's not like this style was consistent with every other one. There were other equally unengaging and ugly styles that they cribbed from other people. It just I don't know, it's just when they've scaled such heights in one form, it just makes it more disappointing that that they that they hears to that they fumble creatively in another area. That's all, Well, this is the last time they worked with Towe on an animated TV series. They they would then shift to a couple other companies that they would work with, Mushy Productions and Hollis and Bachelor, But this is the last time they worked with Toe too, So maybe to work with them on Cricket on the Hearth as well.

I'm just talking about like on TV series, like onlike series that would like, right, a bigger ask than just one cartoon. Like that's I wonder if, like because again we just talked about in the last episode Reluctant Dragon and Mister Toad that was Mushi production, that wasn't Toway because I mean again, like that had its own unique distinct style that I mean again thinking about it now, like man that talk about how good that looked compared to this. Jeez, yeah, I think I think even my criticism of that would make complete sense on this, Like it's just to what end, like you said, like so much of these cartoons just feel like, especially in the seventies. Again, I can only speak for the cartoons I watched in the nineties and then things I've seen since as an adult.

It seemed like maybe in the eighties and the nineties, people were actually putting effort into creating quality content for kid And I know that that's a huge discussion now in twenty twenty three, of like kids are being given entertainment that actually is engaging, that can be entertaining and educational and all those things at once and doesn't have to just be one or the other. It was not the case in the seventies, like and before then, and again like if not for the fact that people wanted it to be that way, it might still be that way. Who knows. But this is coming also at a time where it's like nobody cared anyways, So fucking throw this shit out there and see because again, like, how does a show like this run for fifty one episode?

Like it's just that's that's a lot, or I guess seventeen episodes with fifty one segments that's still a lot. Like seventeen episodes is not nothing, right, It's well, it's a season, you know, it ran for a year. It's like, okay, well we did it, you know, and there was no outcry for us to keep doing it, so we stopped. Well, it was seventeen episodes, but there's so many segments within each episode. That's one reason why I felt like I was having a fever dream while I was watching this, because it was you know, a couple of them were five minutes and then there is maybe a ten minute one.

They seem very quick some of these episodes, because it was almost like a one panel cartoon. Yeah. Well, and some of the ideas, like the one where the p comes and sells them gold Land, like that the joke goes on for ten minutes past the first minute. Like it's just I don't know, I don't I don't know how you could take the idea of like the people from Blazing saddles these like moron townspeople and screw it up other than the fact that you can't make the same jokes for kids that you can for adults. So there you go, Like, I don't know, Like the West feels like a really weird time to make things for kids because a lot of the really good stuff in the Old West inherently cannot be approached by children because like it's a lot of like people being shot and killed in the middle of the streets.

Like it's just so inherently not deadwood for kids, right, right, It's just there. I don't feel like there's an easy way to do it, kind of like medieval times, right unless you have like fantasy with dragons and stuff. If you have like people fighting with swords and cutting each other's arms and legs of like, that's not for kids inherently, so unless it's like King Arthur and dragons, so it's just weird. I don't know. Smokey the Bear is also weird because again it's a literal bear that got burned.

Like, what the fuck, guys. It's like in Lincoln, we have a thing called Josh the Otter, and it's like a local mascot and it exists because a local kid and it's a terrible story. You know, parents didn't have the pool locked upright, kid got into the pool, kid drowned, And so now we have a character called Josh the Otter, who is again Smokey the Bear Jason. As far as I'm concerned, it's a mascot with a purpose of like make sure your pools and things are locked so your kids don't wander in there and drown, which is horrifying, and obviously it's a thing that needs to be brought to light. But I wouldn't think they'd be doing a Josh the Otter cartoon because what is that going to be?

Like, it's very it's just a weird way to do things when you're like making a cartoon, because it's like Smoky the Bear should just be a psa like just a like a forty five second thing, and that's it. It can be a cartoon, but it doesn't need to be like a story where Smokey is interacting with people because he has no character whatsoever in either one. Really, he's just kind of bear to say, only you can prevent fires. That's it. We have Josh the Otter out here in La to uh my understanding, it's it's a it's it's a young man with with no body hair.

But that's all. I haven't got any more information on it. Oh boy, I'm glad you made that, Joe. I'm glad you were the one who made it, not me. Yeah, well, it feels like maybe Josh the Otter and Smokey the Bear might get along sometime.

Just depends on what they're into. Oh man, I think you're I think you might be onto something. They might be onto one another. Careful. I hope whoever manages the ranking in bass Wikipedia is uh is happy with our coverage of the Smoky the Bear Show.

And you know what we're ranking bass Wiki why this episode? Thank you? Yeah? But but why not call out like either all of them or some of the ones where we're more po positive about the product. I mean, look, we're we're glad you're beating the drum for us at this late date, but we were we Look, I'm telling you, we were all really impressed and we all felt very you know, great about seeing our names in print.

But yeah, thank you, and I'm sorry. So, Chris, what are you up to these days? Sir? Podcasting and just podcasting with you and Richard here on Ranking on Bass and so many other great shows on the Weirdingwaymedia network, including but not limited to, Mike your Show, The Projection Booth, a movie podcast where you learn about movies and you're entertained at the same time. And Richard's wife has a great show called Eighties TV.

Ladies where her and her co host Sharon talk all about Well, it's right there in the title TV shows from the eighties starring Ladies, and Richard is there from time to time too, So if you want to hear the three of us, that's where you can go. Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. What about you, Richard? Where can people find you? Well, they can find me on Twitter.

But if you if you track me down on Twitter nowadays you're mostly going to hear about is me and every other writer in Hollywood being on strike. The nice part about it is you can find ways to reach out. There's people all across the country who are interested in this labor dispute and in their own personal lives also or fighting for a living wage, which is what we're doing here out in Hollywood. So if you want to, yeah, jump on the writer Twitter, look for the hashtag WGA Strong or WGA strike, find out what the issues are and find out how you can help out, no matter where you live. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in.

I want to thank kV B Stabby for our work as well as the Great Octopus for the music. Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform. We will be back next month with a book at the enchanted world of Danny k Cole and the Emperor's New Clothes. Until then, be sure to write and review the podcast wherever you get it, Tell your friends, tell your family, and please stay weird the